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Given the latest politics of literacy (e.g., The Patriot Act's shadowy reminders of censorship), glancing backwards to a time where a book could mean life or death has resonance. We currently consider whether or not a person's reading materials signal terrorist tendencies --- choosing to publish a pagan poet in Renaissance Italy, Michelle Lovric reminds us, could mean utter ruin.
THE FLOATING BOOK: A Novel of Venice turns on real events --- German immigrant printer Wendelin von Speyer's decision to print the poems of Catullus. In Lovric's richly imagined text, narratives set in different fonts include those of the Roman poet, of von Speyer's Venetian bride Lussieta, and the sad, sordid wanderings of one Sosia Simeon, a Dalmation Jewess whose doctor husband quietly acquiesces to her many extramarital dalliances.
While Sosia embarks on a love triangle that will ruin her, the von Speyer's storybook marriage is threatened by events that sweep through their lives like cold winds through their city's canals. Lussieta's first-person narration shows her as flawed yet loving. Lovric's "controlling metaphor" is that of her title --- comparing the water-bound Venice to a "floating book," whose pages not only turn at random, but have a certain changeability, like the denizens of the city themselves. Set during the early days of the printed book, the novel offers myriad nuggets about inkmaking, typesetting and bookselling during the Renaissance. Von Speyer's awe on first reading the erotic of Catullus would have been enough to carry a plot --- the stolid, German craftsman standing up for something both exotic yet indigenous to his newly found land.
However, as Sosia crams a worn ledger with details of her conquests, Lovric seems to have been determined to cram her own book with characters --- from the young editor Bruno to the wily scribe Felice to Bruno's simple-minded and convent-bound sister Gentilia, on to Fra Filippo da Strata and his gruesome sidekick Ianno, and then back to Catullus, his lover (and the "Lesbia" of his verses) Clodia and her sybaritic entourage, back to the city of Venice itself that plays a role. Thus, there seems to be too many players on the stage. Of course, a number of books have a large cast; it's just that here, the comings and goings float as aimlessly as a gondola for lovers.
Those who do wade through the details will be rewarded by finally learning what ties all of these disparate souls together, and Lovric has contrived some ingenious ways of connecting the historical dots that she knows so well. Still, I wondered on turning the final page if a simpler plot would have served her better and given readers a better sense of what it means to live in a time when art really mattered.
--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick
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