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Title: A Venetian Affair by ANDREA DI ROBILANT ISBN: 0-375-41181-X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.68 (22 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Andrea di Robilant talks about his book
Comment: October 7, 2003
Tonight (Andrea di Robilant gave the first U.S. public reading from his book "A Venetian Affair," about the romance between his ancestor, the Venetian nobleman Andrea Memmo, and the Anglo-Venetian Giustiniana Wynn during the last decades of the Venetian republic.
Andrea di Robilant inherited the project from his father, who had discovered Memmo's letters in the attic of the family's ancestral palace in Venice, but died before finishing the story. A former Washington correspondent of La Stampa, the young author spoke at the Italian Cultural Center in nearly unaccented but strangely halting English. He called his book, basically an annotated compilation of the 250-year-old correspondence, "a unique tool to tell us what was going on in the heads and hearts of these [17th Century Venetians.]" He was surrounded by costume sketches from Bellini's "Norma," and behind him a pair of photographic eyes stared out at the audience. The beautiful female eyes were lithographed on the shade of a post-modern lamp.
Over time the lovers separated, and Andrea Memmo apparently shared Giustiniana's affection with his close friend Casanova. The two lived separate lives, but apparently carried on a life-long correspondence. In fact, di Robilant found a packet of Giustiniana's letters in a collection of Casanova relics that resided not in Venice, or Paris, or London but in Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. He learned of the source in part through his mother, a Randolph-Macon alumna and native Virginian. (Mystery English skill resolved.)
Di Robilant ended with a poignant letter from Giustiniana lamenting to Andrea the end of the affair. "Well, this was Eighteenth Century Venice, not Hollywood," di Robilant shrugged.
The book is published by Knopf, and is summarized by the author in an article in the Aug. 18 & 25 edition of The New Yorker.
Rating: 5
Summary: You'd have to be a coldhearted prune to resist this one...
Comment: I swooned, I laughed, I wept....and I kept having to remind
myself that this was not fiction but the intense soap-
opera called Life. It was so hard to think of the doomed nature of the beautiful love affair, and yet I followed the book to the bittersweet end, for I felt such affection for the protagonists, especially Giustinana, that passionate woman of love, letters, fashion and society. This is a book about soul mates...and it proves that true lovers do meet up in future lives. Perhaps we shall even see Memmo and Giustinana made flesh and blood on the Big Screen one of these days. How divine! I wish to thank Andrea di Robilant for unearthing and bringing us the gift of this exquisite
story.
Rating: 5
Summary: Just great!
Comment: Talk about running the gamut from A to Z! This book has it all: laughs, sadness, insight, and everything in between. The writing is excellent, as are the plot and characters. As with most successful books, the main characters in A VENETIAN AFFAIR must constantly battle things thrown against them--the essence of drama: conflict. And Andrea Di Robilant is masterful in the way she handles the material. Just great fun and a great read.
Also recommended: BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
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Title: The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant ISBN: 1400060737 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 17 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0525947671 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: L'Affaire by Diane Johnson ISBN: 052594740X Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 25 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: One Last Look by SUSANNA MOORE ISBN: 0679450416 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Pompeii: A Novel by ROBERT HARRIS ISBN: 0679428895 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 18 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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