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A Thousand Days in Venice (Paperback)

by Marlena de Blasi (Author) "The small room is filled with German tourists, a few English, and a table or two of locals ..." (more)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (Jun 3 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0345457641
ISBN-13: 978-0345457646
Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 13.7 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 205 g

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #30,159 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories:
#1 in Books > Travel > Europe > Italy > Venice
#13 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Travel
#70 in Books > History > Europe > Italy

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

On a visit to Venice, de Blasi meets a local bank manager who falls in love with her at first sight. After "the stranger" (as she coyly calls him throughout the book) pursues her back to her home in St. Louis, Mo., she agrees to return to Italy and marry him, leaving behind her grown children and her job as chef and partner in a cafe. Although the banker, Fernando, lives in a bunkerlike postwar condominium on the Lido rather than the Venetian palazzo of her dreams, and some of his European ideas about women clash with her American temperament, the relationship works. She survives his criticism of her housekeeping and his displeasure at her insistence on remaining a serious cook (in modern Italy "No one bakes bread or dolci or makes pasta at home," he tells her), and they marry. Then one day Fernando surprises her by announcing that he is quitting his job at the bank where he has worked for 26 years. They leave Venice, he espouses her interest in food and they now direct gastronomic tours of Tuscany and Umbria. De Blasi's breathless descriptions of her improbable love affair can be cloying, but she makes up for these excesses with her enchanting accounts of Venice, especially of the markets at the Rialto. She conjures up vivid images of produce "so sumptuously laid as to be awaiting Caravaggio" and picturesque scenes of the vendors, such as the egg lady who keeps her hens under her table, collects the eggs as soon as they are laid and wraps each one in newspaper, "twisting both ends so that the confection looks like a rustic prize for a child's party." In a final section entitled "Food for a Stranger," de Blasi (Regional Foods of Northern Italy) includes recipes for a few of the dishes with which she charmed the stranger.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Venice is almost synonymous with romance, and in this charming account de Blasi spares no detail in telling us how she fell under its spell. A journalist, restaurant critic, and food consultant, de Blasi left her home, her grown children, and her job as a chef in St. Louis to marry Fernando, a Venetian she barely knew. In defiance of the cynics who think true love in middle age is crazy, her marriage flourished, as these two strangers made a life together. Food comforted the newlyweds when their conflicting cultures almost divided them, and in the end marital harmony reigns. Is this book a romance, a food guide, or an exhortation for us to come to Venice and experience the magic? Ultimately, it is all three, and there is even an appendix that includes recipes for dishes described in the text. Recommended for larger travel, biography, or cooking collections. Olga B. Wise, Compaq Computer Corp., Austin, TX
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

38 Reviews

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a fairy tale; maybe it's also a parable, Jun 2 2004

By	Patricia Tryon (Longmont, CO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Details, the essence of domesticity, shine in this story. There are the travelogue-esque descriptions of Venice: Napoleon's observation about Piazza San Marco and viewing works of art sequestered in ancient churches. There's a discussion of making house, once in the Midwest in a little house I would love to see and again in the grotty chaos of a bachelor's digs. And throughout are delicious descriptions of food and drink and the ways and places to enjoy them.

Like youth, this book may be somewhat wasted on the young. The small ruminations, the reflections on how we find a place and make a place in life may seem over-wrought. Until the onset of my own middle-age, I felt the same way about such memoirs. Now, I greet writings like this with a mixture of recognition and enthusiasm: recognition of the silly ways we fumble along and enthusiasm for another's discovery that it is not too late to savour what is delicious about life. In that, I find a parable of encouragement.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Venice . . . a Romantic Springboard to a New Life, Sep 4 2003

By	Diana F. Von Behren "reneofc" (Kenner, LA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Gourmet food writer, gourmand extraordinaire and makeshift interior decorator, Marlena De Blasi, throws caution to the wind when she leaves her home base in America to marry a man she barely knows from Venice. Is she crazy or merely sensationally romantic?

If I were to analyze la bella dona, Marlena, by her writing alone, I would submit that indeed she is a romantic---each of the moments she describes on the island of Lido and Venice proper, wax with almost too much poetry. In spite of this tendency for long windedness, Marlena infuses her little book with such infectious optimism for the future that the reader automatically forgives her indulgences.

After all, it is she, not us, taking the big chance, exchanging her old life for something completely foreign. And she does this, not as a young ingenue in her 20s or early 30s but as a mature woman with grown children. Each of her decisions and contemplations is most intricately explored; questions that arise in any mature mind are handled with an infinite and loving look at a future that isn't as long as it seemed when one was much younger. Brava, Marlena, for giving the spark of love a chance to grow into a flame and to express your anxieties with such honesty.
The first part of Marlena's story ignites that flame within the reader's heart; the details of the mystery Venetian steadfastly wooing the woman of his dreams based on just a glimpse of her profile emulates the great romances. The author's technique of flashing back to her first visit to Venice does not make its thematic point as quickly as one would wish, and so seems to muddy the pace of the actual tale of courtship and marriage. However, this, too does not mar the overall tapestry that De Blasi ultimately crafts.

In the second half of the book. De Blasi deals with her assimilation into the Italian mindset--a transition she makes totally possible through her use of interior design and her love of good food--wonderful recipes of some of the key meals mentioned in the text are thoughtfully provided at the end of the book. The couples' decision to chuck their newly converted Lido apartment for a life of helping others create their own dream environment in Tuscany and Umbria seems perfectly in tune with the book's emphasis on shunning the routine and keeping life a continuum of surprise. I hope that Marlena will follow this book up with a tale of her new adventures as the couple molts into their new lifestyle.

Recommended to all those who love romance and the thought of living in a foreign land.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars food, fabric, and romance with a "stranger", Aug 23 2002

By	Carol C. "ccjello" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance (Hardcover)

I liked the book quite a bit; it was a well-written, enjoyable read. The writing is rich, weaving snippets of Italian language and novel food metaphors into the text. The author describes her relationship with her husband, her relationship with cooking, and her relationship with fabric in sumptuous detail. Okay -- the sumptuous descriptions are more about the food and fabric than the man. The story itself is a bit more troubling. Like the other readers, I found the author's decision to give up the home and restaurant she built for herself in St. Louis and move to Italy, taking little more than the vintage pillows and candlesticks she's collected over the years to live in a place she'd never seen, with a "stranger" to be a bit impulsive, and I certainly don't envy her relationship -- she refers to her husband as "the stranger" throughout the book, and paints him as a skinny, beady-eyed (though his eyes are supposedly blueberry colored), moody, impetuous banker. I'm not sure what they have in common -- he doesn't even share her consuming passion for food. And I find it hard to believe that an aesthete like the author would move from her beautifully-furnished home to a nondescript apartment with red plastic fixtures, a tiny kitchen, and a washing machine that takes up half the bathroom floor space. All that aside, the story of her relocation to Venice and the process by which she creates a rich life for herself in Venice is fascinating, and if you can get past the unconvincing Cinderella-whisked-away-by-the-Italian-stranger part of the book, you'll find plenty to enjoy. Recipes for the author's how-to-catch-a-man meals are included.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected Love in Venice
This is a gem of a book that I found difficult to put down as I was drawn into Marlena and Fernando's journey of love in that jewel of a city - Venice. Read more

Published on Aug 7 2006 by K. V. Keith

1.0 out of 5 stars ponderous tale of weighty self-reflection
everyone else seems to love this book - the star I awarded it was only in recognition of the wonderful city of venice in which it is set and the not frequent enough references to... Read more

Published on Mar 3 2004 by J. Holland

5.0 out of 5 stars Venice in love
This book captured me from the start. By the end of the first chapter, I was in tears, reading it to my mother, explaining about this amazing true story of true love. Read more

Published on Nov 23 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Delightful
This is a light, but thought-provoking book about not giving up on love, taking chances, and compromising without resentment. Read more

Published on Oct 6 2003 by Jean Y. Jones