The Birth of Venus: A Novel - Hardcover

Dunant, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400060737 ISBN 13: 9781400060733

Publisher: Random House Inc, 2004

Synopsis

Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo, a situation that is complicated by her unwanted arranged marriage to an older man and a battle between the Medici family and the fundamentalist followers of Savonarola. 75,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

The Birth of Venus is all the more fascinating a historical novel for the author's inability to make up her mind what it is about. Is it a novel about the limited choices available to a woman with talent in Renaissance Florence--marriage or the convent? Or is it a novel about the choices you make to survive in a totalitarian society? As Savonarola takes Florence closer and closer to being an ascetic theocracy, Alessandra, her gay brother and his lover whom she has married for mutual protection find themselves in more and more peril. It could also be a detective story--Allesandra is in love with a painter whose religious mania and fascination with the body makes him a plausible suspect for a series of killings and dismemberments. Some historical novels wear their research too heavily--Dunant's is light, fluent and pacy, but her fascination with the possibilities revealed by research leaves her failing to make choices.

The Birth of Venus is a highly intelligent novel kept from incoherence mostly by the intensely imagined Alessandra, through whose eyes we see the tragic end of a key moment in human culture and whose lively sensibility constantly sparks ideas about art and her time. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

The Birth of Venus is a highly intelligent novel... the intensely imagined Alessandra, through whose eyes we see the tragic end of a key moment in human culture and whose lively sensibility constantly sparks ideas about art and her time. (Roz Kaveney, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW)

Dunant throws out ideas about sex, art and the divine with Renaissance-style sprezzatura (The INDEPENDENT)

Dunant is in her historical element in Renaissance Florence. ... No one should visit Tuscany this summer without this book. It is richly textured and driven by a thrillerish fever. (Rachel Holmes, The TIMES)

It's to Dunant's credit that the vast quantities of historical information in this book are deployed so naturally and lightly. ... On the simplest level, this is an erotic and gripping thriller, but its intellectual excitement also comes from the way Dun (- Suzi Feay, Independent on Sunday 'A beautiful serpent of a book, seductive dangerous and full of wise guile. Dunant's snaky tale of art, sex and Florentine hysteria, consumes utterly - but the experience is all pleasure.')

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1400060737
• ISBN 13: 9781400060733
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 397