The Girl of His Dreams
by Donna Leon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Donna LeonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-07
ISBN: 0143115618
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Girl of His Dreams
Book Review: Nice comfort read
Summary: 3 Stars
The title of this 17th instalment of Commissario Brunetti's investigations is slightly misleading; the girl is nobody's dream, but she is dead and appears to Brunetti in his nightmares rather than his dreams.
The opening of the book sees us at the funeral of Brunetti's mother which occasions more nostalgia in all concerned than real grief. Brunetti then is asked by the priest officiating at the funeral to investigate a shady guru-type priest. Sometime later Brunetti and his faithful sidekick Vianello find a young blond girl in one of the canals. The subsequent investigation leads them to a gipsy camp outside Venice and has them confronting their own prejudices.
In terms of mystery this novel is quite unexciting. As always, Brunetti's dogged intellect unravels what has happened to his satisfaction, but nonetheless he is unable to bring justice to the victim; I understand that the law and justice seldom go hand in hand (in real life), but in the case of Leon's novels it gets more and more difficult to bear that the perpetrators of crime hardly ever are brought to justice (and by this I don't mean that they are punished by the law).
In my opinion this is one of the weaker instalments, the mystery is very unsatisfying, nothing exiting happens either in terms of the plot or with the characters but life for Brunetti just ebbs along the way we have come to expect. This is not necessarily a bad thing; in a world where one is daily bombarded by the ravages of war, hunger, poverty, unemployment and finds it increasingly difficult to find any meaning or constancy, the predictability of Brunetti's world offers great comfort. That is not to say that Brunetti lives in a perfect world; he also laments the inefficiency of government, the stupidity of his superior, the increasing number of tourists that deluge Venice, the extinction of fruit and vegetable vendors in Venice, the rise of the mafia and so on. But aside from all this his life moves in an orderly fashion; he goes to work, he cleverly manipulates his superior into letting him do what he wants, he has Signorina Elettra do illegal but highly efficient computer searches, he collects favors and dispenses favors in the course of his investigations, has profound discussion with Vianello and his wife, ambles along the little streets and canals of Venice and every so often enjoys a delicious meal.
I know that Donna Leon is a teacher and I like literary allusions but recently I find it increasingly difficult to escape the impression that some of her literary reflexitivity seems a touch forced; how else can it be explained that whatever Classic Brunetti happens to read tallies so nicely with what else is going on in the book?
I liked "The girl of his dreams" quite a lot and think it is a very nice "comfort read" but it seems to lack some of the profundity that characterized some of the earlier instalments. Nevertheless, I'm looking very much forward to the next book in the series.
Summary of The Girl of His Dreams
Amazon Best of the Month, May 2008: Reading The Girl of His Dreams leaves you no choice but to reconsider what makes a mystery novel so good. Certainly there's no denying the appeal of a hard-boiled crime story, where more often than not a brilliant yet battered P.I. drives you white-knuckled to the edge of your seat, but Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti--at once exactingly inquisitive and disarmingly sensitive--bucks that genre convention entirely. Here, in Leon's seventeenth Brunetti mystery, is a man who investigates the tragic drowning of a young Gypsy girl relentlessly, yet--in his thoughtful meanderings through the streets and cafes of Venice--also struggles to understand the human warps and weaknesses that make his beloved city so vulnerable. In the end, it's this pure love and curiosity for life (and, I admit, his lusty appreciation of daily luxuries like prosecco, good coffee, or a burst of sunshine) that make Brunetti such a seductive hero--so much so that you're willing to follow him wherever he goes. --Anne Bartholomew
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