• About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Policies
  • Welcome

Novelhistorian

~ What's new and old in historical fiction

Novelhistorian

Tag Archives: Venice

Venetian Theatrics: Ascension

04 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book review, conspiracy, doge, eighteenth century, Feast of the Ascension, Gregory Dowling, historical fiction, narrative tension, republic, Rosicrucian cult, secret service, thriller, Venice

Review: Ascension, by Gregory Dowling
St. Martin’s, 2015. 298 pp. $26

Alvise Marangon doesn’t know it yet, but he’s a perfect spy. He thinks he’s the perfect cicerone, who guides English tourists through his native mideighteenth-century Venice, showing them the architecture and history or the gaming tables and brothels, depending on their taste. Alvise even speaks fluent English, having spent many of his formative years in London, and he has a prodigious memory for useless facts guaranteed to fascinate the occasional British clergyman come to sneer at (and be secretly thrilled by) the popish decadence they think is Venice.

The return of the Bucentaur to the Molo on Ascension Day by Canaletto, 1730 (courtesy the Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

Trouble is, cicerones don’t earn much, and though Alvise has developed a working partnership with Bepi, the gondolier with whom he splits his fees, he’s perennially short of cash. But he has two qualities in play from the first sentences of this beguiling, atmospheric thriller, and so long as he gives them free reign, adventure will never be far behind. To wit: Alvise shoots his mouth off and indulges his impetuous curiosity. And in Venice, where half the populace is watching the other half, those habits will get you in a heap of trouble, pronto, for the secret service is everywhere.

The story begins as Alvise and Bepi accompany two Englishmen to their hotel. The younger visitor is the proverbial wastrel, bent on losing his money at the gaming tables and in the fleshpots, whereas his companion, a tutor entrusted with his scholarly and moral education, is supposed to apply restraint. To Alvise, the pair seem typical of other visitors:

The young man looked amiable enough; he was gazing around at the scene with frank interest. Presumably all very different from the decorous orderliness of his home, where his mother would have bidden him farewell with a stately bow of the head and his father with a manly handshake. Here at Fusina, a family of Venetians were exchanging raucous shouts, hand-slaps, kisses and lively embraces with relatives who had crossed the lagoon to meet them. Gondoliers and servants in bright liveries were transferring parcels and trunks to waiting boats and yelling at one another for no apparent reason, and across the lagoon the towers and domes of Venice shimmered in the golden haze of spring sunlight. The scene appeared to fluster the tutor. . . .

And yet, appearances deceive. Rather quickly, Alvise senses that Shackleford, the tutor, has less than a passing familiarity with his profession, and that the visitors have come to Venice for a singular purpose other than sightseeing. Naturally, Alvise does his best to learn what they’re after, but when unknown intruders ransack the Englishmen’s baggage, and Shackleford disappears only to be found dead, the cicerone winds up in jail for his troubles. Since no Venetian sparrow falls without the knowledge (if not consent) of the secret service, they take a keen interest in the young tourist guide.

From then on, Alvise’s in for the ride of his life–and so is the reader. Dowling knows Venice intimately–he’s lived and taught there more than thirty years–so you can hear, see, smell, and taste the city in all its finery and decay. But there’s atmosphere, and then there’s atmosphere. The second-most important character in Ascension, after Alvise, is Venice, in its love of spectacle and gossip; intrigue around every corner; the delight in masks and concealment; the squalor, magnificence, and corruption. Dowling casts his Venice as a place where performers who know their role are the ones to succeed. Sure enough, Alvise has his theatrical gifts, which is why the secret service wants to talk to him.

But nothing comes easily, and “no; and furthermores” spring up like mushrooms. (Risotto con funghi, anyone?) From a forbidden, seditious book to a Rosicrucian cult to an eccentric nobleman nursing a grudge to a theater to the state shipbuilding apparatus, Alvise must bluff his way into and out of danger–and of course, getting in sometimes proves all too easy. But what he discovers is nothing less than a threat to the Serene Republic itself, timed to take place on the celebrations surrounding the Feast of the Ascension.

My only quibble about the novel is the nifty, not to say incredible, way in which Alvise escapes certain physical constraints. But I don’t think anyone will mind; I didn’t. Ascension is not only good fun, I note an undercurrent of political commentary that seems topical–the desire, in certain right-wing quarters, for strongman rule to create fear and respect among the “rabble.”

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Better Off Without Him: A Man of Genius

26 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book review, Britain, child abuse, feminism, historical fiction, Janet Todd, literary fiction, masochism, narcissism, nineteenth century, Venice

Review: A Man of Genius, by Janet Todd
Bitter Lemon, 2016. 347 pp. $25

The protagonist of this well-written, keenly observed, but occasionally tiresome novel is Ann St. Clair, a woman judged unusual for 1816–she’s independent. Ann earns a very modest living churning out Gothic novels, a supreme irony, given that she’s shy, shrinks from gory sights or bad smells, and swallows a hundred times more feelings than she expresses. Nevertheless, this shrinking violet enjoys her freedom to go where she will, with whom, and to manage her own affairs, even as she realizes the price she pays. With no husband, father, or suitor, Ann has no male protector and is therefore an outlier, something that strikes her most vividly when she visits her kindly cousin Sarah, married and a mother several times over. Sarah believes that a woman’s place is in the home, but she doesn’t criticize her (marginally) more worldly cousin.

Enter Robert James, an Irish-born writer who has attracted a coterie of men who hang on his every word. Robert has written nothing except a poetic fragment titled Attila, and he has a gift for cruel mimicry, yet this earns him the title of genius, a mantle he assumes as his due. Ann, who has drifted into this circle–one of two women the group tolerates, though just barely–is thrilled that the great man has noticed her. So starved is she for attention that she willingly becomes his lover, even though he cares not one whit about pleasing her and grows more and more abusive with passing months. Attila, indeed.

Gaspar van Wittel, View of the San Marco Basin, Venice, 1697, the original of which hangs in the Prado, Madrid (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Gaspar van Wittel, View of the San Marco Basin, Venice, 1697, the original of which hangs in the Prado, Madrid (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

If the subtitle were How to Create a Masochist, A Man of Genius would almost qualify as nonfiction. Ann’s mother has hated her from birth, literally slapping her for daring to open her mouth, while lionizing Gilbert, the father who died before the poor girl was born. So of course Ann finds the most criminally narcissistic man available, violent and sullen by turns, and attaches herself obsessively. In one of her more clear-sighted moments, she wonders:

What was it that made others come to Robert? She had not a tenth of such power; had she been turned into a man she would still not have had it. What gave some people influence to pull others toward them–even if they burnt them when close–while others, all well-meaning and eager, stood solitary?

We’ve all known someone like Robert, but, I hope, have had the sense to avoid them and, even more important, the self-respect to resist their gravitational pull. Since masochists believe they have no gravity–or, more precisely, that its laws benefit them only on sufferance–reading about such people drives me absolutely crazy. In fact, when I reached the rather too lengthy part when Robert spouts dull, pretentious drivel, and his friends lap it up, I realized that I’d tried reading A Man of Genius once before, and that this section had persuaded me to put the book aside.

But this time, I kept going and was rewarded. An ardent feminist, Todd has much to say about the peripheries in which women reside, either for safety’s sake or because men have displaced them from more comfortable, visible quarters. Yet she never pretends that by definition, women are superior, or men, evil, and she sketches out the limits of discourse and understanding between the sexes with a sure hand. The context is historical, yet you get the picture–not as much has changed as we might like to think. Also, though Todd dares literary cliché by having her characters move to Venice to try to escape themselves, she describes that city so masterfully that you forget you’ve read a dozen other novels about it. Further, the trip to Venice prompts Ann to delve into secrets from her past, which kicks the storytelling into a higher gear, and whose twists and reversals keep you guessing until the end.

Where A Man of Genius falls short, I think, is the dynamic between Ann and Robert. I like novels that render each emotional moment with care–one reason I stayed with this one–but too often here, the psychological currents swirl in tight circles. Robert never gives Ann a reason to think that he cares for her or enjoys her company, for which she blames herself. I’d have believed this part more readily–and skimmed less–had he doled out morsels that tantalized her, only to withhold them otherwise. That would have positioned Ann as coming back for more rather than holding onto nothing, and her self-blame would have been easier to swallow. It would have also made her initial attraction more plausible; other than her own pathology, I can’t figure out why she’d bother.

For all its flaws, though, A Man of Genius is a bold, painstakingly rendered portrait of what can happen between men and women.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Recent Posts

  • Rocket Terror: V2
  • Mayhem in Malaya: The Night Tiger
  • Island Idyll: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
  • Murder Among the Four Hundred: An Extravagant Death
  • Controlling the Heavens: Jade Dragon Mountain

Recent Comments

Rocket Terror: V2 |… on The Man Who Saw It All: D…
Novelhistorian on Island Idyll: The Guernsey Lit…
Roxana Arama on Island Idyll: The Guernsey Lit…
2020 – A Year… on Missing, Presumed: The Poppy…
Novelhistorian on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…

Archives

  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Comment
  • Reviews and Columns
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blogs I Follow

  • Rewriting History
  • Damyanti Biswas
  • madame bibi lophile recommends
  • For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction
  • Suzy Henderson
  • Flashlight Commentary
  • Diary of an Eccentric

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 153 other followers

Follow Novelhistorian on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Rocket Terror: V2
  • Mayhem in Malaya: The Night Tiger
  • Island Idyll: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
  • Murder Among the Four Hundred: An Extravagant Death
  • Controlling the Heavens: Jade Dragon Mountain

Recent Comments

Rocket Terror: V2 |… on The Man Who Saw It All: D…
Novelhistorian on Island Idyll: The Guernsey Lit…
Roxana Arama on Island Idyll: The Guernsey Lit…
2020 – A Year… on Missing, Presumed: The Poppy…
Novelhistorian on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…

Archives

  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Contents

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Rewriting History

How writers turn history into story, and story into history

Damyanti Biswas

For lovers of reading, writing, travel, humanity

madame bibi lophile recommends

Reading: it's personal

For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction

Suzy Henderson

What's new and old in historical fiction

Flashlight Commentary

What's new and old in historical fiction

Diary of an Eccentric

writings of an eccentric bookworm

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×