Customer Reviews

The Glassblower of Murano

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Marina Fiorato's 'The Glassblower of Murano' is a story told on two interwoven levels - it the story of late seventeenth century Venetian master glassblower Corradino Manin and the story of his modern day descendant Leonora Manin who flees a broken marriage in London and tries to establish a glassblowing career in Venice.

The story is at once a romance, a history, and a mystery. Leonora's story becomes the romance when she meets a handsome Venetian, who like most Venetians, we're told, looks as though he stepped down from a Renaissance portrait. (Nora herself resembles Botticelli's 'Primavera,' while not a bad choice not an especially original one.) Nora's British husband was unfaithful, her new lover is very busy and does have that old girl friend hanging about.... The history is the history of Venice and glassblowing, which Fiorato handles well. Her understanding of both is extensive but not invasive. And the mystery primarily revolves around Corradino - was he a traitor who sold Venice's glass-making secrets to the French?

I enjoyed reading 'The Glassblower of Murano.' The novel's strengths lie in the well-drawn historical background, the interesting descriptions of glassblowing techniques, the loving re-creation of Venice; the characters were well-developed and whole, their actions consistent with their characters. The mystery element worked; I wanted to know what Corradino had done and why he'd done it; the answers were unexpected. The weakest element is the romance, probably because it doesn't get as much time and lacks the originality of the other two skeins.

All in all a pleasant book that I will read again. It's a light pleasant novel set in Venice utilizing the city's history of glassblowing and a little mystery and romance - for me it's four and a half stars.

Set against the glorious backdrop of Venice, this novel tells the stories of two artists, separated by four centuries. Corradino Manin is a master glass maker on Murano, at the height of Venice's dominance of the glass making craft. The rulers of Venice ruthlessly protect their monopoly on these glass making techniques, so when he is approached by a representative of Louis XIV of France, he knows he is risking his very life.

In the present, Corradino's descendant, Leonora Manin, recently divorced and adrift, moves to Venice to pursue a career as a glassblower, and to explore her roots in this ancient city. She finds herself at the center of a storm of controversy over the legacy of her famous ancestor. Leonora's story and Corradino's are intertwined through the book.

As an exploration of Venice and its history, this novel works wonderfully. It is especially effective in showing the ruthlessness with which the Republic of Venice maintained its trade advantages. However, the modern portions of this story fell a bit flat. The romance is a bit predictable, and Leonora comes off feeling far too young and immature for the role she's cast in. The story is diverting, but it just doesn't quite ring true on some level, it detracts from the overall impact of the book. Also, the inclusion of the first chapter, verbatim, later in the book is also a distraction. Having already read it, it was hard to understand how repeating it wholesale, without any new details, serves the story.

Not a bad first novel, and a pleasant way to revisit a glorious setting, but certainly showing room for improvement.

Hard to believe this is the author's first book. This is an excellent and spell-binding story. The characterizations are terrific and highly believable.

The author is adept at weaving a saga across the centuries about a woman glassblower in the famed Venetian city of Murano and her ancestor who lived and died there a long, long time ago.

The prose is rich, both from a historic viewpoint as well as a great tale.

How exactly did Louis XIV's famous Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles come to be? Did the greatest glassmakers and mirror artisans of Venice have a hand in this famed Gallerie des Glaces?

This is a wonderfully written tale. The pages turn themselves as the reader is transported into a world of long ago.

Do not miss this book! Truly wonderful!

When I began this book, I was prepared to like it; I really wanted to, because I love Italy. However, "The Glassblower of Murano" is dull and poorly written, quite honestly one of the worst novels that I have ever read. The characters resemble cardboard more than authentic and likeable individuals with whom you can identify. The historical flashbacks to Corradino's time are especially unconvincing. I enjoy novels about plucky Italian heroines as much as the next girl, but this one has no tension, no real romance, no imagination to draw you in as a reader. I would recommend, instead,"In the Company of the Courtesan" by Sarah Dunnant, "The Woman of Rome" by Alberto Moravia, or any one of Donna Leon's stupendous (but dark) mystery novels set in Venice. The characters are much more fun and vivid, and you will learn a lot more!

Chock-full of stereotypes. Beautiful girl with long blonde hair is unhappy with her man, goes to Italy to find herself and do a little glassblowing just for fun, and meets another guy. Sure, there's the whole mystery about her glassblowing ancestor, Corradino, to keep her diverted, but on the whole, I knew what was going to happen for the whole book. It seemed like such a shame that a guy like Corradino would have such a wimpy relative. I would recommend it to those who are insatiably searching for yet another happy ending, but not to those who are, like me, realists and don't mind a little salt in place of the sugary, fluffy, cotton candy written by those who care more about the happy ending than the grit of history.

Final Verdict:

Slightly better than a Harlequin Romance novel. But only slightly.

This book reminded me a bit of The Rossetti Letter, not just because of the setting (Venice past and present) but because the story of the past influences the modern day story...and they both involved modern day women with broken marriages looking for a new lease on life. This one works less effectively than the ROssetti Letter, but was readable nonetheless.
After a painful divorce, the beautiful descendant of a famous glass blower decides to travel to Venice to look into her family's past and becomes a glassblower (the first woman) in the meantime. There's a love interest of course, in the improbable person of a government official that helps her obtain a work visa.

The story moves along well, is never out and out boring, and would make a good read for whenever you like these kinds of books. I like them at bedtime so if I doze off I don't feel so bad, I save the beach for books that require my undivided and relaxed attention. Something, however, kept me from loving this...maybe its the chauvinist glassblowers (I am from Venice, this part was overblown), or maybe it was the lack of believable suspense in the modern day love story. There was a distinct feeling of a contrived story in many parts, it just didn't flow. Most probably it was the lack of real emotion in any of the story telling, the most emotion is shown in the flight of the young child and his family from the secret council and how the child eventually becomes a glassblower. This part was interesting to read, but by no means original.

Take this for what it is, and you'll enjoy it,

I wish I could give this book more stars, but the abundance of jarring editorial gaffes prevents me. Aside from the misplaced quotation marks, missing letters, words, etc. that render sentences meaningless and force the reader to guess--the most unbelievable is that not once, but TWICE, the author refers to the the 21st-century Leonora as the "ancestor" of the 17th-century Corradino. Who edited this book???

All that said, the details about Venetian glass and mirror-making are fascinating, and the 17th-century story-line is intriguing. The parallel 21st-century story is a bit sappy and "chick-lit," and does not quite measure up to the "Rosettti Letter" model, but to its credit, has a happy and moral ending. I only wish this novel had had one or two more edits.

Sarah Bruce Kelly
Author of THE RED PRIEST'S ANNINA

Being a history buff with a particular interest in Venice, I was looking forward to a light, historical fiction read. I was even OK with the romance angle of the book, though it's not my first choice of genre.

But the actual writing behind this book is so amateurish that it insults the reader. Let me give you some examples.

Early in the book, Nora has no money concerns, she's just gotten all the proceeds from the sale of a house that the writer tells us is impressive and important enough to have a name, Belmont. A few chapters later, after less than a month in a hotel, Nora is worried about collecting a workman's paycheck because she's nearly run through all her money?

The dialogue is insipid. In more than one place, Nora or another character refers aloud to "Corrado, known as Corradino." Seriously, say that out loud to yourself. Who speaks like that? Why would multiple people speak in the same stilted way?

She immediately moves into an apartment, lives there a month, and the writer tells us she's been in Venice now for four months. What? Where did those two extra months come from? And why has it been Autumn and "end of the tourist season" for three straight months?

A journalist character appears. We're told she's ambitious and driven. She was promoted to a bureau in Rome, then Milan, now back to Venice to an even higher position. And she's sent out to write some puff-piece story about a marketing campaign? Really? The author clearly knows nothing about how newspapers work. Driven, ambitious, important journalists don't take assignments that even an intern would scoff at.

In that chapter with journalist, the author makes the worst, most amateurish mistake. Mid-chapter, she suddenly jumps perspective from the main character, Nora, and jerks the reader into this journalist's head -- no warning, no signal of the switch, nothing. This is the type of mistake beginning writers learn not to do in Fiction Writing 101 classes.

Chapter 19, "The Fourth Estate," is where I finally had to give up. The writer gives us the text of a story that appears in a local paper. Please, Ms. Fiorato, please show me just ONE real newspaper story that has ever included lines like "Our readers will remember just days ago" or "Little did we know then what this paper has been able to discover..." Ms. Fiorato, have you ever actually *read* a newspaper? Even a passing glance would have told you that this isn't how newspapers are written.

Where was the editor for this book? The marketing department did a great job packaging the thing, but why didn't an editor kick this manuscript back and make Ms. Fiorato rewrite these ridiculous passages?

As for the historic elements, the information about Venice and glassblowing is slapped into the text in the most ham-handed fashion. Italian words are thrust in unnecessarily when they don't add texture or flavor -- really, why not just us the English word proprietor?

This book insults the reader, and should embarrass the author (though since she's churned out three of these things, good on her for turning a buck). Venice has grounds to sue Ms. Fiorato and ban her from mentioning its name in print ever again.

"The Glassblower of Murano" is one of the best new novels I have read. The author takes you back and forth from the 1680's to the 2000's with a smoothness unusual to a first nove. The story line is excellent and the characters are so well-fleshed out that the reader becomes part of the story. I started this book and could hardly put it down. A great "beach" book. A totally encompasing experience. If you have been to Venice, and especially to Murano, this book will take you back. If you
you have never been, take my word this book will take you there.

I sort-of liked The Glassblower of Murano. Nora goes to Venice after her husband divorces her for a uglier woman. Her idea is to focus on her glassblowing career, inspired to go not only by a desire to develop her own artistic skill with glass but also by a desire to find a link to family, more precisely to a famous glassblower ancestor of a father she never knew. Not surprisingly she has to overcome some obstacles and finds some romance along the way. A lot of her success comes from her being a pretty blond that inspires men to move mountains to help her.

What did I like? Well, I lived in Italy for a year, love Venice and the clever juxtaposition of the two family members lives being tied together generations apart was done fairly well and the vehicle was good. If you like romances and a little historical fiction, you will enjoy very much. The history of the glassblowers was the most intriguing part, I thought.

What didn't I like? I didn't really like the heroine of the book, and those kinds of books are always hard sells. I never really connected to her and didn't really ever feel bad for her. I think it is just a character development issue for me. Her fish out of water story wasn't from her living in a new place, it was because she gets shunned at the workplace? She spends time telling us about the mother and her relationship with her. Then, for someone so concerned about "family" I didn't see a mention of her calling her mother to tell her about any of her big news, though she didn't have a problem mentioning how our erstwhile detective hero called his friends right away. She's supposed to not be concerned about money after the divorce but then we find out she's relieved she's been paid so she can make one month's rent... no other mention of money in the whole thing.

Do I want to spend a whole book with someone I wouldn't like very much at a dinner party? As far as I could tell, Nora's only redeeming quality was that she was pretty and could decorate an apartment... interesting tidbits, but not a fleshed out person for me to like.

Yes, yes, if the writing is good enough, the character development is good, the story is good... here, the writing was decent in parts, the story was good in parts, except just when I was getting ready to keep reading, I kept getting distracted by the break-out italicized thought quotes that were thrown in. The way I read-and I'm a fairly fast reader-made me stop this book a couple times and put it aside to read something else because I would stop and slow down so often in order to read the quote bubbles. If Marina had just told me what they were thinking in the text, I would have been happier. Again, maybe not an issue for everyone.

Enough of this story stuck for me, in the end I would say that especially if historical romance is your deal, then read it. For me, I'm going to wait to see what Fiorata Marina comes out with next... with such smart ideas to anchor the book, I think practice with her writing will only make her better and I'll be willing to give her another chance.