The Literary Review articles from March 1999

The Literary Review archives from March 1999

Death and Venice: Editor's Introduction.
March 22, 1999... I was last in Venice in 1987. It was my second and, to date, final trip. I have traveled to other European cities since then, but I have never gone back to Venice--nor do I ever plan to return. Twice is enough. One more trip would probably...

The Eighth Sacrament.
March 22, 1999... Henry handed his passport to the slender, uniformed man siting behind the desk. "How long will you be staying?" asked the man. He hadn't thought about how long this might take. He knew that once everything was in order it would take...

The Return.(PO)
March 22, 1999... The broken Victrola on your table waited to play old jazz, the gondola rushed over a reflection of clouds on the canal, and pain kept you lowered on the bed as you caught the muffled cries of statues from the square, felt...

The Ghost of Tintoretto's Daughter.(PO)
March 22, 1999... When you returned from Venice you had changed, we were no longer comrades--I saw that right away. The moon kept its old devoted deathwatch all the way home from the airport but you hardly noticed, you barely spoke. So...

La Tempesta.(SS)
March 22, 1999... It was late afternoon when we climbed into a gondola. Feletia remained in back to practice conversational Italian with the gondolier. She had tied her bronze hair with a red scarf and was peeling a peach. I sat in front of her, too hot to talk....

Venice Via Hell & Belgrade.
March 22, 1999... Mere mention of Venice calls up memory fragments of just getting there. I was twenty. On the bus in Munich--Charlotte Appleton's hair flashed like a stoplight. Avoiding another's clutches she sat down next to me. We slept that night fully...

Venetian Thresholds.(SS)
March 22, 1999... Venice, 1984. Fleeting sentinels, a pair of seagulls glide past the stretch of milky sky whilst down in the campo two ragazzi play at calcio. "Goal!" exclaims the eldest prematurely as he strikes the ball with all his might. "And missed again,"...

Death in Venice.(SS)
March 22, 1999... He looked as if he'd been to see a private screening of Death in Venice at an Art Film House in another dimension. I often wondered what happened to all those extras from Fellini's movies once the shooting was done. It was a sure bet more than...

Carnival, Venice: A Meditation on Generations.(PO)
March 22, 1999... One hundred years now since Grief Gondola was composed, since Liszt, pulled here by irony's weight, had to admit for the first time, his stranger was a daughter and the reverse; her husband Wagner after...

The Foot of Saint Catherine.(SS)
March 22, 1999... Reynaldo descended from the train at Stazzioni S. Luccia nd stood on the platform for a moment, lifted a handkerchief folded into a white square from his pocket and coughed quietly into it. He was a tall, slender man, clad in a white linen suit...

On Not Dying in Venice.(PO)
March 22, 1999... I should have known better than to drink the water in Venice, summer 1956, our honeymoon; the water was black and oily and tasted like ink. Writing without pen or paper while I writhed on my bed in Venice the...

Chasing the Moonlight.
March 22, 1999... I've been in this calle often; I know it well. I come here to wonder and look onto the black water, playing and splashing mere inches from my feet. The first time I came here was by chance while scurrying to the Rialto late at night. Following...

Sunday Night--Piazza San Marco.(PO)
March 22, 1999... I. There's only one, yet; Hour by hour I wander Lost in my Venetian night. Through her veins and chambers I seek her secrets. I see you in her; Within those careful eyes An easy grace and style. ...

The Jew of Venice.(EX)
March 22, 1999... Now what I'm telling is from Master W.S., his play Jew of Venice, which only after years gone after 1596, when it first played, they call now Merchant of Venice. What I m telling now is how in his play Jew of Venice Master W.S. wrote about me,...

Drinking Tea with Ezra Pound in Venice.(PO)
March 22, 1999... Christmas has passed and the light on the snow has lengthened. Cries of blue jays toughen like rawhide. Last night I dreamt that old age had cornered me, twitched my gizzard, tripped me into a wheelchair where I...

Toccata and Feud.(SS)
March 22, 1999... "Tonio, no! Tonio, listen to me." Vivaldi would not be calmed; shaking off Umberto's hand, he continued his relentless advance upon his target. His long strides carried him across the marble floor of St. Mark's Cathedral, oblivious to the...

Carnevale.(EX)
March 22, 1999... The First Night Spirit away the princess to where the century has landed in the lap of the past. Set her down, gently now, still rubbing her eyes from the gust of passage. Will she recognize the place? Is there anything she will recognize?...

Fifteen Short Poems.(PO)
March 22, 1999... Cortege Nobody hears the cortege filtered through the rain and the illusion becomes more real than the boats or the laughter of children who think they see a line of swans. In Memoriam Taped to the...

Der Tod in Venedig.(SS)
March 22, 1999... On the train to Venice, counting the cypresses against the gilded sky. Forty-five, beginning to age, I crouch in the upholstered seat, travelling the continent alone, rushing through the August afternoon until the shadows level toward the...

Zattere.(PO)
March 22, 1999... sun flash off canal waters so intense it melts into this ajar green buzz stare too hard you lose it Kedeem Beeftallow is a pseudonym for your...

What I Did on My Summer Vacation.(EX)
March 22, 1999... First of August... I am walking, but it is not me. It is memory walking. Memory leading my limbs through these twisting calle as if it were only yesterday. As if it weren't only two hours since I landed, two years since I last searched these...

Our Slides of Venice.(PO)
March 22, 1999... Here we are the final day, tired, our eyes dark and drooping a little, as we board the train to leave. Outside, water laps against the station steps, to bid us farewell, to greet the newly arrived. This is one of many...

Conversations with the Doge of Venice.(SS)
March 22, 1999... The other five found Gerald on the floor sometime in what they called the morning. It wasn't really morning, only that the lights were back on, but it was the closest they'd come to morning in months, maybe longer. The interval between Duane's...

The Cemetery Island.(PO)
March 22, 1999... 1. At Ezra Pound's Grave, 1994 Still rocking from the vaporetto ride I wander, camera for amulet, past blocks of stacked tombs: photographs behind glass and sconces of bouquets. Lost in long alleys, I turn...

Venice Unbound.(SS)
March 22, 1999... Paula, sleek, blonde and breezy, moved through the cold, damp loft each day dressed in shades of grey and black, inevitably broken with a touch of white, usually a crisp shirt. Under her left arm, clutched close to her like a tattered teddy...

Small Leavetaking.(PO)
March 22, 1999... By late afternoon only small things remain-- olives in a twist of green waxed paper. The boat is seven hours late. We loll on the sunbaked pier, blood slowing to Hymettus honey, sharing the wine, tipping the last...