Reviews
Second reading: still so very gossipy, still so very very good. First reading: Gossip cleverly disguised as commentary upon the citizens of Venice, Italy. Mmm, good.
This was my first go with John Berendt and I plan on reading Midnight In The Garden Od Good And Evil next! I really like Berendt's writing style, and I like the idea of creating a story out of real event with a point of view that focuses outward rather than inward. I loved all of the people in the book and felt that the characters were drawn really nicely; my favorites were all of the odd "little" parts played on the Venice stage set; the man who believes himself to be a policeman, a firefighter, and every other kind of hero, and the walking "Bush Man" who wanders through the streets singing slang and selling flowers. My biggest criticism would be that I felt completely drawn it at the beginning by the desire to look at each new character as a suspect or a "player" in the story of the fire and then to find out by the end exactly what happened, and that was definitely not the case! I also understand that in the end it wasn't the point of Berendt's story, either, and while I definitely appreciative what he created, the ending still felt quite anticlimactic to me! Great read, wonderful to relax with and got me all wanderlusty, which was fun.
