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Sto caricando le informazioni... Nate in Venice {novella}di Richard Russo
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Most of this feels like a continuation of Russo's dull "Bridge of Sighs," part of which also took place in Venice. Like that novel, this is less atmospheric than reading Venice's Wikipedia page. Most of the novella is Nate plodding around whining about his past mistakes with a student with Asperger's and his relationship with his brother. Between this and Russo's "That Old Cape Magic" it seems like Russo could be the champion of what I call "Viagra fiction", ie fiction targeted at aging yuppies, the well-to-do oldsters you see featured in Viagra (and similar product) ads. So if you're an aging yuppie with a Viagra prescription you'd probably enjoy this more than me. That is all. I approached this Kindle single by Richard Russo with some trepidation. I love his novels (especially [Empire Falls]), but I wasn't sure that he could accomplish the character development that I love in a novella-length story. By the end, however, I was pleasantly surprised. In a few short chapters, we get to know Nate. As the story begins, he is out of his element, traveling in Venice with his brother and the rest of a tour group. His interactions with his brother and with the others in the group reveal a man with good intentions who is somewhat socially awkward. He is facing retirement with a sense of loneliness. Driving the story forward are a series of flashbacks that reveal a recent scandal faced by Nate in his role as an English professor at a small liberal arts college. As both storylines play out, Nate's reactions show his growth. In the end, we are left not with a package that is tied up too neatly, but with a sense of resolution and satisfaction. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
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In this warm, bighearted novella, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo ("Nobody’s Fool," "Straight Man," "Empire Falls") transports his characters from the working-class East Coast of his novels to one of Europe’s most romantic cities. In classic Russo fashion, however, he packs along their foibles and frailties. His latest foray into the messy beauty of the human heart, "Nate in Venice" is written with the same wry humor and ready generosity for which he’s been so richly praised. After a tragic incident with a student, Nate, a professor at a small New England college, retires from teaching and from life. He ends his self-imposed exile with a tour-group trip to Venice in the company of his overbearing, mostly estranged brother. Nate is unsure he’s equipped for the challenges of human contact, especially the fraternal kind. He tries to play along, keep up, mixing his antidepressants with expensive Chianti, but while navigating the labyrinthine streets of the ancient, sinking city, the past greets him around every corner, even in his dreams: There’s the stricken face of the young woman whose life he may have ruined, and there’s Julian, the older brother who has always derided and discounted him. Is Nate sunk? Is the trip, the chance to fall in love—in fact, his whole existence—merely water under the ponte? Maybe or maybe not. In Russo’s world, the distance between disaster and salvation is razor thin, and a mensch can be a fool (and vice versa). Nate’s Venetian high-wire act proves as harrowing as a potboiler and as full of reversals as a romantic comedy. It’s an emphatic tribute to all the pleasures and possibilities of the novella. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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I am a huge fan of Richard Russo. I thoroughly enjoyed Empire Falls, The Straight Man, and The Whore's Child and other stories. This one not so much but mainly because I thought it was only about 75% complete.
Several of the top tier literary writers have joined the trend of releasing novellas between releases of their longer works: Joyce Carol Oates (Patricide: A Novella), Anne Tyler (The Beginner's Goodbye), Margaret Atwood (I'm Starved for You), Saul Bellow (The Actual) and Phillip Roth (Everyman). All of these books are very good and give a reader a sense of the style and voice, the humor and insight, and the wicked edge that these great writers bring to all of their works.
I liked Nate in Venice. I just didn't love it. It was well written. I don't think Richard Russo can write badly if he tried. There is the sophisticated humor, cutting social and cultural commentary, and complex characters that we find in all of Russo's works. He is a Pulitzer prize winner for a reason.
But to me Nate in Venice read like a sample. A chapter, maybe, in a larger work. I am ok with ambiguity but this story is just incomplete. I was really enjoying the story until suddenly Russo pulls the plug and says "That's it" and left me scratching my head, wondering what happened to all of these interesting story lines. Without giving anything away, I found the past event that changes the protagonist's life to be underwhelming. I was expecting something more serious. ( )