If you recognize Donna Leon’s name, it’s probably from the Guido Brunetti mysteries set in Venice. Now, at eighty-one, she looks back at her own life in Wandering through Life. She admits she never had a life plan, which is why it has this title. The book is actually a collection of anecdotes, although it is written in chronological order. Even in the preface, she says “I am feckless and unthinking by nature and have never planned more than the first step in anything I’ve done.”
There’s one chapter called “Reading”, and Leon talks about coming from a family of readers. Her parents were readers who read to her and her brother. If you remember the children’s rhyme, “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear”, you’ll recognize the moment when that rhyme led to a moment of truth: “a word could have two separate meanings”. Leon loved language, and that simple rhyme, along with the books read to her until she learned to read, led to that language. Leon’s mother was a reader, and when Donna whined that she was bored, her mother “packed me into the car and took me to the library, and I’ve not been bored since.”
Leon says her mother read for pleasure. “I guess my brother and I get our almost total lack of ambition from her: she just wanted to have fun, to go through life seeing new things, learning about what interested her, going to new places. Because of this, I went through life never having a real job, never having a pension plan, never settling down in one place or at one job, but having an enormous amount of fun.”
Leon talks about teaching English in Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia. Then, she spent almost fifty years in Venice, the city she loved almost on site. How did she end up there? A college friend asked her to accompany her because her mother wouldn’t let her go to school there without a “chaperone”. So, Leon agreed to be a chaperone.
She talks about her love of music, of opera, of Venice. What she doesn’t mention is how she began to write. There’s really very little in the book about her writing life.
It actually felt as if Donna Leon was just wandering through her memories to write this book. If you enjoy a memoir filled with anecdotes, but little in depth self-examination, you might want to try Wandering through Life.
Wandering through Life by Donna Leon. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023. ISBN 9780802161581 (hardcover), 193p.
FTC Full Disclosure – Library Book
If you’d like to hear Donna Leon talk about her book, check out The Poisoned Pen’s event on YouTube.
We spent about half a day in Venice once, in the mid-1970s. Mostly we just walked around the streets and I do remember eating right on the Grand Canal. We just watched a streaming series (probably on MHz Choice, but I’m not sure) called DON’T LEAVE ME. It wasn’t great – for one, it had our mutual least liked plot at the center, child trafficking – but there were lots and lots of scenes of Venice throughout the series.
I have this book on hold.
You’re right about that. I’ve read more than enough books about child trafficking. I’m sure the scenes of Venice made up for the plot.
I am glad to see your review of this. Now I know what to expect when / if I read it. I might enjoy it, someday.