The City of Falling Angels

By: John Berendt

Narrated by: Holter Graham

It was a few years ago that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil achieved a record-breaking four-year run on The New York Times best-seller list. John Berendt's inimitable brand of nonfiction brought the dark mystique of Savannah so startlingly to life for millions of people that tourism to Savannah increased by 46 percent. It is Berendt and only Berendt who can capture Venice, a city of masks, a city of riddles, where the narrow, meandering passageways form a giant maze, confounding all who have not grown up wandering into its depths. Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art, and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble, foundations shift, marble ornaments fall, even as efforts to preserve them are underway.

The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Venice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective, inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city-while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.

©2005 High Water Incorporated (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Funny, insightful, illuminating...[Venice] reveals itself, slowly, discreetly, under Berendt's gentle but persistent prying." (The Boston Globe)

"Berendt has given us something uniquely different....Thanks to [his] splendid city portrait, even those of us far from Venice can marvel." (The Wall Street Journal)

"One of the longest-awaited literary encores in recent times....Teems with a diverse cast of aristocrats and lowlifes....Berendt's voice is gentle and tolerant, reveling in human complexities; he has no pretensions of offering anything more than a good story." (The New York Times Book Review)

Mary

This book was written in the same style as his last book, "Midnight in the Garden of Good in Evil". Mr. Berendt describes different people who live in Venice and there are different mysteries described in the book. After listening to this book, I have a better understanding of Venice and its people. It was very interesting and I am surprised that others gave it such a poor review.

Ah Venice!

Loved getting lost in the story of Venice!! I was transported to the lagoon listening to each of the stories!

Worth the read if you are going to Venice

I am a HUGE fan of Berendt's Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil. So, since I was planning a trip to Venice, I thought this would give me a background of modern Venice as seen from the eyes of an American. It did, and I've very glad I read it but I cannot rate it in the realm of his former work on Midnight. Let's face it, Berendt can get people to tell him things they'd never tell another stranger, that's one of his greatest gifts. But I didn't find I really cared about any of the characters. It may be because there were so many, he couldn't dig very deep on any of them. On the other hand, he refuses to comprise his work by creating fake characters that are a "compilation" of several people and I admire that he doesn't take that route, it would draw some events/interviews into question, as always happens with a compilation. Furthermore, if he had dug any deeper on these characters, the story would have had a much smaller scope, and I don't believe I would have walked away with quite the overview of Venice that I gained from the reading.

Great long trip book

Well read and a pretty good story in a magnificent setting. The Opera house fire was the trellis for the vignettes, most of which were twining and atmospheric. More Venice and less Yankee politics would have pleased me, but still fun. I appreciated learning some Italian pronunciation as well.

If you love Venice...

People say this isn't as good as Midnight in the Garden, and they're right. But Midnight was so good, that still leaves a lot of room for virtue. I don't know what I would think if I wasn't a Venice-o-phile, but since millions are, that shouldn't count against it either. Suffice to say that Berendt turns his tried-and-true technique for baring the souls of cities to one of the most beguiling cities on the planet and produces a damn fine book. I couldn't wait to get back on the exercise bike.

City of Falling Angels

Great storyline, exciting plot. Fiction with historical references. Narrator interesting. If you love Venice, Italy and art history, you'll love this book.

Berendt does it again!

Great book !
Really loved the characters and the setting, it’s truly a magical place. Berendt captures the setting yet again!

Great Listen, especially if you have just visited Venice

Not the flashiest or most action-packed mystery, but quiet engaging listen of a beautiful and fascinating place. I read it nearly two decades ago and remember liking it then, and after finally getting the chance to visit Venice had to listen this time and was just as satisfied. Realized a lot of what I knew about operas I learned from this book. And if you do visit Venice be sure to visit opera house it’s beautiful. Actually doing the tour reminded me of this book.

great listening....

i really enjoyed this book...lots of history blended with present day scenarios...and its all true -
real names, places and events.

Fascinating subject but sadly disappointing

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Fair reportage of the fire at La Fenice opera house but lacking descriptive richness and fascinating characters. I would only recommend the book to those with specific interest in disasters and reconstruction. It's not for the general reader.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The fire in a historic structure in tightly packed Venice is confined to the building itself despite difficult conditions was interesting. The political and financial intrigue was not at all compelling.

What does Holter Graham bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrator was quite competent but the book was without dramatic content so he had little to work with.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.