Published in Write & Review

Free post on Medium

Evans’ Rag

Vol 7 Issue 2

February came and will soon be gone—hump month. The days are getting longer, and the daffodils are peaking above the mulch. Yeah.

The deep cold this winter was a surprise—Layla enjoyed sleeping in the snow all those days, and the foxes liked taking short cuts across the iced-over cove. The geese didn’t seem to appreciate that they couldn’t approach our yard being thwarted by the ice, so they honked.

We did though, on account of less goose poop. Come March and April that will change. April is courtship time for Canadian geese. Interesting that they don’t enjoy walking on ice—perhaps they feel too vulnerable. I may need to ask one.

…

I came across a book, Love in Venice by Gil Johnson, a first time author at ninety-one-years-old. Getting out of bed at ninety-one has to be an accomplishment.

Johnson’s story looks back on her time as a twenty-five-year-old au pair in the 50s for an Italian count and his contessa. The book’s voice is young—like she’s twenty-five—serendipity reigns. Which begs the question, what has the rest of her life been like?

They—and she—lived the summer at the family’s 16th century palazzo on the Grand Canal, hobnobbing with ‘jet setters’ as the international wealthy were called in the days after World War II. Palazzo Brandolini is the name Johnson uses, though if you google ‘Brandolini’ you’ll not find one but several gothic-styled façades facing the canal.  

I had thought Venice in Love would make an interesting book to review. Now I’m wavering. The experience of witnessing such a life—a family redolent of wealth who could trace themselves back generations—Johnson freely says fascinated her. Understandably. Though I found her reflections didn’t include much about Europe’s or Italy’s recovery from World War II, almost as if the whole thing hadn’t happened.

Italy had certainly suffered; had the Brandolini family? Had they joined Mussolini’s fascists? Had they withdrawn from the world outside their palazzo? Johnson doesn’t say. She takes any reticence to gossip past a key chance to observe..

At 91, Johnson will have to hurry to get a second book finished. I’m cheering for her.

…

We spent several days in Venice a while back, though not in a palazzo. The room in the inn we did stay in was on the third or fourth floor and definitely not on the Grand Canal. The inn’s tightly winding stair was near vertical, and the elevator only fit you plus one bag. The room had two narrow windows opening out over a pedestrian way no wider than a sidewalk where you could carry on conversations with your neighbors just across the way—possibly shake hands and share coffee without leaving your room.

Several times Johnson mentions the sunlight in Venice. I can confirm the water in the San Marco basin after an afternoon shower is the palest green. My photos didn’t do it justice.

…

Speaking of romance novels, I’m starting Jane Austin’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney. As the lengthy subtitle fully explains, it’s A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. Can you imagine the designer wondering how to make a book cover from that mouthful? I’m thinking the whole subtitle craze has gotten out of hand.

Jane Austin was not required reading in high school. But the following she had among the girls of my age was impressive—like a secret club and some were downright snooty about it.

Far as I knew, girls generally belonged to a secret club, and I’d grown up with two sisters—go figure.

Austin’s books have often been considered on ‘proper Victorian manners.’ Romney has a different term—courtship novels. They comprised, as Romney introduces them, an entire genre, from which only Austin’s work became part of the literary canon. Yet Romney claims Austin herself greatly admired some of these now-forgotten women authors, thus her book.

When the Jane Austin series on PBS was broadcast, I took to another room. They seemed mainly about cravats and gowns, carriages and proper English—Downton Abbey drove me mad after the first several programs, so it’s my issue I suppose. But my mother used to tease our grandmother about her radio soap operas, so it could be inherited. It’s also possible period novels don’t translate into movies, though I’d like to see Meryl Streep try her hand.

Here’s to spring!