Book #6: A Thousand Days in Venice

Here’s the thing I feel compelled to tell you: I love Italy, and I love books about people falling in love with Italy, but there is no way that I would ever buy this book in a bookstore for full price. I bought “A Thousand Days in Venice” by Marlene de Blasi at the Seattle Public Library sale a few years ago. It was during one of those shopping trips where you’re drunk with the bargains all around you and don’t feel bad getting a few throwaway books because they’re only 50 cents, after all.

And yet I ended up reading this book before even getting around to some of my more desired purchases. Why? Well, for one, it is very short and I couldn’t make a real commitment to a book at the time that I needed something to read. Also, Italy has been in the news for the past few days, unfortunately, which has me thinking about it a lot. And despite the fact that I wouldn’t want to be spotted reading this book on public transportation, there’s hardly a time when I’m going to turn down a tale of someone falling in love both with a person and with a country, particularly when that country is Italy.

So here’s the deal. Marlene de Blasi hangs out with this dude a few times in Venice, and then he comes to St. Louis for a few days, and based on this she’s ready to uproot her entire life and move to Venice. I don’t find this part implausible, because who wouldn’t move to Venice? She claims she’s in love but the man in question has all the personality of a lazy grasshopper the way de Blasi depicts him. She saves all her adjectives and praise for Venice, which again, is perfectly understandable, but unfortunately, she has far too many words. This book is short, and doesn’t say much, and despite that is still too wordy. Things are described as being fig-like an awful lot, as I recall. And she has a lot of ongoing metaphors to clue us in to the fact that she is going through something magical and life-changing here. Sometimes this can be charming, particularly if you just let yourself get swept away in the Italian-ness of it all, but when you remember that this is purporting to be someone’s memoir of their own true life, well, then it gets to be a bit much. Although I did enjoy learning how difficult it is to have a wedding in Italy. I’m gonna file away that info for later use, since I plant to marry an Italian count.

In conclusion, here are the things I learned from this book:
1. Venice is nice.
2. Marlene de Blasi is a very good cook!
3. Her husband is pretty bland and frankly seems like not that good of a catch.
4. Venetians are nice and giving when you get to know them.
5. We are always changing, even when we are standing still, and to help deal with this fact you should go look at the water in Venice or perhaps cook a gigantic meal, particularly if you are a very good cook like Marlene de Blasi!