Customer Reviews

The Venetian's Wife: A Strangely Sensual Tale of a Renaissance Explorer, a Computer, and a Metamorphosis

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Venetian's Wife is a book that takes the mind on an unforgetable adventure.It dishes out the unbelievable in reality.Nick Bantock's style of writing mixed with his transaction of words,which flow together beautifully,paint a vivid picture in the mind.I love the way you can read the personal letters meant someone else and not feel any guilt.I also enjoyed learning about the Hindu culture while reading this book.I think that Nick Bantock has an extroidanary talent that can make you look at the world from a different vantage point.It mixes up a romantic love story with a reality-check situation that really challenges and urges your thinking of mind to go further than the average mind.

... but I mean that in a good way. Sara, the heroine, receives cryptic messages from a (seemingly) all-knowing spirit. He hangs in the half-world between life and death, with some arcane task not yet finished. She helps him complete what was not completed in life, and then ...

That would be telling. The fact is, the spirit (Conti) is a friendly, chatty sort and offers fair pay for services rendered. He even arranges some interesting (and quite businesslike) travel. He also has some suggestions regarding her would-be boyfriend. As it turns out, the suggestions aren't needed. Something larger than Conti is also involving itself with Sara, and is quite the opposite of the ominous, evil force that Sara might have feared.

This story may be Bantock's finest. It includes all of the themes that seem to fascinate Bantock: the alternatives to life and death, exchange between the human and the supernatural, and the growth of intimacy as a force in itself. Also, the story is wholly contained in one volume. I like that: I can see how the plot plays out without waiting a year or two for the next chapter. Some people might feel that closure impairs the sense of mystery. That's a matter of personal taste, though, so I can neither agree nor disagree.

Sad to say, the "Wife" includes less of Bantock's incredible artwork than any other book I've seen. His layered, complex story almost makes up for lack of his layered, complex art, but not quite.

Bantock fans: this a must-have. Bantock newcomers: you'll find more of his signature art in any of the other books published to date.

The Venetian's Wife is the perfect companion to the Griffin and Sabine Trilogy. The imagery is inescapable, as intended, and transports you to a realm where identification and reality are illusions. It's a beautiful tale that rings too true.

This is a great book for anyone interested in art, computer science, the Renaissance and Italy, or Indian mythology and religion. Bantock strikes again with his "illustrated correspondence" in which he mixes technology and modern ideas with Renaissance intrigue and thought of the lost manuscript of an ancient Indian manuscript. The reader will find themselves lost in the emails and correspondence between Sara (the protagonist) and her mysterious mentor, as she finds the mystery behind the manuscript and finds herself in a sensual journey about the power of love.

I thought this book was beautiful as well as thrilling. I liked the indian sculpture theory, and felt Bantock had a good point of view of the main character herself. I felt the character's life was very realistic and interesting. I liked the way he put the story of the explorer and the beautiful art panels and collages of indian sculptures (I noticed a mistake in the artwork, yet it really doesn't matter) You will find this tale delightful and spooky!

I could not put the Venetian's Wife down as soon as I started reading it. I loved the beautiful pictures on each page and though the characters are somewhat shallow the author's economy works well with the plot, which is so original and unpredictable! This was my first experience with Bantock's writing. I had alway meant to check out his Griffin and Sabine books because the art work looks so interesting. I received the Venetian's Wife as a gift. I am an art historian and work at an art museum so my brother thought the book was particularly appropriate for me. Until the very end, The Venetian's Wife was one of my favorite books; however, I found the end extremely disappointing. I felt cheated and angry; like the author did not finish his work.

_The Venetian's Wife_ was the first book I read by Nick Bantock. I have heard wonderful reviews of his other books, and was really looking forward to a great reading experience. Unfortunately, the story was pretty weak. I did like the epistolatory style of the book: all emails, journal entries, and letters.

A museum conservator is emailed with a wonderful proposition: find 4 pieces of ancient art that belong to The Conti Foundation collection. The patron tells her he will pay her extremely well, and naturally she accepts the offer, and awaits further instruction. There are some interesting excerpts from Sara's travels, however, the story lost my attention quickly. The idea behind the story had great potential, but poor execution.

However, I do plan to pick up some of Bantock's other books. The art alone was beautiful, and according to other reviews, his other books are much better.

I am a big fan of Nick Bantock's and I looked forward eagerly to reading this book. The artwork is much more sparse than his Griffin and Sabine trilogy but still I liked the story line a lot. It's fun to read the brief descriptions of Hindu mythology, and I found our main characters, Sara Wolfe and Niccolo Dei Conti, interesting, intelligent and likeable. I could relate on a personal level to the friendship, caring and sexual attraction that Sara and Marco shared, and was happy with its "reality". The characters Sara encounters on her travels are interesting too. Here were all the ingredients for an amazing conclusion. Alas it was not to be. I was very disappointed by the lacklustre ending I got. It's left to the reader to assume that Sara or Marco or both are descendants of Conti in some way but it's vague. I love the idea of a love so intense and profound that even death cannot overcome it and I'm willing to accept that Conti had to wait for a certain person with the right combination of factors to appear to unlock the key before he could be reunited with his beloved Yashoda, but Bantock could have given us a far better ending than the one he did, considering the superb buildup.

THE VENETIAN'S WIFE came out in 1996, when former children's book illustrator Nick Bantock was riding the wave of popularity following his tale of a curious correspondence, the Griffin and Sabine trilogy. That trilogy was tolerable, because its exotic format with real envelopes to be opened and an abundance of beautiful paintings made up for the derivative and hackneyed storyline. In THE VENETIAN'S WIFE, Bantock continues to adorn the book with art, but it's very limited compared to the G&S trilogy, so that Bantock's poor skills as a writer show all the more clearly.

THE VENETIAN'S WIFE begins with the death of an explorer, Niccolo dei Conti, in 15th century Italy, when he had lost his Indian wife and two children to a plague. More than 500 years later, Sara Wolfe, a restorator of art in San Francisco, receives an e-mail message from an "N. dei Conti." This mysterious employer hires Sara to bring together a group of Hindu statues that Niccolo dei Conti gathered in his travels in India. It turns out that the messages are sent by Conti's ghost, who can travel through computers and other electrical devices. Thus, THE VENETIAN'S WIFE joins other lackluster "ghost in the machine" tales of that part of the 90's, like Astro Teller's EXEGESIS.

THE VENETIAN'S WIFE eventually becomes slightly "sensual." Or so the dust jacket says. I found its kooky New Age eroticism to be highly annoying. Sara enters a relationship with a fellow employee of her museum and the two are brought into a dark plot of Indian sex magic. Or whatever, Bantock doesn't write any portion of this aspect of the book convincingly.

The Griffin and Sabine trilogy was a gimmick that was still worth reading because of its lovely art. THE VENETIAN'S WIFE, however, is a waste of time in which Bantock's skills as a painter are so rarely visible that nothing saves the book from a silly and badly-prosed plot. I'd recommend avoiding this one.

An amazingly presented (graphically) story which follows a woman and her new employer, a mysterious character who only contacts her via computer and needs her to fulfill his unusual goal.

The book is cleverly shown as transcripts of emails and sections from the main character's computer diary. An intruiging story, it's only weak point being that the twist in the plot is abundantly obvious from the start so when it is introduced it has little effect on the reader.