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By the Grand Canal

By the Grand Canal

by WilliamRiviere (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2004

    $3.29
Synopsis

Hugh Thurne is a diplomat in love with a young Venetian woman when his best friend's widow, Violet Mancroft, arrives in Venice from England. Violet is still absorbed by grief but she is also troubled by the direction her relationship with Hugh might now take. Violet is also preoccupied by anxiety for her son, Robert, who has fallen in love with Gloria Venier, a young Grand Canal girl. Unlike Violet, Giacomo Venier is amused by his daughter's fledgling relationship - but he is dying, leaving his wife Valentina to maintain their dilapidated palace and face financial ruin, and to bring up their teenage children alone. From the English coast to Venice and Britain's dominions in the East, this is a novel about empires and their crises, about the desolation and the hope after the Great War, about death, time and memory, and innocent - and less innocent - love. And it is a passionate study of the crisis of societies in peace and in war, and of the bewildering perversities of continually reawakening love.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 272
 Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 01 Sep 2004
ISBN 10: 0340770406
ISBN 13: 9780340770405

Media Reviews
'Riviere has something of Lampedusa's seeming languor, his intricate probing of minds and emotions, and above all his ability to recount an intimate, family tale which also convey the sense of great historical events. William Riviere has a talent for lyrical descriptions of everyday events, as well as of marvellous set pieces Venice can provide. He embellishes every scene with the care of a housemaid polishing the staircase in a palazzo, probes every nook of his characters' being ... His creations are fragile objects but a delight to observe.' -- Times Literary Supplement 'Reminiscent of Hemingway's ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES, William Riviere brilliantly evokes the hope, despair, and luminescence of post-World War I Venice.' -- John May 'William Riviere weaves a wonderfully compelling tale of death and love along Venice's fabled waterway. As the devastating memories of World War I gradually fade, life stirs anew with the thrill of impending resurrection.' -- Andrea di Robilant, author of THE VENETIAN AFFAIR
Author Bio
William Riviere was born in 1954 and brought up in Norfolk. After leaving Cambridge, he spent several years in Venice, and later worked in Japan and travelled extensively around the Far East. He is the author of six previous novels: Watercolour Sky, A Venetian Theory of Heaven, Eros and Psyche, Borneo Fire, Echoes of War and Kate Caterina. He is married to a painter, and teaches at the University of Urbino in Italy.