Venice Is a Fish

Starred review from June 9, 2008
Prolific Venetian writer Scarpa pledges not “to name a single hotel, restaurant, bar or shop” in this delicate yet supple book, a chain of linked and sensuously translated essays about the one of the world’s most unusual and historical cities. He focuses each chapter of his tour through different parts of the body. He begins with the feet before moving up to the legs and heart. The translation renders even the most basic descriptions wonderfully tactile. Only eventually does Scarpa move on to the more obvious sights, sounds, tastes and smells. The main text is just over a hundred pages, but a 40-page coda takes it into the lit-crit realm by way of a “micro-anthology of Venetian texts” that includes samplings from the author’s other works. Scarpa is better known in Italy than America, but that could change with this brief book, which captures Venice as only words and language on the tongue of a native can.

July 15, 2008
Scarpa, who has published essays, novels, and poetry, offers a native's view of Venice, pieced together from Venetian history, his own personal life, and the kind of anecdotes that don't often make it into traditional travel guides. (The title refers to the shape of Venice when seen on a map.) Scarpa exhorts the traveler to leave guidebooks behind and see, smell, taste, and hear his Venice, an often dark place where the canals stink, church bells and heels echo through narrow streets, and the city's deadly beauty ("radium pulchritudinis") is kept in check by scaffolding and unsympathetic modern buildings. Later chapters of his book include two that are variations on earlier chapters, presumably to fill out what otherwise is an intriguing but slim volume. Also included is a short essay on Venice by Guy de Maupassant. Although called a guide in the subtitle, this is not a travel guide, per se, but a meditation on a place.

"Café Life Venice" is the third in the "Café Life" series authored by Wolff and Paperno (Rome and Florence are their previous volumes). It's an attractive little book, full of color photographs of 17 cafés, bakeries, wine bars, and gelato shops and equally colorful and entertaining stories of their owners and of Venice. Readers will feel ready to greet the owners as if they were old friends after having read about them in such familiar detail. Travelers on a budget should check another guide for prices, since this includes none, as well as for more choices. While travelers to Venice will find much to appreciate in both of these books, they should regard them as supplements to comprehensive travel guides. Both are recommended for public libraries with large travel collections.Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.