0 Venezia!
JOHN ADDINOTON SYMONDS rightly described Venice as the Shakespeare of cities. I suppose !here are anti-Venetian eccentrics and exhibition- Isrts—but they have as much hope of unsettling the judgment of the ages as theatrical critics who get attention by making faces at the prince of poets. It is a strange truth nonetheless that some of the most passionate lovers of 'the most Serene Republic' have found much in Venetian detail to disparage and, as this book shows, the most extreme of all worshippers, Ruskin, 'hated half the buildings'; but violent, obsessive, erotic emotion, noble as it can be, does unbalance the mind. Most people love the whole of Venice, uncritically and devoutly, and this time most People are right. Mr. James Morris loves• the whole of Venice With the odd exception of the grand palazzi (which I adore). He has written a really first- class guide book, such as can claim to be a work of art, along with Mr. E. M. Forster's guide to Alexandria. Like all guides it is best read in situ or leisurely in bed over some weeks, not slap- through, as a reviewer has to read it. In form the book is similar to E. V. Lucas's 'Wanderer' Series, though evidently the result of fuller re- search than Lucas ever troubled himself with. It has the same conversational tone, though spoilt "ere and there by whimsical touches reminiscent of Axel Munthe. The scholarship is worn lightly and is so obviously thorough that J hardly dare Point out what look like two defects. 1/411 all the same. 1 think Mr. Morris has noddea. over the enormous mass of Wagner's writings. The idea for the shepherd's pipe in Tristan could hardly have had an origin in the calls of gondo- liers; surely he got it from hearing a real shep- herd playing his real pipe—outside Venice, Where sheep are as rare as polar bears in Lon- d. on. Mr. Morris, I believe, was thinking of an Inspiring occasion when, one night. Wagner's Sondolier uttered a loud roar which resolved itself into a cry of '0 Venezia!' and was
answered from a long way off by another gondo- lier. My second accusation is that Mr. Morris does not seem to have read Max Beerbohm's enchanting essay 'A Stranger in Venice.' I would like to have had confirmation of Max's story about Campo San Zaccaria.
Mr. Morris could with profit have indulged his readers by telling them more about what they know already, especially about St. Mark's, of which there is only a token account, but he tells so much of what we do not know that only the sourest and most captious can be left at the end with other feelings than those of gratitude. He does not only tell (and always with maximum entertainment) a great deal of the blood-stained history of the divine city itself, but describes the many little Venetian islands of which only a few are familiar to the foreign gapers. Being free of prejudice, he has some kindly words for us gapers, too, and recognises that we are, and for hundreds of years have been, an essential part of the matchless scene. His accounts of certain of the obscurer personages of Venetian history, such as Aristotle of Bologna, are full of wit, and his chapter on modern Murano is extremely funny. But he is not flippant. His picture of Venetian character is masterly—and 1 am sure true. Throughout, a reader can feel the author's reverence for his venerable subject.
The achievement is greater than appears. Even in our acid day, the temptation to write slush about Venice is considerable and when that is resisted, one can 'readily become a bore about so much beauty. Mr. Morris has succeeded in writing a long, well-constructed book on a subject about which '0 Venezia!' is the only apposite thing that can be said easily.
CHRISTOPHER SYKES
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