Rating: 
Summary: Should have left this book in her dreams
Review: A better title would have been "My Evil Venetian Landlords". Paula Weideger recounts her off-again, on-again, life in Venice renting an apartment in a 17th-century palazzo. Those of us obsessed with Venice will read anything set there, but this will give you relatively little about Venice and relatively more than you want to know about Ms. Weidger's ability to get the best of her landlord.If you or I lived such a life, and kept a diary about it, the diary might be just as full of the petty annoyances of our day-to-day lives: squabbles with the landlords, constant annoyance with malfunctioning appliances, down-the-nose observations about the fashion choices of other women, and a general self-obsession. It's what diaries are for, in a way. Weideger's error is not in having written 300+ pages of self-obsession but in publishing it. I'm not sorry I read it (that's how much of a Venice-lover I am), but the rest of you might be better off heading for the local library than opening your wallet for this one.
Rating:
Summary: Should have left this book in her dreams
Review: A better title would have been "My Evil Venetian Landlords". Paula Weideger recounts her off-again, on-again, life in Venice renting an apartment in a 17th-century palazzo. Those of us obsessed with Venice will read anything set there, but this will give you relatively little about Venice and relatively more than you want to know about Ms. Weidger's ability to get the best of her landlord. If you or I lived such a life, and kept a diary about it, the diary might be just as full of the petty annoyances of our day-to-day lives: squabbles with the landlords, constant annoyance with malfunctioning appliances, down-the-nose observations about the fashion choices of other women, and a general self-obsession. It's what diaries are for, in a way. Weideger's error is not in having written 300+ pages of self-obsession but in publishing it. I'm not sorry I read it (that's how much of a Venice-lover I am), but the rest of you might be better off heading for the local library than opening your wallet for this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Venetian Whining
Review: Alice Roosevelt Longworth owed a needlepoint pillow, which famously, was kept on the sofa in her drawing room. It read: "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone - come sit by me!" She would have loved Paula Weideger. Ms Weideger has written a book you won't be able to put down. Not because you're magically transported to Venice, or because Weideger's prose offers up glimpses of some secret or hitherto unknown corners of a majestic and beautiful city - you're not, and it doesn't; but because you simply won't believe the snide comments she manages to dish up on everyone. Weideger seems to be burdened friends who always have ulterior motives, and with a husband who doesn't want to live in Venice. And, on top of that, according to Weideger, he apparently can't manage something as simple as buying vaparetto tickets. No wonder she's bitter. Then there's the double-crossing landlady who substitutes patched sheets for the ones with embroidered coronets, and dinner guests who show up empty-handed. It's almost more than a body can stand. Anyway, despite all the tribulation, I guess it's nice to know that Ms Weideger has a sense of humor. Why else would she call this whiney nightmare "Venetian Dreaming"?
Rating: 
Summary: A Venice Lover? Not Really!
Review: As one who has lived in Venice for twenty years, and who knows the characters described in the book, (almost without exception in unflattering terms), as well as the places and experiences described, I can only wonder if Ms. Weideger had managed to learn Italian before attempting to write a book about Venice and the Venetians, if she would have been able to present a more positive picture. I found, like a previous reviewer, that the book was indeed a "wallow in self-pity."
It is too bad because the author writes extremely well, but she has a negative, almost hostile edge to her prose that colors the entire book.
Rating: 
Summary: An invitation to a new society
Review: From the first paragraph of her introduction, Weideger invites you to experience with her the discovery of a new social, historical and artistic world. As a person who has been struck by the extraordinary beauty of the tourist's Venice, I was delighted to journey with the writer into the palaces and gardens I had only imagined. A witty and intelligent voyage into a hidden world.
Rating:
Summary: A True Disappointment
Review: From the lovely cover art and the description on the inside flap, this book seemed like it would be a transporting experience. Alas, they are deceptive. The book is dreadful. Many people have expressed a desire to live in Venice. However, not everyone is suited by nature of their personality. Ms. Weideger should have considered this before her decampment from London/New York. While I applaud her enthusiasm and energy, both of which are displayed in abundance, Weideger appears to have a particularly abrasive and angst-ridden personality that she does not hesitate to impose on those around her. While some of her historical insights are most interesting, they pale in comparison to the number of very boring details of computer glitches and caustic confrontations. Certainly, her opinions on art should be taken with a grain of salt (Carpaccio's delightful St. Jerome and the Lion is described as 'the most convincing depiction of fear I have ever seen.' Goodness, the lion looks about as dangerous as a labrador. I can only conclude the author has not spent too much time with Tintoretto) The needlessly cruel and sarcastic descriptions of various expatriates to whom Ms. Weideger was introduced are simply inappropriate. I certainly can understand why she was unable to make more friends in the city. After slogging through her book, I certainly had no desire to make her acquaintance.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Book Ever Set in Venice
Review: Henry James said something to the effect that everything that can be said about Venice already has been. Unfortunately, that didn't stop Paula Weideger. This is undoubtedly the worst book set in Venice I have ever read or hope to read. "Set in," Venice, not "about" it: the only thing this book is about is its monumentally unappealing author. Previous reviewers have adequately described the persona Paula Weideger presents here-a spiteful, self-obsessed, incapable whiner who drags her mysteriously complaisant husband halfway across Europe essentially on a whim, who, in spite of her pride in her research about the city, is continually surprised by facts available in any decent guidebook (it takes three trips before she even notices that there is something bizarre about the Venetian address numbering system), who wastes her readers' time with an account of her computer tribulations, and who doesn't have a good word to say about anybody. Is there anything good to say about her? Early on, it's possible to entertain the idea that Weideger is up to something clever. Just as "Paul Theroux," the disagreeable first-person narrator of Paul Theroux's books, is a fictional character related to Paul Theroux but not identical to him, perhaps Weideger has created an even more disagreeable character called "Paula Weideger," to breathe some fresh, ironic life into the I-found-paradise-in-Italy genre. Not a chance. Theroux's game requires conscious craft and some authorial distance from the persona. Weideger has neither: her writing is so unselfconscious it's confessional. That's why reviewers have reacted so strongly to her as a person: instead of writing about Venice she's committed one extended act of unintentional self-revelation. It's like a blog between hard covers. But wait, there's more. No previous reviewer has remarked on the real problem with this book-the sheer incompetence of the writing. I don't mean that the sentences are badly put together; for the most part they aren't. But that's journalism. A travel memoir calls for the tools of fiction-observation and curiosity. Weideger has neither. She seems to think that the way to tell you what something is like is to pile up physical descriptions, rather than selecting the details that convey significance. Naturally, this external style fails miserably when it comes to describing people. Weideger doesn't even seem to realize that it's possible to characterize people in terms of their beliefs and motives rather than their clothes. There's no better example than Weideger's husband, who's so undercharacterized we never even know why he accompanied her to Venice when he assertedly really didn't want to. Possibly worst of all, Weideger has no sense of humor whatsoever (an earlier reviewer's remark to the contrary was dipped in sarcasm). To give her her due, like a stopped clock she can't help but have the occasional insight. The church of the Gesuiti, across the canal from where she lived, is every bit the neglected marvel she says it is (it's still living down the bad rap it got from William Dean Howells in the nineteenth century). And Carnevale, commercial though it is, is vivid enough to bring her prose briefly into something like life. But do yourself a favor. Don't waste your time or money on this book. Read Jan Morris, or Martin Garrett, or Paolo Barbaro, or any decent guidebook instead. Better yet, go to Venice and see what Weideger missed.
Rating:
Summary: On a more forgiving note....
Review: I am one of those middle aged ladies who fell in love with Venice several years ago, manage to spend a month there every year, and read every book about other middle aged ladies in the same position. Yes, I did have high hopes for this book that were not met, but I don't feel quite as negative about it as most of the other reviewers. But I am very generous about most things Venetian, even this book. My main complaint is that she clearly planned on writing this book before she went, perhaps to subsidize the trip, so that I felt she was trying to have experiences she could make a book out of- a fatal error, as far as I'm concerned, and why I dislike Theroux so much. This is not experience described, but experience lived in order to be described. In other words, she opened the prosecco before she got there and the effect is flat, flat, flat. However, I did love the description of the palazzo and all its quirky physical eccentricities. The landlady is a classic in my experience, and I, too, had to find a Venetian solution to mine. I admired the energy and tenacity she put into taking on a new language in middle age, as well as her appetite for seeing and doing. It made me resolve to put more energy into my next trip. The socialites, high society, and endlessly boring cocktail parties we could have certainly done without, but again I felt like she did that to fill up the pages.I suspect she truly loves Venice and would be a delight to actually know. She is not the first woman to prostitute herself in order to just be there. I wouldn't read it again or recommend it to anyone, but I'm not sorry I bought it.
Rating:
Summary: Did we read the same book?
Review: I can only imagine that james whatever reads through a veil of vitriole. Where I see wit, he sees complaint. Where I see interesting and engaging painting of historical background, he sees brief and occasional scribblings. I can only think he is either an embittered armchair traveler who never gets to go anywhere or just a plain mean spirited person with an unstated agenda. Too bad 5 out of 5 who read this poison chose to believe an obvious canard.
Rating:
Summary: Amusing, bitchy, interesting...
Review: I picked the book up in order to remind myself of the fabulousness of Venice. And it did just that. However, I also got a big kick out of the author. She is hilariously judgemental and bitchy! Her accounting of her landlord makes me want to root for the landlord! Seems like a gal I'd love to have a cocktail with, but would hate to have as a mom. My fiance and I are heading to Italy for our honeymoon. It'll be his first time to Venice, and my second. I don't think the book was brilliant, but it was amusing, nonetheless.
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