Ich habe schon so viel von Donna Leon gehört, kenne den Inhalt vieler ihrer venezianischen Krimis, habe schon unzählige ihrer Bücher verkauft und doch noch keins gelesen. Nichtsdestotrotz hat es mich unglaublich interessiert, was sie über Venedig zu erzählen hat. Die Stadt, in der ihre Krimis spielen, wo sie viele Jahre gelebt hat und welche sie aus den Augen einer Schriftstellerin wahrgenommen. Die Sammlung verschiedener Essays hat mir gut gefallen und mich noch einmal einen ganz anderen Blick auf die Stadt werfen lassen. Dabei erzählt sie so prägnant und atmosphärisch von verschiedenen Erlebnissen, dass ich Venedig und seine Bewohner richtig vor Augen hatte. Das allerdings auch mitunter an zwei oder drei Stellen diskriminierend, wodurch ich einen Stern abgezogen habe. Darüber hinaus spürt man trotz der Kritik, die sie hier und da äußert, auch immer wieder ihre Liebe zur Lagunenstadt und ihre Verbundenheit.

Will ich jetzt unbedingt mal einen ihrer Krimis lesen? Ja.

The Mind Behind Brunetti and a Bit of Bio
Review of the Grove Press paperback edition (2014) of the Atlantic Monthly Press hardcover original (2013*)


Donna Leon in Venice, Italy. Image sourced from an interview in The Guardian April 15, 2017.

My Venice and Other Essays collects 55 essays written for various magazines and newspapers up to 2013 since Leon became well known for her annual Commissario Brunetti series (1992 - ongoing to date 2021) set in Venice, Italy. The original source publication details and dates are not provided, but some dates may be inferred from the content.

Unless Leon decides to write a full autobiography, My Venice and Other Essays may be the closest we will get to learning something about the personal life of the Brunetti author. In the various essays which have been grouped under some general themes, we get her views on living in Venice, her love of opera, her love of animals, her doubts about men in general and America in particular, and some rather great lessons about writing crime & mystery novels.

The essays are alternatively funny and informative about her loves, but also furious and dismissive about her hates. Only a few glimpses of major personal life events, are seen mostly from the years when she still worked at teaching English literature: she had worked in Iran for 4 years and escaped during the Khomeini revolution; she detests Saudi Arabia and its totalitarian regime based a 1 year teaching contract there; she loves baroque opera the most, especially the works of Handel; etc. There isn't anything too Brunetti-specific, but the general quirkiness of Venetian and Italian customs & bureaucracy are detailed. The essay Non mangiare, ti fa male(Don't Eat It, It is Bad) about Italians dividing food into very arbitrary and personal leggero (light) and pesante (heavy) groups was pretty funny.

The gems here for crime & mystery fiction fans are: the With Barbara Vine essay which finds the pair of writers (Vine being one of the pen-names of crime writer [a:Ruth Rendell|10890|Ruth Rendell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1196257541p2/10890.jpg] (1930-2015) discussing the best murder methods while dining at a restaurant (imagine listening in on that conversation without knowing who they were) and the Suggestions on Writing the Crime Novel, which is like a 10-page mini-course on crime and mystery writing.

CONTENTS
On Venice
My Venice; On the beating heart of the city; Garbage; The casino; Gypsies; Italian bureaucracy; Diplomatic incident; Non mangiare, ti fa male [Don't eat it, it is bad]; Miss Venice Hilton; New neighbors; The house from hell; Shit; Neighbor; Tourists; Da Giorgio; On poor people;

On music
A bad hair night at the opera; On beauty and freedom in the opera; Confessions of an American Handel junkie; Da capo (Callas); Anne Sofie von Otter; Deformazione professionale [Professional Deformation];

On mankind and animals
Mice; Hunters; Gladys; Cesare; Badgers; The woman from Dübendorf (Gastone); Tell me you forgive me, Professor Grzimek; Moles; Battle report; Blitz; My first time eating sheep's eyeball;

On men
Bosoms; The Italian man; Instincts; Oh beautiful little foot; It's a dick thing; A trivial erotic game = okay, so I'm a Puritan; I want a few good men; The developer; Saudi Arabia; The New York man;

On America
My family; Tomato empire; My mother's funeral; Fatties; We'd all be hamburger, Ma'am; On Sprüngli and CNN; The United States of Paranoia;

On books
E-mail monsters ; With Barbara Vine ; No tears for Lady Di ; Suggestions on writing the crime novel ; On dinner with an American physician ;

Trivia and Links
* There are earlier 2007 & 2005 foreign language editions that have been merged with this book, but [b:Mijn Venetië|15752451|Mijn Venetië|Donna Leon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1342338098l/15752451._SX50_.jpg|1593931] (2007) and [b:Mein Venedig|39900403|Mein Venedig|Donna Leon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1524224695l/39900403._SX50_.jpg|1593931] (2005) may only contain some of the Venice related sections. For example, the Mein Venedig (2005) is only a single CD audiobook.

For more background on Brunetti I would recommend this interview with author Donna Leon at ItalianMysteries.Com even if it was done 18 years ago. She discusses all sorts of background to the books and characters and also gives the reason that she won't allow the books to be translated into Italian (and it wasn't because she feared criticism by her neighbours in Venice).

This is a collection of short essays by Donna Leon, author of the Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries set in Venice. Leon, an American, has lived in Venice for decades now, and many of these essays reflect her impressions of life in the city. This book is not, however, a travelogue or ode to life abroad. While she clearly loves her adopted home, she's not afraid to look at the city's warts--or, more to the point, it's dog poop. There's an edge to Leon voice in these essays--something that also comes through in her novels, but here you don't have Guido's charm to blunt that sharpness. Still, anyone who's been reading between the lines in the novels won't be surprised by any of the opinions expressed here. I liked some of the pieces much more than others, but the essay about how she was treated while teaching in Saudi Arabia will stay with me for a long time to come.

solid 4 stars

29 Agosto 2023 - I have a confession: I skipped the bulk of the opera-related essays. Zero interest.

The essays about America were a hoot, although there were some cringey bits. My guess is that patriots would denounce Leon, but she wouldn't give a shit.

Once I finish (or DNF) the Andrea Camilleri book, I must read one of Leon's mysteries.

26 Agosto 2023 - Clearly I am on an Italian/Italy reading bender. I started studying Italian again, and I have some notion that immersing myself in stories about Italy will ... What? Make me conversant?

Enjoyable insights into a life in Italy and other topics. Based on this book I ordered her crime novels for my Mum who really liked them.

Four stars for the essays about Venice. The other essays were fine, but just didn't interest me that much.

I loved Venice when I visited and was hoping to rekindle some of that magic with this nook. Unfortunately it fell very short. She complains about anything and everything, often in mean spirited ways. I was also surprised by the handful of times seeing her use the N word like it’s no big deal. It was totally unnecessary and off-putting.