Watermark [Hardcover]

Joseph Brodsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

A collection of forty-eight essays on Venice explores the city's meandering, waterlogged streets, stunningly beautiful architecture, atmospheric characters, and unique spirit. By the author of Less Than One.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As much a brooding self-portrait as a lyric description of Venice, poet Brodsky's quirky, impressionistic essay describes his 17-year romance with a city of dreamlike beauty that banishes nightmares. Praising Venice and its architecture as a triumph of the visual, the Nobel laureate uses his visits there as a touchstone to meditate on life's unpredictability, the appetite for beauty, death, myth and modern art "whose poverty alone makes it prophetic." Waxing confessional, he declares, "I am not a moral man. . . . I am but a nervous man . . . but I am observant" and offers autobiographical asides about his youthful lust for an Italian communist scholar and a 1977 meeting in Venice with Susan Sontag. In his wayward forays amid canals, streets and cathedrals barnacled with saints, the eternal Venice shimmers through the fog, battered yet resplendent.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The Nobel laureate's latest book is a paean to Venice, "itself a work of art," which has welcomed him for 17 winters of reflection and discovery. Brodsky views his adopted city not as a tourist but with the keen eye of a poet, finding beauty (a recurring theme) in the juxtaposition of lacy Venetian facades with "the anarchy of water." After this, he writes, "Everything is a letdown." Moving lightly in its imagery from a string of pearls to the Milky Way, Watermark pays tribute in language worthy of this great city. Its irresistible style and grace combine to express a dream that afterward lingers like a treasured memory. Very highly recommended.
- Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 135 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374148120
• ISBN-13: 978-0374148126
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,649,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ode to a floating, perhaps transient city, November 15, 2002

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Watermark (Paperback)

WATERMARK is an apt title for this splendid collection of thoughts and fugues on the city of Venice, a place where Brodsky returned yearly for seventeen years and where in the solitude of the winter months in this most desirable of tourist destinations he composed some of his best poetry and translations. Brodsky's title refers to the repeated traces (watermarks) the sea makes on the canals and decaying buildings of Venice, like pages from a book of history or of poetry, or a novel. He writes extended soliloquies about the surfaces of the water in the canals and in the surrrounding sea that softly and surely continues to submerge Venice. He also writes colloquies of conversations with Ezra Pound's widow and the subsequent memories and opinions of that controversial figure. His rambling discourses while strolling the narrow streets that follow the canals inevitably to the sea are rich in observation and philosophy. His love for Venice is always palpable. '...the whole city, especially at night, resembles a gigantic orchestra, with dimly lit music stands of palazzi, with a restless chorus of waves, with the falsetto of a star in the winter sky. The music is, of course, greater than the band, and no hand can turn the page.'

Joseph Brodsky is at his finest in much of this small volume. For those who love Venice by association or by dreams of history and the music of Vivaldi, Bellini, and the art of Tiepolo or Titian, this collection of reveries is a must. Elegant, charming, stimulating, and nostalgic.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for lovers of Venice, December 29, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Watermark (Paperback)

Brodsky writes of his memories of seventeen winters in Venice. He has captured the shimmering essence of the Serene Republic in a series of short essays. His focus, as that of the city, is on the water and its reflective capacity. The water and city mirror an inner process for Brodsky and many others who visit. He explores the theme of light upon water from many perspectives, ultimately acknowledging the mystery of both the city, the water and the attachment formed. These memories, fragmented as light on water, will bring any traveler back to the beauty and wonder of Venezia

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars shimmering, August 21, 2000

By 

marzipan "panchild" (Greenwich, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Watermark (Paperback)

For any reader who wants to recreate the mesmerizing effect of walking the watery streets of Venice, reading this book will do it. As you enter Brodsky's very personal meditation on the ancient city that has enchanted so many for so long, his thoughts become your own, and all at once you are there. Dipping into the pages of this book is an armchair traveler's paradise.