437. A Thousand Days in Venice

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Joni Renee Zalk

Author:   Marlena de Blasi

Genre:   Non Fiction, Travel, Foreign, Memoir

290 pages, published June 3, 2003

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

A Thousand Days in Venice tells the story of Marlena de Blasi, a divorced, middle aged American chef and restaurateur, who meets the Italian banker Fernando on the last day of her trip to Venice.  That meeting turns into a romance which turns into a marriage after Marlena uproots her life to become a Venetian and give love another chance.

Quotes 

“Living as a couple never means that each gets half. You must take turns at giving more than getting. It’s not the same as a bow to the other whether to dine out rather than in, or which one gets massaged that evening with oil of calendula; there are seasons in the life of a couple that function, I think, a little like a night watch. One stands guard, often for a long time, providing the serenity in which the other can work at something. Usually that something is sinewy and full of spines. One goes inside the dark place while the other one stays outside, holding up the moon.”

 

“Much of my crying is for joy and wonder rather than for pain. A trumpet’s wailing, a wind’s warm breath, the chink of a bell on an errant lamb, the smoke from a candle just spent, first light, twilight, firelight. Everyday beauty. I cry for how life intoxicates. And maybe just a little for how swiftly it runs.”

 

“How strange it is, sometimes, which conversations or events stays with us while so much else melts as fast as April snow.”

 

“Some people ripen, some rot.”

 

“Life is this conto, account,” said the banker in him. “It’s an unknown quantity of days from which one is permitted to withdraw only one precious one of them at a time. No deposits accepted.”

 

My Take

A Thousand Days in Venice reminded me a lot of A Year in Provence as it is the type of book that transports and immerses you completely in a different place and culture.  While reading it, I felt like I was in Venice.   De Blasi is a talented and passionate writer and I enjoyed taking this trip with her.