Venetian Stories

Rating:
Summary: I felt like I was the proverbial fly on the wall
Review: Having read the whole book, I am delighted to find a potpourri of tales, something for everyone. The detail is enough for the mind's eye and ear to make it believe it is the proverbial fly on the wall. One story takes an Italian historical incident and rephrases it into a fictional story, illuminating a human frailty that most of us would secretly understand but hopefully not undertake. Others of these short stories show Freudian and Skinnerian insight into the mind and motives of mothers, rich relatives, aristocrats, and politicians; all topped with O'Henry-esque endings. Reading it was like eating and savoring spoonfuls of a sinfully delicious trifle. One knows one must stop eating, but maybe just a tidbit more, Please? Dave

Rating:
Summary: Not bad for a collection of short stories...
Review: I enjoyed almost all 12 stories in this book, and I liked how much of them interlock in some way or another. The descriptions of Venice made it come alive, and the different viewpoints encompassed a wide variety of people from a visitor to the city to the mayor. You could really tell that the author wanted you to see that the city's upper-class life was fading in most of the stories. However, I had some problems as well. About three of the stories I didn't really "get". They just seemed to make no sense whatsoever. I also found it odd she only wrote about four women, I had wished for more a balance there. Lastly, I often felt like the author was being condescending to the reader, which was a bit of a turnoff. Alright, but nothing great.

Rating:
Summary: Venice was never this boring.
Review: I have not read such a witty or elegant book this side of the year 2000. Finally we have a new challenger for the Best Current Short Story Writer crown - Jane Rylands is by turns Jamesian, good-hearted, arch, open-hearted, wicked, withering, knowing, knowledgeable, in love both with Venice and the art with which it is decorated. And described by her: Rylands' own art, never muttering self-indulgently and insufferably to itself, and yet playfully and powerfully vigilant in its own silky self-awareness.

Rating:
Summary: Illuminates the shadows and shadings of Venetian life.
Review: I love this book and have given it to at least a dozen people. All the curiosity you feel when you visit Venice about what goes on inside the houses and what it feels like to live in Venice is fed by these stories and yet the appetite is insatiable and you can never get enough--partly because the themes are so touching and universal. I hope that the author will provide more of these stories in the same polished style.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I loved this book as I love any well constructed window into a foreign land, and the real venice, the living Venice--that of postmen, gondoliers and socialites is truly foreign. Ms. Rylands captures the details of refinery, squalor, and deceit at play in the most beautiful mudflats, contrasting the decadence of the nobles with the base charm of the lower classes, and weaves a rich and varied story of stories. Having lived in Venice for over a year and a half, I am familiar with many of the quirky bellies of Venetian life which Ms. Rylands depicts.

Rating:
Summary: Fine as terrazzo
Review: I loved this book as I love any well constructed window into a foreign land, and the real venice, the living Venice--that of postmen, gondoliers and socialites is truly foreign. Ms. Rylands captures the details of refinery, squalor, and deceit at play in the most beautiful mudflats, contrasting the decadence of the nobles with the base charm of the lower classes, and weaves a rich and varied story of stories. Having lived in Venice for over a year and a half, I am familiar with many of the quirky bellies of Venetian life which Ms. Rylands depicts.

Rating:
Summary: Bravo! Encore!
Review: I've been to Venice a few times, and Ms Rylands' book is funny and moving and most of all, gives you a real feel for the city. I think it's really sympathetic to the inhabitants. My favourite has to be the story of the Countess-a woman who is struggling against the collapse of her family and what she perceives to be the slow death of Venice, as tourism ruins life for the local inhabitants, who are leaving for the mainland. Like one of her famous courtesans, her beauty has brought Venice tourism and wealth, but at what cost?

Like all Turner-Rylands' depictions of family life, the outcome of the Countess story is very touching, and definitely optimistic. She clearly has adopted the italian reverence for the family.

...I don't know if these are real people she's based her book on as the Iowa reviewer seems to think (perhaps he/she knows something I don't), but it's to the author's credit that they seem so utterly real. If they are, I'd love to meet them...Venetian Stories certainly made me wanna go back to Venice soon!

Rating:
Summary: A missed opportunity...
Review: Jane Turner Rylands has lived in Venice for thirty years and, according to the jacket copy of this collection of short stories, her husband is the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of modern art. One can assume therefore that Ms. Rylands is fairly well positioned to write a perceptive account of what really happens in Venice. The surprising and disappointing thing is how many of the stories in this book involve unpleasant people stabbing each other in the back and jockeying for social position.
To be fair, Rylands' writing is polished and she can tell a story well. But she has an annoying fatal flaw: it's her irritating condescension, which never lets up. Really talented story-tellers are truly engaged with their characters; Ms. Rylands' haughty tone sets her apart and puts the reader off at the same time. In addition, she often strains for effect with awkward or even downright silly results--as in the book's very first sentence: "When the last quarter of the twentieth century opened throttle for the millennium and the Venice of today...."
Rylands would probably have been better off writing a book of nonfiction about her own life in Venice and the lives of other real people who live there. But then, maybe she did and this is it.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful! It brings me back
Review: These vignettes really did bring me back to the place I love the most. The smells, the vitality, the corruption, the moral decay, it's all here. Wunderbar!