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The Midwife Of Venice (2011)

by Roberta Rich(Favorite Author)

3.56 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0385668279 (ISBN13: 9780385668279)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Anchor Canada

series

Midwife series

review 1: I enjoyed this quick read and book club choice. It was a well researched historical fiction – a first novel by author Roberta Rich. The author’s ability to write descriptive prose is definitely her forte. The story takes place in Venice in the 1500’s and I could see and smell everything about the environment. Rich did an excellent job of contrasting the lives of a well-to-do Christian family with a much poorer couple - a Jewish midwife named Hannah whose husband Isaac left Venice for trading purposes and ended up being captured and purchased as a slave and held captive in Malta. This couple’s shared abode had been in Venice’s Jewish ghetto, where Hannah, a midwife still lived. The author’s depictions of their ghetto home evoked feelings of entrapment and ... moreenclosure in very tight quarters with minimal free space and few windows. In contrast, Rich lavishly described the spaciousness and opulence in the wealthy Christians’ dwelling. I could see and texturally feel the extravagant furniture, draperies and accessories described; as well as the wide and spacious stair casing, the mouldings, the marble flooring and the jewels, incredible dresses and other attire that filled the closets of this mansion they called home. Besides make their personal environments come alive, the author did the same with outer communal neighbourhoods – the deep, dark canals, the sewage, the docks, squares and gathering places. I could smell and visualize Venice although I have never visited.I also learned a lot about what it was like in Venice in the 1500’s, about Jewish words and customs, including the male-female separation in Jewish worshipping traditions and the enforced Christian-Jewish division - a separation put into law and depending upon the type of contact, punishable by extradition or imprisonment. I was taken back in time to a space and culture that I had been unfamiliar with before reading this book. Midwifery played a role in the plot, although it was not discussed in much depth, except for some discussion about birthing spoons (a forerunner to forceps) and medicinal herbs. There was also some discussion about silkworms and making silk but it felt as if it was just introduced, with very little fleshing out. It almost seemed like a teaser for a potential next book and surprise, surprise……there is a sequel.Most of the story focussed on relationships; between the two families, between Hannah and her estranged sister, Isaac and those who met in Malta, but the primarily relationship the author focussed on was between Hannah and Isaac, their inability to have children, their forced separation and enduring love for each other. The story was told in separate chapters, alternating between Hannah in Venice and Isaac in Malta. It was a love story about survival and of both of their attempts to reunite. Their love, admiration and respect for each other felt genuine and strong. However, I do think there was a potential for much more. In addition to the undeveloped themes mentioned earlier, the ending was also rather predictable. For a first novel, the book was 3 star worthy but there were several glimmers to suggest that in future the author has the potential to write at an even higher level.
review 2: Venice in the sixteenth-century, for the very wealthy, was a life of unsurpassed luxury. The middle class (artisans and tradespeople) lived lives dictated by the rules of their guilds and by the Catholic Church.The poor lived in very unclean, dangerous situations. Pigs wallowed in the street consuming garbage, fire from the shipbuilding yard or ordinary cooking fires could consume entire districts. Poor people in the Jewish Ghetto lived, ate and slept and gave birth in tiny cramped rooms without sanitation or running water. As life became more dangerous for Jews in the rest of Europe, they fled to Venice, which was a relatively safe haven. The ghetto buildings were continually subdivided as more Jews arrived - the places they had to live got smaller and smaller. As a Jewish midwife in Venice, Hannah delivered babies in the Ghetto. The story is historical and written so well, as I was transported into this time and place. less

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