A "fable" by the celebrated Florinese author. My very first copy of this gem was acquired over 40 years ago when I was browsing the shelves of the local bookstore and browsed past "S. Morgenstern", did a double-take, and came back.
Sure enough, it was a newly released story by the great Florinese master. I was ecstatic! I immediately purchased it and scurried home where I devoured it in a single session. Sadly, my first edition was misplaced during a move and when I went to purchase a copy of the then-current paperback edition, the author had, through some gross negligence, been listed as a certain "William Goldman". The confusion appears to have stemmed from this "Goldman" having once published an abridgement of the master's best known work, _The Princess Bride_. (I won't address the travesty of attempting to abridge a seminal Florinese work of literature.) I was devastated, but I needed to replace my book so I grudgingly purchased it despite it being a principle example of the folly of American literary capitalism.
Fast forward to "near now" and I once again had a hankering to read this story and once again my copy had been lost along the way. This time, however, I consulted Amazon and was rewarded with several available used copies of the first edition of _The Silent Gondoliers_, in hardcover, with the proper authorial attribution. Needless to say, I chose one and through the magic of Priority Mail, I soon had a copy in my hands and I once again devoured it all in a single session.
_The Silent Gondoliers_ is, like much of Morgenstern's work, a layered experience. After admonishing his publishers that "I am old, but I am alive. Perhaps as you age will find the two are not mutually exclusive.", Morgenstern begins his book with a memory of being a child in Venice on Christmas and hearing the beautiful singing of the gondoliers. Yet, nowadays, the gondoliers are silent and only a few old people now remember what it was like to hear them as they ferried their customers around the canals of Venice.
This is the outer layer, if you will. The mystery – what silenced them? Why? Morgenstern began an investigation that, being Florinese with some Italian heritage as well, he felt uniquely qualified to conduct. He details the pursuit of this mystery with anecdotes about the insular life of gondoliers and the many colorful ways that they are like yet specially unlike other society. One particular anecdote involving a British couple who attempt to find refreshment at the gondolier's tavern (note: not "a" tavern, "the" tavern) will have the reader wishing to have been there to witness it themselves.
Morgenstern's investigations lead him to the story of Luigi, the protagonist of the story that explains the mystery that Morgenstern uncovered and eventually unravels. This is the inner layer. The full story is short – only 110 pages and those are seldom full of text and many contain no text at all; rather the wonderful illustrations of Paul Giovanopoulos. Given the brevity of the story and, as I have intimated, the fact that it can be consumed in an afternoon or less, I am loathe to give much in the way of plot summary except to say this – It is a story of the perseverance of human spirit and finding treasure and opportunity in the midst of disaster and destruction, and the aftermath of that epiphany. In a sense it is a Christmas miracle, but only really in the sense that the climax happens to occur on Christmas – it is "on" Christmas, not "about" Christmas, if you take my meaning.
As you might conclude from my own admission of having purchased this book three separate times, twice being the exact same first edition, I personally enjoyed this story immensely and found it both entertaining and thought-provoking. This in no way is _The Princess Bride_, yet if you enjoyed reading that book (and even if you only ever watched the film) I believe you will find your time spent reading _The Silent Gondoliers_ to be time well spent.
(edited to correct the initial purchase date – sheesh, where has time gone?)
by slickriptide