The Floating Book : A Novel of Venice - Michelle Lovric
by Zia ~ June 12th, 2006. Filed under: Books.
At first, I hated it. Then, I got sucked in. Then I lost interest. And finally, I liked it again. This enormous tome — purported to be like Venice itself — has several intermingled storylines. There are the letters from the Roman poet Catallus with their florid prose and lovelorn laments. There is the narrative of the German printer Wendelin von Speyer who publishes Catallus’ poems against a backdrop of the Inquisitors. There is the singular voice of his Venetian wife, a loving, superstitious woman. And there’s Sosia Simeon, a Serbian woman who transmutes her suffering into a nymphomaniacal fervor and is like a Renaissance reincarnation of Catallus’ Lesbia, littering the canals with the hearts of young men. Vivid and colorful, great summer reading.