15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just too much; but still a good read, January 14, 2004
This could have been an absolutely fantastic historical novel; however, I feel the author attempted to intertwine too many characters and too many plot lines. Bringing the German printing press to Venice provides a great backbone for the plot; however, the switching back and forth to the ancient poet and the sexual escapades of some woman named Clodia is just confusing. I guess the author wanted us to become as enthralled with the erotic poems as the Venetians were; however, for me it just didn't work. The details of the city, the differences in personality between the Venetians and the German printer, the superstitions, and the effect of the printing press are wonderful. In all, very good historical read, but one that I almost abandoned due to excesses -- in wording and in characters. (Sometimes I had to stop to read a sentence over and ask myself "what in the world did that mean?"). The character of Sosia is as one editor described "over the top" while other characters such as von Speyer are easily believable.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not quite up to its potential, but worth reading/good close, March 16, 2004
I have to admit that through much of The Floating World, I kept wishing for more. Sometimes more characterization. Sometimes more focus. Sometimes more editing. Sometimes just something more. At times I found it wonderfully written and moving, at times I considered putting it down for good (mostly the middle section), and by the end I was definitely glad I had kept going. But at all those times it never felt it quite matched up to its potential of setting or character. I can see some starting it and never finishing it, but despite its flaws, I'd recommend slogging through whatever tough parts you come across.
There are a lot of strengths to the book. The Venetian setting for one, is beautifully described. But its role goes beyond simple window-dressing. Lovric does an impressive job of making Venice essential to the story, making it almost a character itself in the way that it impresses itself on the people in the book, the way it causes certain actions and reactions. It's a masterful job.
Some of the characterization is also extremely well-done, most particularly the couple at the center of the novel who share part of its narration--the printer Von Speyer and his wife. Watching their marriage through all its highs and lows is at times exhilarating and at others achingly painful. They are the most realized characters and the most effective ones and the book seldom slips when they remain its focus.
Other characters, unfortunately, aren't as strongly composed. Sosia, another major character, starts out strong, but then seems to twist in the wind a bit, stagnating as a character before becoming more and more unlikable. She is one of those missed-potential examples. There are places where her character could be redeemed (as a literary character, not in the moral sense) but those points are either glossed over too quickly and come too late, making them ineffective. In the end, you wanted more from her as a character, wanted to feel more for her. The same is true for several of the minor characters, such as Sosia's husband or Bruno and Felice, two of her (many) lovers. Plot events manipulate you into feeling certain things about their relationships, or at least feeling you should feel something, but the emotions aren't really earned by the writing, mostly because the characters aren't drawn sharply or realistically enough.
The book has some pacing problems I thought. The opening is somewhat slow, but I'm always willing to forgive that in a book of this sort and in fact it picked up not too far into the book. Large parts of the middle third or so, however, gave me serious pause and almost convinced me on several occasions to just give up. The final third, though it maintained some of the book's flaws, moved along more quickly and more movingly, culminating in a strong close.
Structurally, the book moves back and forth in time and narration. There are periodic jumps to letter written from Catullus to his brother detailing his life in Rome, the motivation for/creation of/reaction to his poems (the present-time publication of which is one of the major focuses in the book). The letters are interesting in their own right and the parallels between his time and what is happening in Venice, both in terms of events and characters, quickly become clear. At times, almost too clear and on at least one occasion near the end, I thought one of the past revelations weakened the book's ending rather than enhanced it. Whether you like the use of this structure is probably a matter of personal taste; I found it effective at first and less so as the book went on. In either case, it's easily followed.
The narrative shift is equally clear but much more effective and in contrast to the time shifts, grows more so as the book goes on, adding intimacy and an emotional weight that a third-person narration wouldn't quite achieve.
Overall, the book was disappointing, more in relation to what you felt it could have been. The strengths of the book were so strong that they tended to highlight its weaknesses, so you were left with a lot of "what if" feeling. Still, if they did highlight the weaknesses, those same strengths also made the book, in the end, worth reading. Recommended, but with some sorrow, and with understanding should some not finish it.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Venetian labyrinth: 3 1/2 stars, March 23, 2004
Like many historical fiction debuts, Michelle Lovric's The Floating Book suffers from too many facts at the expense of storytelling. Most of the novel takes place in Venice just after the invention of movable type, although each section is framed by correspondence from the Roman poet Catullus to his brother in 63 B.C. Lovric's Venice can be deliciously evil and romantic at once, with murky water that sometimes gives up dead babies and with doors that hide intense passion and curses. Her characters are Venetians and foreigners alike: Sosia, a Serb Jew who seduces men of every class as long as they are Venetians; her husband Rabino, a respected doctor who embraces practical medicine over superstition; Wendelin von Speyer, a German entrepreneur and typesetter; Wendelin's Venetian wife Lussièta who loves him despite, or perhaps because of, his foreignness; Bruno, Wendelin's editor and a man at the mercy of Sosia's indifference; and many others. Catullus and his poetry hover over all as his poetic undying love for his cruel lover (mirrored in the relationship between Bruno and Sosia) becomes the publishing venture the main characters eagerly await. The problem is, with so many characters and so many details obviously drawn from thorough research, nothing gets fully realized. The relationship between Wendelin and his wife shows the most promise, but even that gets bogged down by lengthy explanatory passages. Many of the characters are wooden and seem to exist solely for the purpose of exposing a side of Venice during the time period. The best characters, though - Bruno, Wendelin, Lussièta - made me wish Lovric had concentrated almost exclusively on them. As a character, Sosia holds the greatest promise of being memorable, but Lovric never fully enters her heart, instead leaving her motives for the end when the reader has already lost sympathy.
Despite its flaws, The Floating Book has much to offer. Although the writing alternates between beautifully evocative and stilted/overwritten, the best sections are engrossing and well-paced. The middle of the book is the slowest, and readers might be tempted to skip over whole sections to get to the real stories of interest. But to do so would compromise the resolution, which draws its threads from all the plots. The author has clearly fallen in love with the idea of fifteenth century Venice, and her passion is contagious. But the setting as character is simply not dynamic enough to carry the weight of an entire novel.
I give this novel three and a half stars, an average of the best sections and the worst. Avid readers of historical fiction might find this novel more compelling than I did, especially if they relish an emphasis on history over story.
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