Skip to main content

Review: The Glassblower of Murano, by Marina Fiorato


Usually, novels set in split-time are dominated by either one of its settings or the other, leaving the second to muddle along behind. Not so with The Glassblower of Murano. Although the story takes place alternately in 1681 and present-day Venice, both story lines are exceptionally strong. I love novels set in Venice, as you know that a story about treachery and intrigue will follow, and The Glassblower of Murano is no exception.

Nora Manin leaves London and an ex-husband to work as a glassblower in one of the furnace on the island of Murano. More than three hundred years previously, her ancestor, Corradino Manin, was also a glassblower, one of the best in Venice, who sold Venetian glassmaking secrets to the French. Very soon, inevitably, the Council of the Ten (Venice’s secret police force) catches wind of Corradino’s activities, and he is murdered one evening, stabbed in the back with a dagger made of Murano glass. This is the scene that the novel opens up with, and it’s definitely an eye-opener! Was Corradino truly a traitor? In the present day, Nora goes in search of what really happened all those years ago.

As I’ve said, the parallel time period thing works really well here; Corradino and his descendant Nora are both vibrant characters. There’s a fine balance here between romance, mystery, and history, which I really enjoyed. I also enjoyed the descriptions of glassblowing techniques; I hadn’t realized it was such an art. Fiorato does a great job of depicting Venice, a city that is both beautiful and dangerous at once.

I was a little frustrated with a couple of the details of this book, though. First, although there’s a scene in the Piombi (the Leads) the Doge's Palace's ground-floor prison, there’s no mention of its other great prison, the Pozzi (the Wells, located up under the eaves). There was also little to no mention of The Ten, which might have been more interesting to learn about. Still, I enjoyed this well-written, well-researched novel, and look forward to reading whatever Fiorato writes next. To be published in the US in May 2009.

Also reviewed by: A Work in Progress, A Work in Progress, Literary License, S. Krishna's Books. The Literate Housewife Review
Labels:

Comments

Marg said…
This does sound interesting.

Thanks for the review.
January 30, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Danielle said…
I also thought she did a good job of balancing the two storylines without one being the weaker of the two. It would have been interesting to learn more about the Ten, but I totally missed the prison references (or the details that you picked up--I don't know as much about the history of Venice as I'd like). I have her next book ready to read, but I am saving it for when I need a good escapist book (and something set in a warm clime--which might be pretty soon, actually).
January 30, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Alyce said…
I hadn't heard of this one, but your review piqued my interested.
January 31, 2009 at 12:52 AM
Teddy Rose said…
wonderful review! I just added it to my TBR. It sounds really good!
February 1, 2009 at 6:19 PM
S. Krishna said…
This sounds interesting - it's hard to balance two storylines! I'll have to check it out.
February 2, 2009 at 11:16 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.
194 comments
Read more

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...
115 comments
Read more

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...
12 comments
Read more