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Some will undoubtedly say that John Berendt is just`A0a lucky man. He flies to Savannah, Georgia, because he finds that a flight to Savannah costs less than a meal in New York. And then what happens? He starts living in Savannah and soon enough a story breaks which leads to four fascinating murder trials of the same person. And lo and behold! He has a bestseller on his hands — his first book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. (Though it must be mentioned that there is a note appended at the end of the first edition of the book, that some of the timeline of the book had been changed). This time he plans a trip to Venice and why not? After all, it is arguably the most beautiful city in the world. And three days before he arrives,`A0the famous Fenice Opera House burns down to the ground, kick-starting a remarkable series of events which test the whole city and is at the heart of his second book The City of Falling Angels — a story of Venice where intrigue is so all-pervading that it makes the first book look like an introduction to the main course. While some would say that great stories have just fallen into his lap, I would say it is more than luck. He has the all the instincts of a good journalist, to investigate a story and to follow it up; all the instincts of a great novelist, to tell a ripping good yarn; and all the instincts of an amigo, to befriend people wherever he goes. If you liked his first book, you are going to love this one. If you haven’t read his first book, you would like to read it after you are done with this one. This book is better because the canvas it is painted on is bigger. After all, it’s the story of Venice. It is also better because the first book was about decadence. This one is about intrigue. And I think intrigue, in the hands of an artist, has much more scope than decadence. Maybe, there is nobody as memorable in this book as Lady Chablis, the transsexual singer of the first book, but there are many other memorable characters like Archimede Seguso — the master glass-maker who preserves the memories of the Fenice fire in the colours and shapes of his vases and other works — or Ezra Pound, the poet whose ghost stalks the book, or Mario Stefani, the gay poet who leaves his estate to a fruit vendor. The writer talks of a beautiful crumbling Venice, which everybody is trying to save. It is quite unusual to have great second books after great first books. Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend was a big letdown after her brilliant debut novel The Secret History and Josephine Hart’s Sin was anti-climactic to her heart-stopping first novel Damage. But Berendt’s second book has bettered his first one and to obviate any confusion, he begins by stating that this is a work of non-fiction. Berendt sets the tone of the book early. Actually, as early as the Prologue when Count Marcello says "Sunlight on a canal is reflected up through a window onto the ceiling, then from the ceiling onto a vase, and from the vase onto a glass. Which is the real sunlight? Which is the real reflection?" This is the question the writer seeks to answer throughout the book. Venice seems to be bustling with intrigue. There are more questions than answers and sometimes the answers are only hinted at. And the intrigue seems to spread all the way from Venice to New York where the non-profit organisation Save Venice is based. Berendt’s first book
sold 2.7 million copies in hard cover and spent a record 217 weeks on The
New York Times best-seller list and has sold several million copies
since. Will this book better that? That I cannot say – all I can say
is that it is a better book. |
