SHE'S THE ONE...THE ONLY ONE

Although Marlena de Blasi tells a compelling love story in her book A Thousand Days in Venice, that is not why I have included it in our Year of Reading Dangerously. I have chosen it for two reasons: first, because it reminded me of the risks I took when I married a guy I hadn't even seen for the thirteen months prior to our wedding, and who whisked me off the next day to go live in a country that I had to look up on my globe, and which was as far away from Texas as you could possibly get, without leaving the planet; second, and most importantly, I chose it for its amazing sense of place.

What does that mean, to have a sense of place? I didn't even know myself, until one day a while back, when I got an e-mail message from author Susan Wittig Albert, saying that she was going to link to Seasonality from her blog Lifescapes, under her list of "Place Blogs." I figured I'd better find out what it meant! To start with, it's that thing you don't have when you move from one suburb to the next, where everything is so homogenized that you sometimes forget which town you are in, and one shopping center looks just like every other, containing the same chain shops, and the same chain restaurants. People tease John and I about our love of eating in "dives", but in truth, I think we are just searching for experiences that feel authentic... that have a sense of place.

When I first opened this book, I wasn't sure if I could take it. As I explained in my review of de Blasi's most recent book, That Summer in Sicily, I have never had much patience for writers who use a lot of flowery prose. As you have surely figured out by now, I write pretty much the way I speak, which is fine for describing this sparse terrain. Venice, however, is much too sensuous for my vocabulary. She needs a more voluptuous language to describe her. She needs someone with the heart of an adventurer, who is willing to explore the back streets where tourists never go, and taste the things a tourist never tastes; a chef who is willing to shop for food as the natives do, and cook the things the natives eat (and share the recipes with us!); an experienced food writer who knows how to describe every nuance of the flavors she is tasting; someone with the heart of an artist, who cries when she sees or hears a thing of beauty; someone who can pull together an outfit from a trunk of tattered draperies, and carry off a slash of vivid red lipstick. It would appear, in fact, that no one but Marlena de Blasi, could do the job of describing a city such as this... a city with such an exquisite sense of place.

So, don't forget! Leave a comment between now and Monday night, and your name will go into the hat for a chance to win this lovely book, a journal, and a pound of the renowned Monkey Roast coffee (the one Willy likes!) from one of our own micro-roasters here in the Hill Country.

P.S. Many thanks to sodahead.com for the above image.