However, even though I find and enjoy lots of fiction related to the places I'm going, it's rare to find an author who is as completely smitten with the place as I am, someone who has delved into a place's history and current affairs and makes it his or her business to really make readers feel they are right there.
If you've been to Venice in the fall or winter (and I hope you have, but more on this shortly) you will recognize well this description, which is the opening paragraph in The Undrowned Child:
"The fog that fell upon Venice that evening was like a bandage wrapped round the town. First the spires of the churches disappeared. Then the palaces on the Grand Canal were pulled into the soft web of white. Soon it was impossible to see anything at all. People held their hands out in front of them and fumbled their way over bridges like blind men. Every sound was muffled, including the sighs of the steam ferries nosing through the black waters. It would be an exceedingly bad night to fall in the water, for no one would hear a cry for help."
Terrific, right? Both of these novels are officially classified as young adult, but trust me, they make for very good reading for full-grown adults. As A. N. Wilson, author of C. S. Lewis: A Biography noted of The Undrowned Child, "this is the sort of book that is labeled 'for children' but that will be passed round the eager family...Crammed with history, fantasy and beautiful comedy, this book gets a five-star rating." I put Lovric's fictional writing about Venice in the same category as Alan Furst's writing about Paris, Sarah Dunant's writing about Renaissance Florence, Lawrence Durrell's writing about Alexandria, and Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz writing about Fra Filippo Lippi in their book The Miracles of Prato.
Now, back to my comment about Venice in the fall or winter: a number of my friends and colleagues will only visit Venice in fall or winter, and I concur that Venice in these seasons is an absolutely, completely different city than it is in spring or summer. In an essay in my book on Venice, the Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, author and all-around Italian authority Fred Plotkin notes in "Venice in Winter" that "Winter is the only time of year when La Serenissima is, indeed, serene... and it is only now that you will find restaurants, cafes, and wine bars filled with Venetians. The rest of the year, they retreat into their homes, taking refuge from the tourist stampede, so the fair-weather visitor misses a crucial element of life in Venice. To be in Venice without Venetians is to know the city's stones but not its soul." I'm not sure I would never go to Venice in the spring -- though I always advise avoiding Venice like the plague in the summer -- and if you have plans to be in Venice sometime between now and early June I think you will have a wonderful time.
I also think if you can find a copy of my book -- it's out of print, but I do see copies online, notably at www.abebooks.com -- you'll find it to be a valuable compendium. And even better, I was able to meet Michelle Lovric via e-mail, and she's kindly shared lots and lots of wonderful stuff and personal recommendations about Venice in the Q and A interview below. BUT BEFORE YOU GET THERE I must tell you about her newest project: saving the bookshops of Venice. An alarming number of Venice's venerable bookstores are closed or are on the verge of closing, and over 100 Venetian writers and writers about Venice, as well as illustrators, are part of an unprecedented class action by Alessandro Marzo Magno, author of The Dawn of Books: When Venice Made the World Read. Read Lovric's eloquent and passionate essay she contributed to The History Girls for the full story (click on Lovric's name under the list of labels on the right side); but as she notes in this piece, these bookstore losses have become untenable, and that "in Venice, the cradle of Italian printing, the loss of the bookshops is less bearable than elsewhere." And did you know that Venice was the first city to print the Koran in Arabic, where the first books were produced in Armenian, and where the very first best-sellers appeared? Lovric is perhaps uniquely qualified to be a part of this manifesto: her second novel, The Floating Book (which is fascinating, by the way) is about the dawn of printing in Venice, and she spent a lot of time doing research for the book in the Marciana library, which holds one of the greatest classical collections in the world -- including two manuscripts of The Iliad from the 5th and 6th centuries -- as well as the first book ever printed in Venice, and where Lovric held a first edition of Catullus. Venice is, indeed, the last place that bookshops ought to die, and this campaign is urgent and important to mankind and it deserves our support. Spread the word!
*
Q: By your own admission you have “always lived a waterbound life,” in Australia, in Devon,
England, and in Venice. It’s clear
you have a passion for watery locales, but it could have been the reverse for
you – what is it exactly that you love about living by bodies of water?
A: Water creates a particular dancing
light that I find irresistible. In Venice,
it plays under bridges. In London, the Thames
washes a rheumy light into my home, making it easier to concentrate than in
playful Venice.
Where there is water, there is always human transit too, and every journey is a
story of sorts. All writers are voyeurs. Waterborne people are more interesting
to spy on than those in cars. Their voyages always seem more exciting and
romantic.
Q: When did you first visit Venice, and what made you decide to move
there?
A: I first saw Venice when I was eighteen. I was traveling
on my own. I stood on the vaporetto
going up the Grand Canal and something clicked
inside me that said ‘contract’. I had contracted a kind of marriage to Venice. I knew that I
would have business with her, be part of her. That night I was walking around Venice pursued by a
random Italian who had unilaterally decided that I needed a guide. He was
standing on a bridge beside me when a man in a gondola threw me a red rose
(yes, these things happen in Venice).
My self-appointed guide was so infuriated that he sank his teeth into my
shoulder. I can’t remember how I got rid of him, but I do remember that the
rose seemed to consecrate what I was already feeling, about Venice reaching out to me, extending a
tangible invitation.
The feeling of ‘contract’ meant that
after that I spent part of every year in Venice,
sometimes a short holiday, sometimes for a month, or two months or three. I
started to learn Italian. Then one of my anthologies became a New York Times bestseller, and I
suddenly knew that my life could change as I wished it to change. So the first
thing I did was book a month in an apartment in Venice and that’s when I wrote my first
novel, Carnevale.
It may sound frightfully grand but I do
feel now a part of Venice’s
cultural history. I have written nine novels set there, and taken a leading part
in the campaign to restore the Column of Infamy of Baiamonte Tiepolo, giving
lectures in Italian to explain the importance of this monument to the Venetians
themselves. I have tried to bring Italian history to life for young people, and
in my books I try to express my feeling that the city is more than a place. She
is a character in all my books: in truth, the leading character.
Q: Did you speak Italian before you arrived in Venice, and did it take
long to understand the Venetian dialect?
A: I started learning Italian about
fifteen years ago, I guess. I made an appointment with Ornella Tarantola, of
the Italian bookshop in London.
But after six weeks I had enough Italian that we began to talk about clothes
and men and food, and became close, close friends, a friendship that brings me
joy still. She introduced me to members of the huge Italian community in London, and I began to
socialise in Italian. I did a couple of short courses on my long stays in
Venice, but most of my Italian comes from being an inveterate chatterer and not
being shy about making mistakes so long as I can communicate. Italian friends
are amazed by my vocabulary – I love words and collect them like stamps.
Italian grammar is really quite simple, and the pronunciation is mostly
logical. It is a language that loves the tongue, and the memory, and cleaves to
them both.
I don’t speak Venetian dialect, though
I understand a bit and I use some of the words because they are more
appropriate. For example, the Venetian word for ‘rat’ is ‘pantegana’. Given that there have been a lot of rats in my Venetian
life, I use the local word with the town rat catcher, my neighbours and the palazzo cat, who is doing her mighty
best against them.
Otherwise, I feel strongly that the
Venetian dialect is not for outsiders. Venetians have no privacy: the 59,000
inhabitants are besieged by 21 million tourists a year. Their language is their
only refuge, a place where they can be themselves, so I want them to have it.
Q: You have written about love, poetry,
literature, cats, language, humor, food, marriage, museums, travel, and
architecture, among a number of other subjects. But all of this was aimed
at an adult audience. Where did your interest in writing for young adults
come from, and when did you start working on The Undrowned Child?
A: It was a lovely German editor friend of
mine who said that I should write for young adults. I said, ‘No, I write about
sex, and drugs and minuets (by which I mean, love, the history of medicine and
cultural history). How would I write for children? No, don’t make me!’ She said, ‘I am going out for two
hours. Just give it two hours and write.’ So I did, and I was hooked. I loved the demands of pace, clarity
and morality that children’s writing creates. I love writing humorous
characters, like Turtledove the Faginesque dog in The Mourning Emporium or Sofonisba the sardonic cat in the same
book.
My adult non-fiction research has
definitely nourished my children’s writing. The scatologically-inclined
mermaids in The Undrowned Child and The Mourning Emporium were created from
research I had done into sailor and pirate language for an earlier non-fiction
book. And the women’s quack cures that
weaken the London
mermaids came from a book I’d written on the subject ten years before. I have been lucky to have superb
editors, who have taught me so much as I went along. I would say in fact that
writing for children has improved my writing for adults, which is becoming more
disciplined. I am now thinking about my fifth novel
for children, interested in freshwater mermaids and even more bad language.
Q: I love great opening lines in novels, and surely the opener to The
Mourning Emporium is a good one: “The fog that fell upon Venice that evening was like a bandage
wrapped round the town.” Where do the words ‘mourning emporium’ in the
title come from?
A: There was a famous shop in Victorian
London’s Regent Street
called Jay’s, which traded in all the paraphernalia for mourning: clothes,
stationery, hats, muffs, handkerchiefs, camisoles. Jay’s styled itself a
mourning warehouse. Part of the novel is set in an establishment very much
based on Jay’s. But I liked the sonorous quality of ‘Emporium’ better than ‘Warehouse’,
and especially the internal rhyme with ‘Mourning’.
Q: To take nothing away from the stories
in both books, which are highly engrossing and entertaining and well written, I
admit I am so impressed that you included ‘Places and Things in The
Undrowned Child That You Can Still See in Venice’ and ‘What is True, and
What’s Made up?’ in The Mourning Emporium – these are my favorite parts!
(They are very similar to the section in my Venice book called ‘A to Z Informazioni Pratiche,’
which has become an A to Z Miscellany in my more recent books.) Clearly
you have a desire to share some of the wonderful and historic treasures of Venice with visitors to
the city. What are 10 sites you would recommend for both first-time
visitors and those who’ve been before?
A: My publishers were very supportive
about the idea of including the Places and Things – and I am so glad. People very often comment on how useful it
has been for them and I receive lovely fan letters from people who have used
the book to do Undrowned Child tours
of Venice. One
of my fans came to Venice
last year and I gave her the tour myself, from Signor Rioba to the Butcher
Biasio. It was just as much fun for me as it was for her.
My top ten (in fact 15) things to do in
Venice:
1. walk
from the beginning of the Zattere near San Basilio to the Punta della Dogana
and look at the view of the bacino,
preferably eating a huge gelato. Try
to make it last till the church
of Salute.
2. The Basilica of San Marco but don’t queue up to go right inside.
Instead, take a steep little flight of steps to the right of the entrance. This
takes you up to a gallery where you have the most gorgeous view of the
interior. Also, cover up. No shorts, bare arms or decolletée.
3.
Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (Carpaccio paintings) the most
beautiful chapel in Venice.
A little jewel box. Never crowded and well worth finding. Take some kind of
reference material with you, preferably Ruskin (St Mark’s Rest), so you can ‘read’ the paintings.
4.
San Giorgio Maggiore, the island facing the Piazzetta, has a tall bell-tower
from which you get a stupendous view of the city and not the queues for the
Campanile in San Marco. Sitting on the stones outside this church, on the edge
of the water, is one of the nicest views of Venice. Turner and Canaletto thought so too.
Take a picnic. The Fondazione Cini owns this island and has an institute here
that sometimes hosts exhibitions. The wonderful cloisters are sometimes open to
the public for guided tours.
5. Doge’s Palace this is a must. If you can, book to see the Secret
Itinerary which also includes entrance to the rest of the palace. The itinerary
will take you to Casanova’s cell in the leads and other places inaccessible
with a normal ticket. A bit of climbing is involved. After the itinerario (which you can book in English, with an
English-speaking guide) you are free to wander around the palace’s public
parts. VERY nice cafe down by the water gate on the ground floor, though the
coffee is heart-stopping. You need a whole day at the Doge’s Palace really. You
need to book the secret itinerary a few days in advance, in general. Better
still, book before you come to Venice,
to make sure.
6. Caffè
Florian for the beautiful art on the walls or to sit on the benches in the
covered passageway. Try Florian’s
famous hot chocolate piled with whipped cream. It’s thick, dark and amazing. In
the past, Venetians loved chocolate so much that
they would sell a slave for ten cocoa beans. The nobility had hot chocolate in the
mornings, in bed, instead of tea or coffee. There’s a funny poem by Antonio Sforza (eighteenth century) about his
obsession with hot chocolate, in which he declares that when he dies he wishes
to have his bones ground up and made into bone-china cups for more hot
chocolate.
7. Biennale
art festival takes place June onwards, every second year, 2007, 2009, at
the Giardini. Each country has a pavilion. It takes a day and is alternately
disgusting, exhilarating, amusing. There is a separate part at the Arsenale,
the old naval shipyards. If that is open, go at all costs because the
architecture inside is stupendous, gives you a full sense of Venice’s former might. You really need a day
each at the sites. Sadly, pretentious and stretched-out repetitive video
installations are overtaking painting and sculpture, but there is always
something interesting to see. The Biennale also spreads into town: some private
palazzi are used as temporary
exhibition sites, and it is always worth getting inside even if the art is
terrible. Your ticket to the main exhibition should get you into the ‘in town’
exhibits too. Some of those are free entrance, anyway.
8. You
really should take a gondola ride, if possible. By far the best time to do
this is at night. The water is calmer; the city retreats into her past. And you
should ask the gondolier to take you into the quiet smaller canals. A
night-ride in one of the beautiful black boats is not ‘just
for the tourists’. I do it as often as possible, even though I live in Venice. If the gondola is a bit expensive,
there is a way you can have a short ride in one for 50 cents: take the traghetto. These are real gondolas that work as
ferries, taking up to fourteen people at a time across the Grand
Canal. Two gondoliers pole them, one at each end. There are
various places to take them, including Rialto, Santa Maria del
Giglio and San Tomà. In The
Undrowned Child, Teo meets the
ghost of Pedro-the-Crimp on the traghetto
between San Samuele and Ca’ Rezzonico –
because that is the one I usually get to do my shopping. But it is currently
under threat of being axed because of lack of funds. It is traditional to stand up in the traghetto. But if some people sit down on the ledges
at the sides of the boat, then it is OK – but you must watch out and make sure that
the weight is balanced.
9. Church of Miracoli,
the prettiest back end of a church in Venice
and nice square where you can enjoy the church and good cappuccino under big
white parasols. Service can be surly, and the prices are blatant brigandage,
but just look at that church. In this area, every few months, is a good flea
market. It is always worth asking your hotel if it is the weekend for the
Miracoli flea market. Most of it is junk, but it’s VENETIAN junk, so worth a
look.
10. Ca’ d’Oro
is the oldest gothic palazzo and
still the most beautiful on the Grand Canal.
Now it’s an art gallery. Remember to go into the courtyard – it’s the best
part.
11. Grand Canal at night. One of the best things to do
is to take a vaporetto late in the
evening. Go to the open bit at the back or the front (if on an old-style vap –
the new technovaps don’t have seats at the front). From there you can see all
the palazzi with their lamps lit,
illuminating painted ceilings and other treasures. Take a round trip from
Zattere back to Academia or San Marco.
12. The Natural History Museum
in Venice is surprisingly fantastic. Housed in
the old Turkish Foundation building, it has a stunning modern collection and
also a charming, frightening, old collection of hunting trophies including a
gorilla whose belly is now bare from being stroked by too many Venetian
schoolchildren. The animals in this museum feature in my forthcoming novel, The Fate-in-the-Box. Santa Croce 1730 -
30135 Venezia - 041/2750206.
13. Say
hello to the statue of Signor Rioba, one of the heroes of The Undrowned Child, may be
found, with those of his brothers, in the
Campo dei Mori, near the church
of Madonna
del Orto. When you see his strong,
cross face, you will understand why I made him
speak so coarsely in the book! Also
nearby is the Palazzo Mastelli, which has a relief
of a camel.
14. Visit the old lady who stopped a
revolution. Just behind the
clock tower in San Marco, look up and left. You will see a sculpture of an old lady throwing a mortar and pestle out of her
window. This is a tribute to the
lady who killed the standard-bearer of Baiamonte
Tiepolo just before his
revolutionary forces arrived in San
Marco, on their way to kill the Doge and take over
the city. When the standard-bearer
died, everyone lost heart for fighting and the
revolution was soon put down. And the
anger of Baiamonte Tiepolo’s ghost is the evil that fuels
the dangerous storylines of both The Mourning Emporium and The Undrowned Child.
15. Contarini del Bovolo. This building was created for a man
who had grown rich by selling sausages. I don’t want to spoil the surprise for
you, but I will tell you this much: you will immediately see why the name
Bovolo or Snail-shell is very
appropriate. Corte dei Risi o del Bovolo, San Marco 4299
Q: I have to ask you about the Syrian cats (I am
a big cat person, and I am proud to say that my cat Seymour,
who was a very fat Siamese, lived to be 23) – you mention the charity DINGO in The
Undrowned Child and that this organization has cleared the streets of Venice of its once
numerous wild cats. Why did this happen? And, since you offered,
what are some Venice
shops that still have their own resident cats?
A: I am a huge cat person two. In London, I now have two
tabbies called Mu and Caramella, who has caramel-coloured eyes. It is quite true about the Syrian cats
(apart from the wings with which I endow them in my books). Venice has always needed cats. Other cities faced invading armies,
and built defensive walls. But Venice
only had walls of water, and hence invasions of water rats and of mice. The
navy and merchant ships from the east brought an involuntary passenger... the
black rat, who brought the plague that exterminated a third of Venetians in the 17th
century. So Venetians imported some particularly ferocious Syrian, or tabby
cats, and crossed them with the native lagoon cats, to make hunters. Cats were soon ‘serving’ on Venetian
ships, to keep the mice out of the food stores. It is noted that sometimes
three or four cats were recruited for the ships. They were also thought to
bring good fortune to the sailors. The word for tabby in Italian is ‘Soriano’,
obviously relating to the Syrian background of these beasts.
In 1964 there came to Venice an Englishwoman named Helena Sanders (1911–97) who set up a charity eventually known as DINGO. Claiming that there were 50,000 starving and sick cats, she
initiated a cull, to the astonishment and
horror of many Venetians. These days the charity DINGO does not kill cats except
in extremis but houses them in a gattile
at Malamocco. They also provide little houses and food for colonies of wild
cats in various parts of Venice.
You do not see as many cats as you used to in Venice, sadly. But if you want to have some
sightings, there are about a dozen who hang out near the deconsecrated church of Cosma e Damiano on the Giudecca. A few
can be seen in the Campo dei Mori quite often. And quite a few shops have
resident cats. I did a series of interviews with these cats for my website. There’s
the lovely grey Perla at Rigattieri in Santo Stefano, Matilde at Can e Gato
(Venetian for ‘Cat and Dog’), on the Fondamenta del Soccorso, marmalade Van
Gogh at Shanti Daan near San Barnaba, emerald-eyed Minou at Martin Pescatore
near Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
Q: What are some of the places you regularly frequent in your sestiere and beyond?
A: Best coffee – da Gino in San Vio, also
for the amazing smile of the barista Emilio, and the way he says ‘Ciao
Michelle!’
Best food shopping – Rialto
market, not just for the food but for the ‘cries’ of the traders touting their
vegetables and the sheer beauty of the setting, on the edge of the Grand Canal.
Best garden – Sant’Elena, where the
tall trees make for shade and you almost never see a tourist. The park was
recently devastated by a tornado, and some trees lost, but it is still
beautiful and peaceful.
Best shops – for clothes I love the
exotic Federica’s boutique near San Toma’. It’s called Zazu (San Polo 2750) and also, though it is
pricey, Hibiscus, near Rialto.
Best library – the
Marciana, once you get past the arcane ordering system and know at which
archway to present yourself for books of different centuries.
Best restaurants – Beccafico – Sicilian cuisine in Venice, rich and powerful flavours - Campo
Santo Stefano, San Marco 2801, 041 527 4879. For lovely meat dishes and interesting
pastas, Pan e Vino San Daniele, Campo
dell’Angelo Raffaele - Dorsoduro 1722, 30123 Venezia, 041 5237456. Also Osteria alla Zucca for its buttery pumpkin mousse topped by pumpkin
seeds and chalky taleggio in a slick of dark green olive oil. San Stae, Ramo del Megio 1762 - 041
5241570. Nearby is one of the nicest local
squares, San Giacomo dell’ Orio, where quite often you will often find
interesting things happening in the evenings, such as moonlit ballroom dancing
competitions, tango classes, Mexican festivals and dog
shows. And not far away is All’Anfora, very
good for children or people on a budget. I don’t like pizza but I would eat pizza every day if I
could have it here. This is a little pizzeria-trattoria
near the San Biasio vaporetto
stop. (The Butcher Biasio, who made
stew out of children, is one of the villains in The Undrowned Child). But he’s long gone so it’s perfectly safe for kids now. The
pizzas at the Anfora have a lovely light slender crust and good toppings. Calle
dei Bari, Santa Croce 1223 - 041 524 0325
Q: What books about Venice– for both children and adults – are among your favorites?
A: My all-time favourite book about Venice has never been
translated into English, which is a serious shame. It is called Curiosita’ Veneziane and it is by
Giuseppe Tassini, who is actually a character in my novel, Talina in the Tower.
Curiosita’ is a kind of historical gazetteer of the whole city, explain the
names and happenings in each street. I have a pocket edition that lives in my
handbag. Who knows when you might pass down ‘The Little Street of the Big Eye’
and need to know why it has that name?
In terms of novels about Venice, I love (for young
readers) Mary Hoffman’s Stravaganza: City of Masks. For adult readers, I admire very much Juan Manuel
de Prada's The Tempest,
Tiziano
Scarpa's Venice is a Fish and Stabat Mater, and Jeanette Winterson's The Passion. And of course I enjoy Donna Leon’s
Commissario Brunetti series as well.
Q: What do you read when you’re not reading about Venice?
A: I read a lot of YA and adult fiction, always absorbent, interested, learning from other writers. Books that have made me very happy and stimulated recently are State of Wonder by Anne Patchett and The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen.
Q: What is your
favorite time of year that you recommend people visit Venice?
A: The quietest time is early December and
January before the tourists come for Carnevale.
The weather is very cold, and there is frequently aqua alta, which makes the city both tricky and fascinating to
negotiate. There are also beautiful mists and even snow. This year the lagoon
even froze over for a few days, a glorious sight. I would recommend those
times, for their atmosphere, and for the pleasure of getting in out of the cold
to drink hot chocolate. If you are there
on January 6th you can watch gondoliers dressed in drag racing down
to Rialto as
part of the Befana celebrations.
You’ll be given free hot chocolate and galani
biscuits too.
Q: Where else do you travel in Italy?
A: I have plans to visit Matera
in Southern Italy as soon as I can. I love Rome. But nothing can
quite compare with Venice.
The one time I took a driving holiday in Italy,
I came home early to Venice
because I was homesick.
Q: What projects are you working on now?
A: I have just finished my fourth book for
young readers, The Fate-in-the-Box, a
story about an 18th-century Venice
full of ticking, jumping, walking automata and haunted by a Primaeval
Crocodile. And I am working on my fifth novel for
adults. The fourth one, The Book of Human
Skin, dealt with all aspects of the largest organ of our body, with the
story spread from Venice to Peru in the
early nineteenth century. This new one is about hair, which turns out to be of
enormous cultural significance. Harnessing the research into a readable novel
is quite a challenge but I’m loving it.
*
Even more about Venice can be found on Lovric's website, www.michellelovric.com -- I especially love the selection of Venetian proverbs that Lovric originally featured at the beginning of each chapter in her first novel, Carnevale (Virago PRess, 2002) -- as well in her excellent anthology, Venice: Tales of the City (Little, Brown, 2005). Lovric can also be found online at the Scattered Authors' Society website (An Awfully Big Blog Adventure) and at English Writers in Italy.
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