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A Conversation with John Berendt
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Falling Angels
are
both multi-list bestsellers and widely acclaimed books. Have you been surprised
by their success? What do you think attracts people to your work?
My best guess is that what appeals to readers most in both books are the
characters. Time magazine said I had become "a state-of-the-art weirdo magnet."
What they meant was that the people I write about tend to be very strange. They
are, in fact, eccentrics. I love eccentrics. I see them as artists. Their
masterpieces are their own lives.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil marked your style of nonfiction as
unique and groundbreaking. Now, The City of Falling Angels brings Venice alive
for readers the way Midnight did for Savannah, Georgia. What do you think the
major hallmarks of your writing style are?
I write in the form of what has been called, the New Journalism, or Narrative
Nonfiction, or even Literary Nonfiction. Simply put, I write true stories in the
style of short stories and novels. I use the literary techniques of fiction
writers: extended dialogue, detailed descriptions, the imposition of a narrative
structure with action moving from scene to scene.
The huge media buzz that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil created
turned you into a kind of celebrity. How do you think the attention from social
and gossip columnists has affected your work as a journalist? Did you find that
you were as easily recognized by face or name while in Italy?
What notoriety I gained from all the publicity has proved to be a
double-edged sword. It has made some people very eager to be interviewed by me
and others afraid and standoffish. I was not as easily recognizable by face and
name in Italy as in America, but Midnight was quite well known there, as both a
book and a film (under the name Mezzanotte nel giardino del bene del male).
The incredible timing of your trip to Venice, which landed you in the city
just days after the burning of the Fenice, gave you the perfect opportunity to
create a central thread for The City of Falling Angels. How much of a role did
coincidence play in the gathering of information for this book?
Coincidence has been a major factor in the researching of both my books.
While I was living in Venice, I always carried a small notepad in my back
pocket; I figured I was on duty as a journalist day and night. I would see
people in the street who interested me, and I'd engage them in conversation. I'd
hear a remark that would send me off in an unexpected direction. My approach in
the research phase was to be flexible, to follow my hunches without always
knowing where they would lead.
Several prominent and not-so-prominent Venetians express their concern
about the rising water levels in Venice. Have you formed an opinion about the
issue after hearing so much about it? How do you think the problem can be
solved?
Yes, I do think it can be solved. The technology is there. The only
uncertainty is exactly how fast the water is rising and whether the proposed
plan of moveable dikes is the best solution or only a short-term fix. Other than
that, there is always the problem that Italians are congenitally unable to make
up their minds. Sometimes that's a good thing, however.
On page 218, you write, "when you attach yourself to famous people . . .
you become part of their story." As a writer, how do you determine which people
rotating in the orbit of famous personalities or powerful individuals are worth
writing about, insofar as their stories are important to the "big picture?" How
do you choose which stories to weave together when creating a book like The City
of Falling Angels?
It's always a question of whether the ancillary character makes a good story.
In the chapter referred to here, the character rotating in an orbit around a
famous person appealed to me because her story embodied a theme that runs
throughout the book: the uses of the past, or as one character puts it, "the
shameless exploitation of the corpse." There was also the literary link between
her story and Henry James's The Aspern Papers, a relationship I found
irresistible.
In Italy, as in other European countries, it seems more common for
families to be able to trace their ancestry back for many generations. From your
experience with the people of Venice, what do you think it does to a person's
perspective on family relationships, on politics, and on life in general when
one is able to point at a family tree, like Francesco da Mosta's, and see so far
back in time?
Venetians who can trace their lineage back hundreds of years feel almost a
physical connection to Venice, to its history and culture. And the longer the
family line the greater feeling of pride.
There are so many wonderful aspects of Venice to love and enjoy. After
spending so much time there, what attracts you the most to the city? How many
years in all did you live there? What was it like returning to the United States
afterward? Did you suffer from culture shock?
I lived in Venice on and off for a period of nine years—starting a few days
after the Fenice fire in 1996, and ending when I was finished with the book and
the opera house was rebuilt, in 2005. The city's magical beauty and its air of
unreality are the aspects of Venice I love most.
The loss of the Fenice Opera House is important to the story of The City
of Falling Angels and to the history of Venice. Have there been any new
developments in the case surrounding its burning or its reconstruction?
The only news about the Fenice is that Enrico Carella, one of the two young
men who were convicted of arson in the fire, is still a fugitive; his
whereabouts are unknown. The other man, his cousin Massimiliano Marchetti, has
been in jail three years (as of September 2006) and is expected to be released
within a year.
Of all the stories you tell in The City of Falling Angels, why did you
choose to end by returning to the Seguso family and the Maestro's "Fenice" glass
collection?
The Seguso story was one of my favorites, and since I opened the book with
it, I felt I should close the circle by ending with it as well.
Count Marcello tells the Save Venice board, "to work and operate in
Venice means first of all to understand its differences and its delicate
equilibrium." After completing this book, do you feel that you have achieved
Marcello's standard?
The Venetians are a very Byzantine people. They thrive on mystery, intrigue,
and ambiguity. I understand all that, but it doesn't mean I always understand
the hidden meaning of things—or that they do either.
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