At the center of John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels is the story of the destruction by fire of the Fenice opera house in Venice in 1996 and the subsequent efforts to rebuild it. From this starting point Berendt weaves into the narrative stories of the unique city and its inhabitants. Some of the inhabitants are well-known: Peggy Guggenheim, Olga Rudge, Alistair McAlpine and Archimede Seguso. No less fascinating are the everyday people of Venice's streets and canals whose stories Berendt tells. He takes the reader inside the palaces of the Grand Canal where he manages to solicit candid interviews with the owners. Just as he did in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Berendt brings history, personalities, greed, corruption, self-aggrandizement, and scandal together to tell the story of a great city, seen from the inside out.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
"City of Falling Angels"
At the center of John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels is the story of the destruction by fire of the Fenice opera house in Venice in 1996 and the subsequent efforts to rebuild it. From this starting point Berendt weaves into the narrative stories of the unique city and its inhabitants. Some of the inhabitants are well-known: Peggy Guggenheim, Olga Rudge, Alistair McAlpine and Archimede Seguso. No less fascinating are the everyday people of Venice's streets and canals whose stories Berendt tells. He takes the reader inside the palaces of the Grand Canal where he manages to solicit candid interviews with the owners. Just as he did in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Berendt brings history, personalities, greed, corruption, self-aggrandizement, and scandal together to tell the story of a great city, seen from the inside out.
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