A Thousand Days in Venice (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Just have to echo what others have said. On the whole I liked this; I read it on the plane to Venice, then skimmed through it again near the end of our stay. I loved her descriptions of Venice, food, culture clashes, getting the wedding dress made... but I could NOT understand the appeal of her husband, Fernando! He just sounds like a desperate, dorky, nerdy loser who throws himself at her just because he "fell in love with her profile" -- and he gets worse, not better, as the book progresses. I'm an impulsive romantic and tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, but I can't believe I'd be so reckless and dumb as to throw my life away on a guy I didn't even know. I'm amazed that their relationship has lasted even five years.

Marlena De Blasi was a chef and food writer of a certain age. She was in Venice when she met a Venitian banker who fell in love with her at first sight and set about winning her heart. In reading this book, the cautious part of me kept on wanting to tell the author to back off, rent an exotic apartment in Venice, and really get to know her "Stranger" before selling her home and leaving her whole life in the U.S. behind. Another part of me wanted her to go for it, even though the chances were she would end up with a broken heart and no home to run to. De Blasi has so much enthusiasm, about food and life and beauty, that the reader feels like they are being told the story by a girlfriend over lunch. I especially love her detailed descriptions of the street market she discovers in her new home. Of course I could not help but feel forboding when she discovers the banker's home is a charmless apartment in a nasty concrete building, and when his tendency toward depression and bullying start to show themselves. But as Nicholas Cage said in the movie "Moonstruck", maybe we are meant to fall in love with the wrong people and make fools of ourselves. I look forward to reading more about De Blasi's adventures in Italy.

The setting of Venice is as much a character as Marlena and "the stranger". I wondered if she was really in love with the stranger or was it just the magic of Venice. It is a wonderful story of unexpectedly falling in love and doing something very impulsive (selling everything and moving to another country) which is a fantasy for many women but middle aged people don't usually go through with it. Reality eventually set in and if I were Marlena I would have kicked
Fernando to the curb and gone back home rather than deal with all his moodiness. I think she had a huge amount of patience with and trust in someone she barely knew. So it must have been true love but she never did explain why she fell in love with him. If was evident that she represented freedom and noncomformity to him but I never quite understood her motivation.

What the book did do was make ME fall in love with Venice. I started drinking prosecco and having "aperitivi" every night, cooking Italian and even booked a trip to Italy for this fall! The story definitely transported me and that always means it was a good book!

Rather than overplay the fairytale aspect of her story, De Blasi gives an honest picture of two headstrong people coming together after spending years set in their ways. She must come to terms with the fantasy of living in Venice and the realities of life in an unfamiliar place which has its own set of rules and codes. If this book doesn't convince you that destiny is at work in the world, it's hard to imagine what will.

Most of my favorite books vividly evoke a place, and this one is no different. De Blasi shares her Venice, and her romance, in this delightful memoir. It's been well described, so I won't summarize it. It's a book that, like a good meal, must be experienced to be appreciated.

Readers looking for a travelogue or cookbook may be disappointed, but that isn't de Blasi's fault-- she beautifully accomplishes what she sets out to do, which is to offer a glimpse of romance and beauty, and a look at a different world. The story of her romance isn't strange to me, as my own marriage began similarly nearly 25 years ago. It happens, but only, I think to those open to serendipity, and de Blasi certainly is.

Although there will be prosaic naysayers who simply don't get it, this is a book I'l read many times. I highly recommend it for armchair travellers and those who believe in serendipity!