A Venetian Affair...

They kept each other at a safe distance: lovemaking was mostly limited to what their eyes could see and what their eyes could say. It is easy to imagine how, in a city where both men and women wore masks during a good portion of the year, the language of the eyes would become all-important...

"Today my lips will not be able to tell you how much i love you...But there will be other ways...Will you understand what my eyes will be saying to you?"
--Andrea Memmo, in a letter to Giustiniana Wynne.


I just started reading "A Venetian Affair" by Andrea di Robilant yesterday afternoon. What makes this such an interesting read, is that this book is based upon the love letters between Andrea Memmo and Giustiniana Wynne, which were written in the 18th century.

So, its real. The book isn't written in a prose of a fictional novel. Its a man telling a love story that his father was unable to tell before he died from a terrible death. I'm not naive to believe every word of it. Obviously some letters have been lost or disintegrated because they were so old. And obviously the letters were from only the two lovers perspective, so they would be considerably biased. Some gaps would need to be filled, but the author has tried to keep the account as true as possible. The fact that he is writing about his own ancestor, makes this book all the more intriguing to me.

I've only just started and its taking me a while to get my head around reading it, names are Italian and long, there are too many Piazza's that they refer to that keeps me wondering which is which. And i had just finished reading another book which was from the present, so flicking between centuries is taking a toll on me, i think.

Even though its a struggle, i cant stop reading. Its absorbing and i didnt think a man could tell a love story based on letters so old and make it riveting, especially when it appears to be written like a history book or book of essays. There are direct quotes, there are footnotes and explanations, a summary at the beginning...and there is possibly a conclusion at the end - i have yet to confirm this.

Its quite an exotic read.

The letters were actually written in a type of hieroglyphs. So, they were in themself a task to translate without losing the essence of the lover's words.

I'm going to be glued for a while to this book.

I may go MIA.

If you dont hear from me, im just reading.

I'll get back to you when i finish the book.