The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

His chapter on Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge entitled The Last Canto is particularly rivetting and worth the price of the book alone.

Berendt writes well and very successfully captures the mood and spirit of this beautiful city (I visited Venice in 2003 and was immediately charmed by its crumbling architecture and waterways). That said, the book is not a total waste of time. To not explain this, leaves the reader wondering about the authenticity of the writer’s claims. This would not normally matter, but when a book begins with a writer quite obviously emerged within the story one would like to know at what point he stepped out of it. Not only does the narrative wax and wane much like the Venice tide - or the acqua alta - but the time frame gets hugely condensed so that you’re not sure how long Berendt actually lived in the city and how much of the story was written and researched while he was residing elsewhere. But, as the book progresses, the first-person narrative inexplicably disappears and each chapter becomes a stand alone set piece that wouldn’t be out of place as individual features published in Vanity Fair magazine. The opening chapters are highly personal, introducing the reader to a strange, amusing and surreal cast of characters.

The initial few chapters start well, setting up the story of Berendt’s arrival in town and his decision to stay and find out what had caused the Fenice fire. What I got was a disappointing and, quite frankly, aimless narrative that leaves the reader wondering if they’ve missed something along the way. Having read Berendt’s much-acclaimed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil when it was first released a decade ago, I had expected The City of Falling Angels to be a tour de force that would not only capture the essence of the city and its inhabitants but weave a spellbinding account of the Fenice fire and its aftermath. Taking the fire that destroyed the Fenice theatre in 1996 - one of the most important theatres in Italy if not the world - Berendt takes his readers on an extraordinary voyage into the (quite literally) stinking heart of the city that has intrigued and delighted mankind for centuries. So begins John Berendt’s unique travelogue of the world’s most romantic city. The air still smelled of charcoal when I arrived in Venice three days after the fire. Non-fiction – hardcover Penguin 382 pages 2005.

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt