Marta Morazzoni

Well written stories, most set in the 15th-17th centuries. The attention to details and developing the setting and atmosphere is quite good, but the stories have little action or real point to them. I finished the book because the writing was good, but I wish there had been something actually happening in the stories.

Well written stories, most set in the 15th-17th centuries. The attention to details and developing the setting and atmosphere is quite good, but the stories have little action or real point to them. I finished the book because the writing was good, but I wish there had been something actually happening in the stories.

Nella vita di Alphonse Courrier tutto scorre con immobile regolarità, tutto sembra programmato con estrema cura, fino alla pedanteria. Eppure, nella gelida mattina del 27 dicembre 1917, Alphonse compie un gesto che lascerà i suoi concittadini sconcertati, e per molti anni alimenterà le loro chiacchiere venate di risentito stupore. Con una scrittura di puntigliosa leggerezza, ordita di sottili e tenacissime nervature, Marta Morazzoni racconta un’esistenza che nulla potrebbe scalfire, show more fatta di relazioni pudiche, frasi non dette e sentimenti taciuti, ma che viene travolta da un destino oscuro, da qualcosa che si insinua nella vita e a poco a poco la erode fino ad annientarla. show less

This remarkable first novel gracefully combines two narratives and in its delicacy and craft becomes wat it discrives - a refinement of experience through artistic endeavour, a celebration of creative excellence.
The first story concerns the enterprise of the Bayeux Tapestry : a queen summons three hunderd of the most talented needlewomen in her kingdom to realize her vision of an exquisite work of embroidery. In the second narrative the great nenetheeth-century art critic John Ruskin visits show more the city of Amiens to reflect on his old age and life, using the city and his great cathedral and the statue of Mary as a unifying metaphor.
The stories are told in alternating vignettes that move gracefully in and out of one another: beautifully invented truths. show less