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The Second Venice
As The Italian Government puts a limit on the number of tourists to Venice, to protect it from destruction and pollution, an American consortium (McBigBite and Pshht Cola) build beside the real Venice a "Second Venice" which is "bigger and better". This book is the ludicrous story of life in this fake Venice. With its fake canals and gondolas, its fake museums and fake paintings, its "Fake Films" festival, congresses and college and dog shows, the Second Venice attracts a sizeable tourist crowd to compete with the real Venice. Spy stories and thieves as well as heated discussions in its pubs, among tourists of various nationalities add a spice to this marvelous humoristic masterpiece. Finally, a sheikh buys The Second Venice at a bargain price, kidnapping the daughter of a friendly family - a major shareholder of the city. Chapter after chapter this book will make you laugh and will be a pleasant addition to your "humor" library.
152 pages, Paperback
First published August 2, 2005
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January 6, 2013
I rarely dislike books - and rarely spend time giving harsh reviews - but this is a book that really disappointed me. It made me feel deceived even when considering the blatant praise it displays on the back cover and through reviews on Amazon. Funny how most of those reviews ends with the same phrase...
I appreciate funny and intelligent books and I'm a great fan of downplayed absurdist humor like in the books of Douglas Adams. It seems that The Second Venice tries to be like that but fails tremendously in the attempt. Instead I found it banal, prejudiced and downright badly written. (Sometimes punchlines were repeated on opposite pages in the book with slightly different wording - as if not edited properly.)
It seeks to satirize all nations that might visit Venice as tourists, as well as the actions of big corporations. But the satire very rarely lifts itself above that which is clichéd or simply offensive.
It might be that I, residing in a Nordic country where we satirize nearly everything all the time, is simply too hardened by the genre. And it might be that readers from other cultures (possibly North America) would call it a 'humor classic' and the author a 'master of humor'. Or maybe that's just me making one of the exact same generalizations that this book touts as being the top-end of humor.
I'll give it half a star for the chapter on the covert operations of Russian agents, which made me smile, and half a star for being published at all. Indeed an achievement.
I discarded my copy so as not to lure any second hand readers into 150 pages of ill-conceived comedy.
I appreciate funny and intelligent books and I'm a great fan of downplayed absurdist humor like in the books of Douglas Adams. It seems that The Second Venice tries to be like that but fails tremendously in the attempt. Instead I found it banal, prejudiced and downright badly written. (Sometimes punchlines were repeated on opposite pages in the book with slightly different wording - as if not edited properly.)
It seeks to satirize all nations that might visit Venice as tourists, as well as the actions of big corporations. But the satire very rarely lifts itself above that which is clichéd or simply offensive.
It might be that I, residing in a Nordic country where we satirize nearly everything all the time, is simply too hardened by the genre. And it might be that readers from other cultures (possibly North America) would call it a 'humor classic' and the author a 'master of humor'. Or maybe that's just me making one of the exact same generalizations that this book touts as being the top-end of humor.
I'll give it half a star for the chapter on the covert operations of Russian agents, which made me smile, and half a star for being published at all. Indeed an achievement.
I discarded my copy so as not to lure any second hand readers into 150 pages of ill-conceived comedy.
Displaying 1 of 1 review