Palaces of Venice

Rating:
Summary: Lost in Translation
Review: I bought this book some months ago in anticipation of a trip to Venice - which I have just returned from . I only glanced at the pictures before I left , with a view to savouring them and reading the text when I returned home.

When I actually started to read the text I discovered that the English translation is like something out of "Monty Python" ... the sketch with the obscene English/Hungarian phrase book . The line "my hovercraft is full of eels" would not be out of place in this book. It is a bizarre, pseudo architectural, English - Italian mangle of words, tenses, concepts & jargon. The dust jacket blurb even manages to insult the photographer (referring to his other works -"... among these volumes , some are worthy of value").

Some phrases ..."prevelaently ligneous", "architectonical experimentation", "autarchic economy" etc etc - and that's just the introduction !

Almost none of the complete sentences in the book make any sense whatsoever.

The photos are nice though - hence the 2 stars.

It'll look good on your coffee table, as long as you don't attempt to read it !