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Title details for By the Grand Canal by William Rivière - Available

By the Grand Canal

by William Rivière
Simon Vance
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

In the aftermath of the First World War, Hugh Thurne, a British diplomat involved in the peace negotiations, seeks solace in his rented palazzo in Venice rather than returning to his wife and the charade of his marriage in London. Although profoundly disturbed by the grim long-term prospects for peace, he has faith in the city's power to raise his spirits. Hugh eagerly looks forward to visits with his old friends Giocomo and Valentina Venier in their dilapidated palazzo by the Grand Canal, renewing his affair with a young opera singer Emanuela, and the arrival of Violet Mancroft, the widow of his best friend lost in the war. What he does not anticipate is the shadow lying over the Venier family's future—nor has he reckoned with the vagaries of his own heart.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 19, 2005

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481549721
      • File size: 185330 KB
      • Duration: 06:26:06

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Text Difficulty: 9-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      BY THE GRAND CANAL is an atmosphere in search of a plot. For atmosphere it's hard to do better than Venice, and casting the story at the close of WWI hardly alters things for Venice-lovers, as few cities can have changed so little in a century. Simon Vance does his best with stork-like Brit Hugh Thurne; his impecunious Venetian friends, the Veniers, in their threadbare palazzo; the two attractive Venier children; Thurn's operatic mistress, Emanuela; and Violet, the widow of Hugh's best friend. But Vance's female voices are unconvincing, Fenice is alternately pronounced "Feneese" and" Fenee-tchay" (why?), and the pace is slow to the point of slack. Pretty thin gruel. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 3, 2005
      The lapping waters of the canals of Venice transport readers to 1920s Italy in this quiet, richly atmospheric novel by Rivière (Kate Caterina
      , etc.). In the aftermath of WWI, British diplomat Hugh Thurne arrives in Venice fresh from the armistice talks. Old family friends Giacomo and Valentina Venier open their crumbling palazzo to him, and soon the lanky man whom friends call "the heron" is involved in a number of romantic dramas that distract him from the cares of war and from his marital troubles brewing back in England. He revels in an affair with passionate Emanuela, an opera singer, but life becomes more complicated when his best friend's widow, Violet, arrives in Venice having lost her husband in the fighting. And soon Hugh's long respite watching the shadows reflected upon the waters of the Grand Canal ends with a heartbreaking journey to the graveyards of San Michele to bury yet another of his dearest friends. Rivière's flair for transposing the finest nuances of gesture and mood to the page lends his novels an extra layer of texture, and here he successfully captures the now-vanished habits of a decaying city. Played in a decidedly minor key, this is a lovely rhapsody of Venice and a stirring philosophical examination of war and its aftermath. Agent, Fletcher & Parry.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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