The City of Falling Angels (Hardcover)

by John Berendt (Author) "THE AIR STILL SMELLED OF CHARCOAL when I arrived in Venice three days after the fire..." (more)
Key Phrases: Save Venice, Grand Canal, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Past Midnight: John Berendt on the Mysteries of Venice

Just as John Berendt's first book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was settling into its remarkable four-year run on The New York Times bestseller list, he discovered a new city whose local mysteries and traditions were more than a match for Savannah, whose hothouse eccentricities he had celebrated in the first book. The new city was Venice, and he spent much of the last decade wandering through its canals and palazzos, seeking to understand a place that any native will tell you is easy to visit but hard to know. For travelers to Venice, whether by armchair or vaporetto, he has selected his 10 (actually 11) Books to Read on Venice. And he took the time to answer a few of our questions about his charming new book, The City of Falling Angels:

Amazon.com: The lush, cloistered southern city of Savannah was the locale of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Venice, the setting for The City of Falling Angels, is vastly different. Was it the difference itself that drew you to Venice?

John Berendt: Savannah and Venice actually have quite a lot in common. Both are uniquely beautiful. Both are isolated geographically, culturally, and emotionally from the world outside. Venice sits in the middle of a lagoon; Savannah is surrounded by marshes, piney woods, and the ocean. Venetians think of themselves as Venetian first, Italian second; Savannahians rarely even venture forth as far as Atlanta or Charleston. So both cities offer a writer a rich context in which to set a story, and the stories provide readers a means of escape from their own environment into another world.

Amazon.com: I enjoyed your rather declarative author's note: that this is a work of nonfiction, and that you used everyone's real names. In your previous book you did use pseudonyms for some characters and you explained that you took a few small liberties in the service of the larger truth of the story. Why the change this time?

Berendt: When I wrote Midnight I thought I would do a few people the favor of changing their names for the sake of privacy. But when the book came out, several of the pseudonymous characters told me they wished I'd used their real names instead. So this time, no pseudonyms. As for the storytelling liberties I took in writing Midnight, they were minor and did not change the story, but my mention of it in the author's note caused some confusion, with the result that Midnight is sometimes referred to now as a novel, which it most certainly is not. Neither is The City of Falling Angels. In fact, I dispensed with the liberties this time and made it as close to the truth as I could get it.

Amazon.com: In The City of Falling Angels, a number of fascinating people serve as guides to the city, each with a different idea of the true nature of Venice. Who was your favorite?

Berendt: I don't have a favorite, but Count Girolamo Marcello is certainly a memorable, highly quotable commentator. "Everyone in Venice is acting," he told me. "Everyone plays a role, and the role changes. The key to understanding Venetians is rhythm, the rhythm of the lagoon, the water, the tides, the waves. It's like breathing. High water, high pressure: tense. Low water, low pressure: relaxed. The tide changes every six hours."

I nodded that I understood.

"How do you see a bridge?" he went on.

"Pardon me?" I asked, "A bridge?"

"Do you see a bridge as an obstacle--as just another set of steps to climb to get from one side of a canal to the other? We Venetians do not see bridges as obstacles. To us, bridges are transitions. We go over them very slowly. They are part of the rhythm. They are the links between two parts of a theater, like changes in scenery. Our role changes as we go over bridges. We cross from one reality ... to another reality. From one street ... to another street. From one setting ... to another setting."

Once I had absorbed that notion, Count Marcello continued: "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? What is true? What is not true? The answer is not so simple, because the truth can change. I can change. You can change. That is the Venice effect."

I was not terribly surprised when he later told me, "Venetians never tell the truth. We mean precisely the opposite of what we say."

Amazon.com: Now that you know Venice well enough to be a guide yourself, what would you say to a visitor looking for insight into the character of the city?

Berendt: Tourists generally shuffle along, on narrow streets so crowded as to be nearly impassable, between the major sights of St. Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, and the Accademia Museum. All you have to do is to step off these heavily traveled alleyways, and in a few moments you will find yourself in quiet, much emptier surroundings. This is more like the real Venice. Another thing to do is to go into the wine bars where Venetians stand around drinking and talking. They will very likely be speaking the Venetian dialect, so you won't be able to understand them, but you will get a sampling of the true Venetian ambiance enlivened by the pronounced sing-song rhythm of the language. I'd also suggest stopping someone in the street and asking for directions. Almost invariably, you will be rewarded with a genial smile and the instructions, Sempre diritto, meaning "Straight ahead." This will only leave you more confused, because when you attempt to follow a straight line, you will be confronted by more twists and turns and forks in the road than you thought possible, given the instructions. This is part of what Count Marcello described as "the Venice effect."

From Publishers Weekly
It's taken Berendt 10 years follow up his long-running bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In lieu of Savannah, he offers us Venice, another port city full of eccentric citizens and with a long, colorful history. Like the first book, this one has a trial at the its center: Berendt moves to Venice in 1997, just three days after the city's famed Fenice opera house burns down during a restoration. The Venetian chattering classes, among whom Berendt finds a home, want to know whether it was an accident or arson. Initially, Berendt investigates, but is soon distracted by the city's charming denizens. Early on, he's warned, "Everyone in Venice is acting," which sets the stage for fascinating portraits: a master glassblower creating an homage to the fire in vases, an outspoken surrealist painter, a tenacious prosecutor and others. As the infamous Italian bureaucracy drags out the investigation, Berendt spends more time schmoozing with the expatriate community in long discussions about its role in preserving local art, culture and architecture. By the time the Fenice is rebuilt and reopens, Berendt has delivered an intriguing mosaic of modern life in Venice, which makes for first-rate travel writing, albeit one that lacks a compelling core story to keep one reading into the night.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 414 pages
• Publisher: The Penguin Press; First Edition edition (September 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200580
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200588
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (217 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #182,964 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Berendt's "Falling Angels" Tells a Fascinating Story , September 29, 2005

By	John B. Tipton (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Like so many of the literally millions of readers who found John Berendt's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" an endless source of pure reading pleasure, I have been eagerly awaiting his next book. Well, the wait was more than worth it. I grabbed my copy of his new book, "City of Falling Angels" the very first day it went on sale. Berendt has now taken us to Venice and he digs beneath its surface--just as he did in Savannah--to find fascinating tales of intrigue, human folly and human decency. I found myself devouring it and yet at the same time wanting to slowly savor its interwoven stories. While the author introduced me to Savannah, with Venice he takes me to a place I thought I knew well--only to discover that I had been the merest of tourists on my many trips there until I had John Berendt as my guide. He goes beneath the obvious fascination of the city's history and art to introduce us to Counts and Marchesas, electricians and fruit-and vegetable sellers, artists and poets, criminals and politicians. In "Falling Angels" the core event is the destruction by fire (arson?) of Venice's famed historic opera house, the Fenice--and the byzantine aftermath of this great loss to the city. But, as in "Midnight," Berendt is not content to merely tell a gripping story. He once again introduces us to a series of memorable characters, some petty and venal, some filled with charm and wisdom, all fascinating. While this book is a work of non-fiction and true in every detail, Berendt has an amazing ability to delve into a place and get its inhabitants to divulge their secrets to him like a great journalist. In "City of Falling Angels," just as in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," he combines this skill with the art of a novelist in getting the people to tell their stories. Such authors as Henry James, Thomas Mann and Daphne du Maurier have famously SET novels and short stories in Venice. John Berendt gets Venice to tell ITS story.

162 of 194 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another hit??????, September 28, 2005

By	Robert Busko (Waynesville, NC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

John Berndt hit a home run in 1994 when he wrote Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, an interesting expose about Savannah and some of the more colorful characters that called that wonderful city home. Serving as a focal point was a midnight murder and subsequent murder trial. Midnight in the Garden spent four years on the NYT best seller list and made Berendt a world wide celebrity.

Berendt has released his second book, The City of the Falling Angels and it reminds me a lot of Midnight. First is the location. While I have to admit Savannah and Venice aren't alike, they do both ooze atmosphere. Savannah, quaint but somewhat isolated is so different from the ancient and worldly city of Venice that it seems hard to understand their connection. You'll have to read the book first, but I think you'll see why Berendt selected Venice.

Secondly, Berendt manages to find some really interesting locals to put in the book: Olga, the former mistress of Ezra Pound, an artisan glass blower, the Rat-Man, and pigeon exterminators, et al. These provide the color that was such an interesting part of Midnight.

Finally, the loss of the Fenice Opera House and the subsequent trial of the arsonists gives the book an anchor similar to the murder trial in Midnight.

Berendt is a consumate story teller. His prose is like boating on a calm canal.

Whether The City of Falling Angels can come close to achieving the status and success of Midnight remains to be seen. As for me I found The City of Falling Angels and terrific read.

91 of 112 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Midnight In The Canals Of Venice, September 28, 2005

By	C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 1994, Mr. Berendt published "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" about a murder trial specifically and life in Savannah, Georgia in general. "The City of Falling Angels" is about an arson of the Fenice Opera House sort of and Venice, Italy a whole lot. It is more accurate to state that the book is more of a travelogue of Venice -- but what a travelogue.

This is not to say that this book is not as good as his previous one; just that the reader needs to be aware that "The City of Falling Angels" is different from "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." The arson trial does not hold the same riveting attention as the murder trial but the eccentric characters he introduces the reader to will, whether it is Count Volpi or Erza Pound's mistress, Olga Rudge. The true character of the book is Venice herself and Mr. Berendt writes well of her.