Morand was in his eighties when he put together this book. I say 'put together' because although there's a chronological framework it seems almost incidental and Venices, whilst being a look back through the years, is a collection of musings as much of as memories. Morand touches upon his father's habits, Palladian architecture, his own travels, office politics in the diplomatic corps, Venetian history, the way the sunlight falls on a favourite cafe. And because he was reared and for all his life kept a foot in an artistic milieu, the likes of Les Six, Diaghilev, and Proust are some of those who people the book, though a reader shouldn't expect telling anecdotes about the famous.

As he does in the other books I've read by him, Morand writes with a calm restraint in a style thati, although in no other way striking, seems effortless. Perhaps it's that calmness that makes his books so attractive--that and, in Venices, an incredibly strong sense of mood. I can't just now think of another book so strongly pervaded by mood. The tone is overwhelmingly elegiac, and long after I finished reading I felt a bit melancholy. It's not that Morand expresses sadness or regret; he's much too urbane for that. (And when he does give way to a things-were-better-when-we-were-young complaint he ends in self-mockery:: 'And the young people of today are better-looking than we were'.)

My copy of Venices has a very appealing cover with a murky painting of a Venetian scene on a textured blue background, but its publisher Pushkin has also issued an edition with a horrid cover that looks like a wallpaper sample from the 1950's. If you're ordering this online, it might be worth checking to see which version you'd be getting.