mns  2009-11-25 14:44   

Finally ‘The Umbrella Tree’ is out and I opted not to have a launch as I always get upset at my own launches (although I love everyone else’s). I always have the feeling that I give nothing at a launch and that I’m just receiving, and that I don’t have time to give to the individual people who turn up, and I get very stressed. Having said that, I felt really sorry on Monday that I wasn’t having a party of some sort because it is a celebration to have the book out in the shops.
The last months have been full of tidying it up combined with a wonderful week in Venice. I suppose, like many things, it is the actual seeing of Venice that staggers belief. I had read so much and seen so many pictures and photographs, as well as films based there that I did not think it would have the impact that it had. It is such an amazing city emerging from the lagoon like some mythical place. I am still amazed at its intricacies and its beauty, all the tiny narrow streets and little bridges linking the city, and its magnificence probably most visible in St Mark’s Square. It is, unfortunately, ferociously expensive and for the most part even the Venetians no longer live there but travel across to work which seems very sad, the more so when one considers that originally Venice was created by refugees from Attila the Hun who came and hid in the marshland just to survive. And now the real inhabitants of Venice are refugees from their own city.
If you are going there let me recommend a company named Viator which can be found on line. They do the best guided tours I have ever gone on. We went on two, one of which was the secrets of Venice and the other was of the Doges Palace, and in both cases the guides were fantastic. At one point I asked how the Venetians felt about most of its art, that Napoleon had stolen, still being in the Louvre, and with a wry smile, the guide said, ‘Well, we stole it before Napoleon did.’
It raises the question, at what time does something belong to someone else? My feelings are that when it has been purchased then it belongs to the buyer, but when it has been stolen it, mostly, ought to be returned. I say ‘mostly’ because I fully accept that there is plenty of art that only survived because it was stolen, the Elgin Marbles being a prime example.
Speaking of art, the Peggy Guggenheim collection is the best modern art collection I have ever seen. Her home, now the gallery, is on the Grand Canal and it has been beautifully modernised. If I am ever fortunate enough to return to Venice that is one of the many places I would like to see again. The audio guide was a personal friend of hers and had insight into why she purchased different paintings and what she saw in them, and I, who have never been a fan of early cubism, am now a convert.
The Edvard Munch exhibition is on in the National Gallery and JC won two tickets, so we are all set to go there as soon as there is a day without rain! Poor Ireland is awash with rain and wind at the moment and it has been very miserable. Time to get back to the next novel...