Rating: 
Summary: An Enchanted Romance with a Man and a Place
Review: A Thousand Days in Venice is proof that it's never too late to live a dream. The story has a fairy tale quality, yet it really happened: Marlena de Blasi, a chef who is at a bit of a loose end in her life meets a Venetian bank clerk who had observed her before on one of her previous trips to Venice and fallen in love. Throwing caution to the winds, (as she says, "There hasn't been a prudent decision in this story."), de Blasi gives in to her love-at-first-sight response to the "blueberry-eyed stranger" and follows her heart where it leads her. Dispersing her home and possessions in the States, she packs up and moves to Venice to be with Fernando. Their romance and courtship against the backdrop of one of the most romantic places on earth is enchantingly and sensuously told. De Blasi is a master at evoking in word pictures the sights, and scents, textures, and sounds of La Sererenissima.
The adustments, compromises, and mutual discoveries that romance and a new marriage bring into the lives of Marlena and Fernando are related with humor and a sense of wonder at the changes brought about by this unexpected later life event. True to her her passion for cooking, foods and recipes play a part in de Blasi's story. Best of all, she ends her book with a selection of recipes that play a role in her romance so that the reader may extend the enchantment into the kitchen.
Rating: 
Summary: Love is (Venetian) Blind
Review: Author de Blasi portrays herself as the woman that Italian banker Fernando falls passionately in love with at first sight, the woman that everyone in Venice seems to be enchanted with, the American that complete strangers all over Italy are charmed by. This seems like a pretty risky move for a writer, and not quite believable, but somehow she pulls it off.
By concentrating on the attractions and food of Venice, and by sticking to the unfolding of an unlikely love affair, de Blasi makes A Thousand Days in Venice an enjoyable story. It isn't very long before you stop thinking about how eccentric de Blasi must be in real life and just lose yourself in the romance of Venice.
There was just enough conflict here to keep A Thousand Days from being a soppy travelogue. All of de Blasi's friends were convinced that she was making a dreadful mistake by giving up her house and job in Saint Louis (as she insists on spelling it) and moving to Venice to marry a man she had met only months before. Then as she gets to know Fernando better, she finds he has certain ideas about how she should dress, conduct herself, and speak. Will the romance survive the doubts and the clash of cultures?
Of course it does, and after the couple exhausts Venice with their exuberance, they move on to Tuscany to start a new life, and a new book.
Rating:
Summary: More than a fairy tale; maybe it's also a parable
Review: Details, the essence of domesticity, shine in this story. There are the travelogue-esque descriptions of Venice: Napoleon's observation about Piazza San Marco and viewing works of art sequestered in ancient churches. There's a discussion of making house, once in the Midwest in a little house I would love to see and again in the grotty chaos of a bachelor's digs. And throughout are delicious descriptions of food and drink and the ways and places to enjoy them.Like youth, this book may be somewhat wasted on the young. The small ruminations, the reflections on how we find a place and make a place in life may seem over-wrought. Until the onset of my own middle-age, I felt the same way about such memoirs. Now, I greet writings like this with a mixture of recognition and enthusiasm: recognition of the silly ways we fumble along and enthusiasm for another's discovery that it is not too late to savour what is delicious about life. In that, I find a parable of encouragement.
Rating: 
Summary: ponderous tale of weighty self-reflection
Review: everyone else seems to love this book - the star I awarded it was only in recognition of the wonderful city of venice in which it is set and the not frequent enough references to food and recipes contained therein. for the rest of it - I could have screamed. I think I might have. Ms de Blasi has a very ponderous writing style - when I finally hit her expression in which I paraphrase she savoured time like an apronful of warm figs, I hit my limit. Every step she takes is weighty, every mouthful she eats has depth and every observation she makes she imparts as if burdened with wisdom. and a healthy dose of self-esteem - we are assured she transferred a grotty venetian apartment into a haven of domesticity and style with a deft hand and some old scarves. After taking such a bold move in moving countries, she then seems to decide enough decisions have been made and leaves every other turn and ramble their life takes to The Stranger, who appears kinda weak-willed and slack jawed and rather irritating after a while. for venice and an appreciation of food and the role it plays in life, only just enough to get me through the self-satisfied prosey prose.
Rating: 
Summary: Venice . . . a Romantic Springboard to a New Life
Review: Gourmet food writer, gourmand extraordinaire and makeshift interior decorator, Marlena De Blasi, throws caution to the wind when she leaves her home base in America to marry a man she barely knows from Venice. Is she crazy or merely sensationally romantic?
If I were to analyze la bella dona, Marlena, by her writing alone, I would submit that indeed she is a romantic---each of the moments she describes on the island of Lido and Venice proper, wax with almost too much poetry. In spite of this tendency for long windedness, Marlena infuses her little book with such infectious optimism for the future that the reader automatically forgives her indulgences.
After all, it is she, not us, taking the big chance, exchanging her old life for something completely foreign. And she does this, not as a young ingenue in her 20s or early 30s but as a mature woman with grown children. Each of her decisions and contemplations is most intricately explored; questions that arise in any mature mind are handled with an infinite and loving look at a future that isn't as long as it seemed when one was much younger. Brava, Marlena, for giving the spark of love a chance to grow into a flame and to express your anxieties with such honesty.
The first part of Marlena's story ignites that flame within the reader's heart; the details of the mystery Venetian steadfastly wooing the woman of his dreams based on just a glimpse of her profile emulates the great romances. The author's technique of flashing back to her first visit to Venice does not make its thematic point as quickly as one would wish, and so seems to muddy the pace of the actual tale of courtship and marriage. However, this, too does not mar the overall tapestry that De Blasi ultimately crafts.
In the second half of the book. De Blasi deals with her assimilation into the Italian mindset--a transition she makes totally possible through her use of interior design and her love of good food--wonderful recipes of some of the key meals mentioned in the text are thoughtfully provided at the end of the book. The couples' decision to chuck their newly converted Lido apartment for a life of helping others create their own dream environment in Tuscany and Umbria seems perfectly in tune with the book's emphasis on shunning the routine and keeping life a continuum of surprise. I hope that Marlena will follow this book up with a tale of her new adventures as the couple molts into their new lifestyle.
Recommended to all those who love romance and the thought of living in a foreign land.
Rating:
Summary: A cookbook disguised as a romance
Review: I very much enjoyed this story of accidental romance, but by far the biggest benefit of owning this book has been the recipes in the back: we have cooked most of them and added each new dish to our list of favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely romance
Review: In a similar vein as "Under the Tuscan Sun" but briefer and a bit darker.
Does make you want to fly to someplace exotic to meet your own "stranger".
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and true love story
Review: In St. Louis, Marlena lives alone having been divorced and her two adult children out from the roost. She is a successful chef and food writer, but has little to show in her recent personal life. Marlena travels to Venice where the Stranger stares at her as if she is Miss Italy. Banker Fernando believes that he has found his soul mate. They talk and share a romantic interlude before she returns to Missouri. Surprisingly, he travels to the States to persuade Marlena that this is love. She agrees to go to Venice because this may be love. Neither understands the desires of the other except for the passion between them, yet a warm relationship forms as love, indeed, flourishes. However, will her spontaneity and her love for cooking die or will she bring her beloved into the world of the gourmand. Marlena de Blasi provides uses the novel format to explain how she and her beloved met, fell in love, and forged a relationship. The true story simmers slowly so that those who demand instant gratification will want to pass. Those readers who relish a tasteful morsel (and a few recipes) will appreciate this true eternal love story found during the author's middle age when society catalogues folks as part of the over the hill gang. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Venice in love
Review: This is a light, but thought-provoking book about not giving up on love, taking chances, and compromising without resentment. It is a delightful read, made even more pleasing because it is autobiographical. Would that more of us had this kind of courage and trust in ourselves and those we fall in love with.
Rating:
Summary: I really can't understand people who don't love this book!
Review: This is the best memoir I've read in years, and I'm a pretty harsh critic. I loved De Blasi's style, as well as her willingness to uncover many of her emotional vulnerabilities during the course of the book.
I'm not going to say it's perfect. There were sentences I had to read twice every now and then--clunky sentences--and sometimes there was a bit of repetition. Still, just like Venice itself with all her imperfections, the sum total of all the book's parts make it a beautiful read. (Make that a serenissima read!)
It's somehow terribly encouraging to know there are still women like Marlena De Blasi out there. She had the courage to envision a new life for herself and then go for it. I found this highly inspirational. That this romance is set in Venice only makes it all the more appealing.
Additionally, I found it compelling that she doesn't paint her relationship with her new Italian husband to be 100% rosy.
I would recommend this whole-heartedly to any Italo-philes and people who themselves may be experiencing a "mid-life change of plans."
Excuse me while I go buy all her other books.
|
