Venice

The Lion, the City and the Water

The whole book is the illuminating testimony of a man who cannot look away and so sees things that others, even those with more specialist knowledge, have missed, whether it be the color and consistency of the ropes on the vaporetti, the glistening hues and squirming movements of the fish at the market, or the wondrous effects that Tintoretto could achieve with dabs of white in 'the gleam of armour, the folds in a sleeve, the windings of a turban, the halo of a man of the air who, as in the Last Judgment, is flying through space, in a wide flowing cloak . .

By the author of Roads to Santiago and Roads to BerlinWith this treasury of his time spent in Venice over a period of fifty-five years, Nooteboom makes himself the indispensable companion for all lovers of "the sailing, amphibious city", and for every new visitor.Because he is a master storyteller with an inexhaustible curiosity, and always with a suitcase of books (to which new discoveries are added), he brings vividly and poetically to life not only the tumultuous history of the Republic but along the way its doges, its villains, its heroes, its magnificent painters, its architects, its scholars, its skies, its

canals and piazzas and alleyways, and on his expeditions its "bronze voices of time". Those who know and love this city and its literature will recognise Nooteboom - in Laura Watkinson's fine translation - as the dazzling heir and companion to Montaigne, Thomas Mann, Rilke, Ruskin, Proust, Brodsky, and Donna Leon. His homage to Venice is a generous introduction, learned and enchanting, and worthy of its magnificent subject.