Saturday Review #16
Dec. 4th, 2010 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaDEATH AT LA FENICE, by Donna Leon.
Cover copy: There is little violent crime in Venice, a serenely beautiful floating city of mystery and magic, history and decay. But the evil that does rear its head on occasion is the jurisdiction of Guido Brunetti, the suave, urbane vice-commissario of police and a genius at detection. Now all of his admirable abilities must come into play in the deadly affair of Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who died painfully from cynaide poisoning during intermission at La Fenice. But as the investigation unfolds, a chilling picture slowly begins to take shape - a detailed portrait of revenge painted with vivid strokes of hatred and shocking depravity. And the dilemma for Guido Brunetti will not be finding a murder suspect...but rather, narrowing the choice down to one.
The point of reading – well, all right, one of the points of reading certain kinds of books – is to go somewhere you’ve never been, to step into someone else’s shoes and see things you’ve never seen. On the bright side, it’s certainly cheaper than a flight out of the country. On the down side, it’s not easy for a writer to strike the balance between describing something closely enough that someone who’s never been can imagine it, without overdescribing to the point where someone who does know the place is rolling their eyes and wondering why someone who supposedly lives there is even noticing this stuff. (It’s even less easy if the writer hasn’t been there, admittedly. We’ve all read those books which sound like the viewpoint character has swallowed a travel book whole.)
This book strikes the balance beautifully. The narration acknowledges that Venice is a city of History and Romance, but it also never forgets that the detective grew up here. This is Venice, City of a Thousand Canals...so of course there are gondolas that run regular circuits, same as you’d find buses doing in a city with fewer canals and more streets, and of course those gondolas show up late and take forever to get where you’re going, if there’s even a gondola that goes out there. This is Venice, which has been around for hundreds of years, growing by bits and pieces...which unfortunately means that street addresses are near-useless, because there are too many streets with the same name. When Brunetti wants to interview one of his suspects who lives elsewhere in the city, he can’t just work off the address she’s given him: he has to go to the nearest local landmark (a church, of course), and ask directions to Signorina Lynch’s place.
It’s not exactly a pretty picture, and I’m fairly sure it’s not the kind of image of the city that the Tourism Board would want propagated. But there’s a feeling of resigned affection to all the details that makes it more real than any panorama of extravagant exoticism.
The mystery itself is decent, but not spectacular. I started to suspect the truth early on, but couldn’t figure out why, so I allowed the plot to sweep me along. The big climactic explanation read well, but suffered when I stopped to think about it, mostly because [trying not to spoil the ending entirely] there was no way Person A could have been sure Action B would have had Effect C. And while the characters are, generally speaking, well-drawn, the narrative didn’t quite seem to be sure how to handle certain issues – most notably the multiple homosexual characters. Brunetti is a cynical Catholic, who feels like he should disapprove of homosexuality, and perhaps as a result, the homosexual characters have a definite element of the Other, unnatural and unwanted. But both detective and narrative voice refuse to do anything as simple as demonizing the Other. One of the most vivid characters in the book is Brett Lynch, the lesbian lover of one of the suspects. She's a rich archaeologist who attracts the detective by being able to meet him on equal mental ground, and yet – she’s American, she’s taken (as is he), she’s gay. Her mere existence is the reason for the rift between her lover, the soprano in the current production, and the victim (the conductor, who notoriously disapproved of homosexuality, despite working in the theater, and was not above self-righteous interference). Brett has her own life, her own commitments, and she is the only one whose sub-plot is given a resolution separate from the mystery. And yet there’s still that vague subtextual uneasiness, echoing Brunetti’s textual awkward reaction.
Overall: excellent feel of Venice, not as good feel for the backstage world of Opera, passable mystery. Probably worth picking up more in the series, but I’ve been burned once too often – it’s the library for me, not the bookstore, at least until I know whether the series follows up on the promise of this first book.
Cover copy: There is little violent crime in Venice, a serenely beautiful floating city of mystery and magic, history and decay. But the evil that does rear its head on occasion is the jurisdiction of Guido Brunetti, the suave, urbane vice-commissario of police and a genius at detection. Now all of his admirable abilities must come into play in the deadly affair of Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who died painfully from cynaide poisoning during intermission at La Fenice. But as the investigation unfolds, a chilling picture slowly begins to take shape - a detailed portrait of revenge painted with vivid strokes of hatred and shocking depravity. And the dilemma for Guido Brunetti will not be finding a murder suspect...but rather, narrowing the choice down to one.
The point of reading – well, all right, one of the points of reading certain kinds of books – is to go somewhere you’ve never been, to step into someone else’s shoes and see things you’ve never seen. On the bright side, it’s certainly cheaper than a flight out of the country. On the down side, it’s not easy for a writer to strike the balance between describing something closely enough that someone who’s never been can imagine it, without overdescribing to the point where someone who does know the place is rolling their eyes and wondering why someone who supposedly lives there is even noticing this stuff. (It’s even less easy if the writer hasn’t been there, admittedly. We’ve all read those books which sound like the viewpoint character has swallowed a travel book whole.)
This book strikes the balance beautifully. The narration acknowledges that Venice is a city of History and Romance, but it also never forgets that the detective grew up here. This is Venice, City of a Thousand Canals...so of course there are gondolas that run regular circuits, same as you’d find buses doing in a city with fewer canals and more streets, and of course those gondolas show up late and take forever to get where you’re going, if there’s even a gondola that goes out there. This is Venice, which has been around for hundreds of years, growing by bits and pieces...which unfortunately means that street addresses are near-useless, because there are too many streets with the same name. When Brunetti wants to interview one of his suspects who lives elsewhere in the city, he can’t just work off the address she’s given him: he has to go to the nearest local landmark (a church, of course), and ask directions to Signorina Lynch’s place.
It’s not exactly a pretty picture, and I’m fairly sure it’s not the kind of image of the city that the Tourism Board would want propagated. But there’s a feeling of resigned affection to all the details that makes it more real than any panorama of extravagant exoticism.
The mystery itself is decent, but not spectacular. I started to suspect the truth early on, but couldn’t figure out why, so I allowed the plot to sweep me along. The big climactic explanation read well, but suffered when I stopped to think about it, mostly because [trying not to spoil the ending entirely] there was no way Person A could have been sure Action B would have had Effect C. And while the characters are, generally speaking, well-drawn, the narrative didn’t quite seem to be sure how to handle certain issues – most notably the multiple homosexual characters. Brunetti is a cynical Catholic, who feels like he should disapprove of homosexuality, and perhaps as a result, the homosexual characters have a definite element of the Other, unnatural and unwanted. But both detective and narrative voice refuse to do anything as simple as demonizing the Other. One of the most vivid characters in the book is Brett Lynch, the lesbian lover of one of the suspects. She's a rich archaeologist who attracts the detective by being able to meet him on equal mental ground, and yet – she’s American, she’s taken (as is he), she’s gay. Her mere existence is the reason for the rift between her lover, the soprano in the current production, and the victim (the conductor, who notoriously disapproved of homosexuality, despite working in the theater, and was not above self-righteous interference). Brett has her own life, her own commitments, and she is the only one whose sub-plot is given a resolution separate from the mystery. And yet there’s still that vague subtextual uneasiness, echoing Brunetti’s textual awkward reaction.
Overall: excellent feel of Venice, not as good feel for the backstage world of Opera, passable mystery. Probably worth picking up more in the series, but I’ve been burned once too often – it’s the library for me, not the bookstore, at least until I know whether the series follows up on the promise of this first book.