The City of Falling Angels
 |
| Author | John Berendt |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
Publication date | 2005 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | 1-59420-058-0 |
| Preceded by | Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil |
The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt, (author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), tells the story of some interesting inhabitants of Venice, Italy, whom the author met while living there in the months following the fire that destroyed the historic [La Fenice] opera house. All opera lovers refer to the theater as La Fenice, not The Fenice. La Fenice means "Phoenix" in English. It burned again while the 2nd renovation was ongoing. It is now completely restored down to the last detail.
Among those interviewed is Archimede Seguso, who was arguably the finest Venetian glassblower of the twentieth century. Archimede Seguso lived directly behind La Fenice, and explained the amount of passion he felt after it burned. This passion began to directly correlate into his glass, and soon he was creating a whole line dedicated to the memory of the La Fenice fire, his own rendition of how the opera house burned.
The book explores the local reaction to the La Fenice fire, from the Save Venice Foundation to Venice's bureaucratic government.
It also tells the story of many American and English expatriates who went to live in Venice, from Daniel Curtis, who owned Palazzo Barbaro where Henry James and John Singer Sargent were guests, to the poet Ezra Pound who lived the last part of his life in Venice with his long-time mistress Olga Rudge.
Upon this book's release on September 27, 2005, it entered Amazon.com's Top Ten Bestsellers list and was number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
According to Kirkus Reviews, "Berendt does great justice to an exalted city that has rightly fascinated the likes of Henry James, Robert Browning, and many filmmakers throughout the world." [1]
References
- ^ Kirkus Reviews (1 August 2005)
External links
 | This article about a non-fiction book is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |