The Garden of Angels

This novel moved me profoundly, both because it’s set in Venice – a city I know well and love deeply – and because it narrates a dramatic period, about which I heard from people who experienced it personally (including my parents and grandparents), that is, the period after the armistice of September 1943. The Nazis and the Black Brigades rule Venice, harassing its citizens in every way, mostly Jews but not only them, using such cruel and violent means that one wonders how human beings can do so much harm to other human beings, trampling every dignity just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. DH never describes their brutality in detail, using discretion and measure, but one understands perfectly well what is happening. The novel begins with Paolo Uccello – a rich Venetian entrepreneur who made his fortune after the war as a manufacturer of luxury velvet – dying in the hospital; he entrusts to his grandson Nico his own story during that terrible time, written in the third person to narrate also the part other people play into it. The most interesting thing is that no one among the protagonists, not even Paolo, is completely “good” or “evil”. For instance, the partisan siblings Micaela and Giovanni Artom are not flawless heroes, but they conceal secrets and agendas, and especially Micaela acts often in a rash way that endangers Paolo and other innocent people; while the collaborationist Luca Alberti tries several times to save his fellow citizens but mostly they won’t listen to him. It’s a tale that doesn’t show things in black and white, but in the endless nuances of grey that shape reality, then and nowadays. The ending of the book has a big surprise in store, regarding Nonno Paolo, a surprise that adds one more nuance of grey to the chiaroscuro that composes this novel. What I liked the best is Mr Hewson’s evident love and respect for Venice and its inhabitants, as much as for History. I found none of the usual and often irritating clichés that strangers often use to label Italians; on the contrary, I found many little things that I know belong to the town and its inhabitants, regarding habits, whims, character and physicality, described in a simple way and without judgement. The narrator, Richard Armitage, is at his best: simply excellent. With his deep, soulful voice he doesn’t just read, he acts, and the narration becomes alive like a movie on screen. I highly recommend this book, both for the plot in itself and the peculiar topic, a piece of History that concerns us Italians closely but that, unfortunately, isn’t thoroughly enough studied at school.