not as good as his poetry; lots of orientalism swallowed ( )

"Many moons ago the dollar was 870 lire and I was thirty-two."

Thus begins this really lovely meditation on Venice. Though it is occasionally marred by what I can only term "excessive use of language", a habit of Brodsky's of using multiple synonyms and esoteric words (perhaps because English is not his first language?), one easily puts that to one side.

Brodsky explains why everyone goes shopping when they come to Venice (like one needs an excuse!): "For this is the city of the eye; your other faculties play a faint second fiddle. The way the hues and rhythms of the local façades try to smooth the waves' ever-changing colors and patterns alone may send you to grab a fancy scarf, tie, or whatnot; it glues even an inveterate bachelor to a window flooded with its motley flaunted dresses, not to mention patent-leather shoes and suede boots scattered like all sorts of boats upon the laguna."

One of the chapters describes being shown a palazzo, going from a "long, poorly lit gallery with a convex ceiling swarming with putti", through a library with "fat, white, vellum-bound volumes . . . just enough for a gentleman; more would turn him into a penseur, with disastrous consequences either for his manners or for his estate" thence to an enfilade, room after empty room, with drapes brittle and threadbare, golden-framed mirrors, all powdered with dust and "unreasonably ghostly", until at last they reach the master bedroom. There looms a four-poster bed, sculptured with grotesque cherubs, and a portable TV in the corner.

For Brodsky, on his academic schedule, Venice is a city for winter, cold, wet, eerily beautiful, where "King Fog rode into the piazza, reined in his stalion, and started to unfurl his white turban".

If this book doesn't make you want to go to Venice, nothing will.