Venice for Lovers
Author | Louis Begley and Anka Muhlstein |
---|---|
Original title | Venedig Unter Vier Augen |
Translator | Anne Wyburd translated Anka Muhlstein's section Les Clefs de Venise |
Country | Italy |
Language | German, English, French |
Series | Armchair Traveller |
Genre | Essays, diary |
Publisher | Haus Publishing Ltd, London |
Publication date | 2005 |
Media type | Print (Hardback, pocket format) |
Pages | 216 pp |
ISBN | 978-1-904341-97-0 |
OCLC | 61129808 |
914.5/3104 22 | |
LC Class | DG674.2 .B4413 2005 |
Venice for Lovers is a collection of essays and travel impressions about the city of Venice in Italy, written by Louis Begley and wife Anka Muhlstein.
Overview
Every year for all the 30 years they have been married, the couple spends long, enjoyable months in Venice. They write and live there and over the decades La Serenissima has become their second home. The owners of their favourite restaurants have become their friends and they share the lives of the locals, far off the beaten tourist tracks, as Muhlstein describes in her contribution to this book.[1]
Louis Begley tells the story of how he fell in love with and in Venice. He is not the only one who did, as his literary essay on the city's place in world literature demonstrates: Henry James, Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann are only the most illustrious predecessors.
Originally written in German and French, the authors revised the English edition, adding extra material. The book is a very private view of a place, which will forever inspire dreams of love and passion.
Excerpt
The last section of the book is written singlehanded by Louis Begley and is entitled Venice: Reflections of a Novelist and opens thus:
"Venice: It is a great pleasure to write the word, but I am not sure there is not a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has been painted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities of the world it is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the first book and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the first picture dealer's and you will find three or four high-coloured "views" of it. There is notoriously nothing more to be said on the subject.
"The voice is not mine; it is Henry James's, who famously and fortunately disregarded his own advice by writing again and again about la serenissima. As a novelist, I have obviously disregarded his counsel as well, and I am about to disregard it again now.
[...]
See also
- List of architecture monuments of Venice
- List of painters and architects of Venice
- Su e zo per i ponti
- Veneti and Venetic language (the ancient spoken language of the region)
- Venetian glass
- Venetian language (the modern spoken vernacular of the region)
- Venice Biennale
- Venice Film Festival
- Several European cities have been compared to Venice: The Breton city Nantes has been called The Venice of the West, while the nickname The Venice of the North has been variously applied to Amsterdam, Birmingham, Bornholm, Bruges, Haapsalu, Maryhill, Saint Petersburg and Stockholm.
References
External links
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