Can a city or an object be a character in a story?
What do I mean when I include Venice in the list of characters in my books?
Is it reasonable to list a city or an object in the list of characters? When I read Dava Sobel's Longitude, I thought it was a biography of the sextant. The instrument seafarers have used to calculate a ship's position until GPS came about. My stories do not just take place in Venice; the city plays a role in the way the characters move and interact with each other and their environment.
I wanted to convey the uniqueness of living in a city where you can move around in two ways: on foot or by boat. There is no other way to move around. If you do not have mobility issues, walking is often faster than taking the waterbus.
I describe how people go from A to B or interact with others along the way. I also describe the environment, not because I want to write a stealth tour guide of Venice, but because the weather, the sunshine, the wind, or the rain, affects people in a way you do not find in a city where you can always flag a taxi (or hail a cab depending on which side of the Atlantic you are when you are reading this!). In Venice, a taxi is a speedboat. When there is a lot of wind, and the lagoon is rough, you feel it in a taxi, in a waterbus, even when you walk. There is no respite until you reach your destination.
Venice is not unique in lending itself to be a character in a story. I have read books or watched films where London, New York, Paris, Florence, a coastal town in the Mediterranean, or an island in the Pacific could have been considered characters in a story.
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I think it depends on what the writer does with their environment; I make it an integral part of the narration, which is why Venice is a character. For instance, this is an excerpt from "The Dressmaker's Parcels," when Rachele Modiano Mendes reads the first antisemitic article, part of a media campaign that preceded Mussolini's racial laws (Rachele is Jewish).
"It was just a longer route home. She turned left after Rialto Bridge, walked along the Grand Canal for a while, then turned right through countless narrow streets, bridges crossing narrow and wider canals. She found herself in Campo San Polo and arrived outside the front door of her home in Campo San Giacomo Dall'Orio about an hour after leaving the office. Rachele still had not decided how to react to the article that annoyed her so much, but had figured out what to do about the contract she had been reading for most of her day."
A reader told me she reads my books with Google Maps of Venice, which is one of the greatest compliments any reader has paid me.
Another example from Elena's Memory:
"He was walking with his hands in his trousers pockets, lost in his thoughts. When he reached the bridge over the Rio dei Santi Apostoli, something triggered a childhood memory; somebody lived nearby; Joshua could not remember whether it was a friend of his parents, a relative, or a schoolmate. He was not paying attention to what was happening around him; the road was empty."
A final one, from the book that will be launched next week "Murders and Masterpieces – A Venetian Mystery":
"He got off the bus at Piazzale Roma and walked to the vaporetto stop to begin transitioning into the Venetian bubble. A place where people still walked, where every campo was the centre of a small community. Residents, business owners, and everybody who walked through the area regularly were all familiar faces. He got off the vaporetto and stopped to get his second coffee of the morning. People vaguely familiar were discussing the front page news and stopped to greet him; the bartender greeted him when he walked in, started on his coffee, put the croissant he usually had with his coffee on a plate, and placed the plate and the cup of coffee on the counter, pointing to Umberto where he would find them. In a way, he had become a local, at least a daytime local. The regular patrons of the café would have remembered a stranger. Few tourists ventured into that part of Venice."
In all three examples, Venice is almost talking to the character. Its uniqueness is both an inspiration and a supportive hug. It is more than a background; it is an active participant in the story.
The Venice I describe is not the one you see on Instagram; it is the Venice full of residents. It still exists. The crowd of Social Media content creators are restricting it by the day, but it is still there. It is pushed away from the most photographed parts of town, but if you are prepared to get lost, you can still find it. By the way, if you get lost, look for the closest vaporetto stop. It is a great way to find your bearings and return to familiar places.
I have decided to keep my Substack free. However, if you decide to support my work, you can ‘buy me a coffee’ a one-off tip by clicking on this link, or you could buy one of my books (the link is in the caption of the image below) or keep reading my posts, it is entirely up to you.
Good stuff, Silvano. I've only been to Venice once, but it is a magical place.
I think a mark of a good writer is that that kind of detail should strike you. If a novel has an awareness of space, it will shine through the text, and it should always be set somewhere for a reason - be that plot-specific or else because the author knows it. Anyway, all this just to say that it's something you've really nailed with your books.