travel

Subtitled, "An unexpected romance," I was pleasantly surprised to find this jewel of a book to be in the biography section, but, of course, it is actually a true story of a middle-aged lady (she kind of hides that fact for a while) who leaves everything behind in her American life, including her now grown children, to marry an Italian who somehow fell in love with her simply by seeing her in Venice on a business trip.

Venice is hard to explain to someone who has not been there; it's a city in the past living out the present, as it has for hundreds of years. One wonders what goes on between the canals, in all the second floors of all the buildings that can only be reacted by pedestrian bridges or water taxis. Reading this book after such a trip makes it all the more enjoyable. The addition of recipes in a biography must surely be a first. Also, the use of an autobiographical format to tell a love story, is also very unusual. If there's one fault in the book, it's that we want to more about Marlena's life, both before her U.S. life fell apart but especially after she has been married for several years, after the book's conclusion. It really deserves an Epilogue, but this in no way diminishes the romance, coupled with the pleasures of the water city. But I would like to know her husband('the stranger')'s last name which as I recall, is never even mentioned in the book.

A Thousand Days in Venice is proof that it's never too late to live a dream. The story has a fairy tale quality, yet it really happened: Marlena de Blasi, a chef who is at a bit of a loose end in her life meets a Venetian bank clerk who had observed her before on one of her previous trips to Venice and fallen in love. Throwing caution to the winds, (as she says, "There hasn't been a prudent decision in this story."), de Blasi gives in to her love-at-first-sight response to the "blueberry-eyed stranger" and follows her heart where it leads her. Dispersing her home and possessions in the States, she packs up and moves to Venice to be with Fernando. Their romance and courtship against the backdrop of one of the most romantic places on earth is enchantingly and sensuously told. De Blasi is a master at evoking in word pictures the sights, and scents, textures, and sounds of La Sererenissima.
The adustments, compromises, and mutual discoveries that romance and a new marriage bring into the lives of Marlena and Fernando are related with humor and a sense of wonder at the changes brought about by this unexpected later life event. True to her her passion for cooking, foods and recipes play a part in de Blasi's story. Best of all, she ends her book with a selection of recipes that play a role in her romance so that the reader may extend the enchantment into the kitchen.

Details, the essence of domesticity, shine in this story. There are the travelogue-esque descriptions of Venice: Napoleon's observation about Piazza San Marco and viewing works of art sequestered in ancient churches. There's a discussion of making house, once in the Midwest in a little house I would love to see and again in the grotty chaos of a bachelor's digs. And throughout are delicious descriptions of food and drink and the ways and places to enjoy them.

Like youth, this book may be somewhat wasted on the young. The small ruminations, the reflections on how we find a place and make a place in life may seem over-wrought. Until the onset of my own middle-age, I felt the same way about such memoirs. Now, I greet writings like this with a mixture of recognition and enthusiasm: recognition of the silly ways we fumble along and enthusiasm for another's discovery that it is not too late to savour what is delicious about life. In that, I find a parable of encouragement.