VENICE, THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL
by Mary E. Martin
Legions of artists have tried to capture the elusiveness of Venice in word, music and paint. Goethe, Thomas Mann, Dickens and Henry James, just to name a few, have penned magnificent lines. Richard Wagner and Mendelssohn have composed great symphonies and Monet, Manet, Renoir and Whistler have been inspired to paint some of their finest canvasses. All have struggled valiantly to express the essence of Venice.
According to Mary McCarthy, author of 'Venice Observed,' "...what one is about to feel or say has not only been said before by Goethe or Musset, but is on the tip of the tongue of the tourist from Iowa who is alighting in the Piazzetta with her fur piece and jewelled pin."
Questions race to mind. Why do heartfelt attempts at description sound like the most banal clichés? Can anything new be said, or has human thought and emotion over the centuries been exhausted? What immerses people in such a delightful and frustrating endeavour to define the elusive with originality? I, too, am compelled to take up the challenge.
The German author, Thomas Mann, who wrote Death in Venice, said that Venice must be first seen from the sea. Having arrived by both train and boat, I know this is true . I landed at Marco Polo airport in the early afternoon on a sunny spring day and boarded the public boat for the city, an hour away. Watching the sun dance on the glistening water, I craned my neck for the first glimpse of Venice. Within half an hour, the Lido, a sand-spit protecting Venice from the open sea, appeared with its faint air of a seaside town. Women with baby carriages strolled the promenade, amongst businessmen with briefcases. This foretaste was the proper introduction to the city of the soul. Soon, Venice rose before me from the dark, choppy waters like an enchanting golden vapour. Like a lover's first kiss, you are forever smitten and hunger for more.
But I will leave it up to Harry Jenkins to describe his first sight of Venice.
Bridges arced over glistening water and soft colored walls of pink, yellow and white hung above the dark, impenetrable, doorways just above the water line. From shadows, gondolas swept past marble balustrades then emerged into light. The indistinct cries and song of the gondoliers rose up to him. Riveted, as if standing before a painting of great beauty, he longed to reach out and touch the view, simply to assure himself of its reality. Excited, his imagination drew him both inward and outward in the same instant. Like an artist, he labored before the scene to fix its essence within himself and yet laughed at the impossibility.
Now who might Harry Jenkins be? Why he’s the protagonist of the Osgoode Trilogy, which I wrote. I am doing the final edits on the third in the trilogy, A Trial of One, which will be published in early September 2007. If you have read the first two, Conduct in Question and Final Paradox, you will definitely want to know where the hunt for the shares ends— that money which has poisoned the lives of so many in Final Paradox. Of course, it ends in the only possible place—Venice, the mirror of the soul.
But back to my visit, which certainly inspired the setting and some of the events for
A Trial of One.
Within the hour, I reached the landing for San Marco, where I had arranged to meet the lady from whom I was renting a flat at the Sullam Palace. I was partly attracted to the place by its rather exotic name. After all, who would not want to live in a palace?
At the San Marco stop, I stepped onto the landing where trees made leafy patterns in the sunlight and waited for her. Within moments, she arrived. Pulling my bag behind me, I walked with her past San Marco and along narrow streets to the Sullam Palace. The apartment on the fourth floor was small, but had everything I could want—a bedroom with a comfortable double bed, a tiny living room and dining room, plus kitchen and shower. And the view was magnificent! Across red-tiled rooftops could be seen the Palazzo Contarini-Bovolo famous for its architectural detail and its exterior spiral staircases. I unpacked and began to settle in. Within twenty minutes I drifted off with the singing of gondoliers beneath my window. When I awoke, the room was dark and I was hungry. Outside to find a restaurant! Down through the darkened stairwells of the Sullam Palace, I reached the narrow calles lined with tiny shops of masks and Pinocchio marionettes. If you look at the cover of Final Paradox you will find the photograph I took that first night of a shop window. www.maryemartin.com
In the next several travel articles, I will be telling you much more about my stay in Venice, which was just about five years ago. Here’s the question I have been mulling over. How can a city so possess a writer so that no other place could possibly be a proper setting for the events, which must unfold in the story?
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Mary E. Martin is the author of the Osgoode Trilogy. She has retired from the practice of law in order to write and photograph. To learn more about the Osgoode Trilogy and the up coming release of A Trial of One please visit www.maryemartin.com
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