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

When Marlena, a cookbook author and food writer from Missouri, first goes to Venice Italy in 1989, she has no way of knowing that her descent on the canaled city would have many parallels with that of Katharine Hepburn in the David Lean classic SUMMERTIME. Over the next four or five years, she makes as many visits as she can, her trips funded, or so it seems, by a steady series of freelance journalism gigs, travel articles, perhaps. Then she meets a man who looks like an Italian Peter Sellers. I have one friend, Alice, who read this book thinking until shortly before the end that indeed it was Peter Sellers.

But no, it is an Italian who falls in love with her. Very romantic, except she speaks little Italian, despite her heritage and her culinary tastes. He's handsome, goodlooking, dresses sharply, if conservatively as befits a banker, but with a hint of a repressed sexuality (she finds out that underneath his well-cut suits he wears underwear of purple silk.) And this begins a strange romance, one which will make you weep a little as you remember your own first love, and which will also make you scratch your head a bit, worrying about our heroine and what will happen to her once the clouds of love and foodie-based endorphins dissipate. I sometimes wondered if Fernando isn't bipolar or something, he seems sort of moody, such as quitting his job once he latches on to the wonderful Marlena, or if he is taking advantage of her, like Isabel Archer when she married Gilbert Osmond in Henry James' THE WINGS OF THE DOVE which similarly is set in a dark, mysterious Venice, and features a bunch of characters like Madame Merle who certainly don't mean well for Isabel.

I wonder if they are still married? Alice says that her book club is now reading the sequel, in which Fernando and Marlena move abruptly to Tuscany, where UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN takes place, and that things continue to be puzzling between the lovers, but they are still together. It just shows that perhaps, after all, what Grandma said is true, and that there's someone for everyone, and that love is made in Venice every night, as the old Burt Bacharach song used to tell us. You will enjoy the scenes of Marlena shopping in the obscure botteghe of the canals, picking up lettuces and bringing them close to her face, like Mrs. Dalloway shopping for her party, but Italian style, ringed by harsh-voiced crones and old male peasants who bark out strange commands to her as she inspects their turnips and pasta.

The author's gifts shine in this memorable book, allowing readers everywhere to escape to the romance of Venice and vicariously tag along as DeBlasi attempts to transform Fernando's apartment and his world. Ironically, the European doesn't always appreciate the former St. Louis resident's aesthetic or culinary efforts, but the ensuing dialogue makes for riveting reading for those lucky enough to have "A Thousand Days in Venice" at their fingertips. Recipes at the back of the book allow the reader to linger in Italy: The Whole Stuffed Pumpkin and the Lemon Gelato are excellent. Highly recommended!!

This book was our August Book club selection. The club was split on liking it and hating it, it certainly gave a good discussion. Personally I liked it. Though I was just in venice a week before reading it, so perhaps I was biased. Marlena did acurately portray Venice as to the locations and sights in the book matching real life, but she left a lot of questions in peoples minds, such as she answered What and where a lot, but never a why, as in Why did she fall for peter sellers fernando? why did she move why were they leaving why why why.. though she is a cook, we did like her descriptions of things using food ajectives, but it needed to be mixed up a bit, we all got really tired of the term Blueberry eyes.. the recipes in the end are amazing.

So I guess in summary, I'd reccomend A Thousand Days in Venice, if you have been, or ever plan to go there. otherwise, you might want to make a different selection.

Eric

I have read some of the other reviews from people who are "realists" so I guess that classifies me as a dreamer. I loved this book. I liked that it was a true story and that love came along when she was least expecting it, in Venice no less. True, she jumped right into it and the odds were against her from a realist's point of view, but I love a good how-we-met story.

I started reading this about a week before I actually went to Venice for the first time (I just got back). I started flagging all the lines I liked and soon ran out of flags. The way she wrote made me feel like I could hang out and sip prosecco with her and feel completely at ease. I liked especially when she wrote about her interactions with the locals. I liked actually seeing the places she talked about. I finished the book on the plane ride home and felt I was taking a little bit of Venezia home with me. I was never so sad to leave a place as I was to leave Venice. I felt the way De Blasi felt in the last chapter (don't want to spoil it).

I checked this book out from the library because I wasn't sure I would like it, but now am going to buy it. I bought Under the Tuscan Sun and regretted not just checking it out from the library. I never finished it because I got stuck in the part where she goes on and on about pulling weeds. I bought A Thousand Days in Venice for my friend who I joined up with at the Philly airport on our way to Venice and she loved it, too.

If you, too, are a hopeless romantic, I highly recommend this book. Oh--and I highly recommend going to Venice!

This book was soo boring. I love travel books and I love Venice so I was very excited to read this book. I put it down several times and made myself finish it. I was puzzled as to why she wrote it. There was no intimacy revealed. You can't really get into her shoes and understand why she just left her life and moved to be with someone who sounds like a complete loser. They were interesting and this book was a dud.