Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"[...] he reflected on how very little he had learned about the dead man. [...] A genius, a homophobe, adored by the world of music, a man whom a woman half his age would love, but still a man whose substance was elusive."

The audience at Teatro La Fenice, the Opera House in Venice, is waiting for the third act of the opera to begin, when the artistic director of the theater announces that Maestro Wellauer, the world-famous opera director, is unable to continue the performance, and another director will take his place. And then he asks, "Is there a doctor in the audience?"

Maestro Wellauer is dead, poisoned by cyanide in his coffee. Guido Brunetti, commissario of police for the city of Venice, is leading the investigation. Death at La Fenice (1992) is the first novel in Donna Leon's "internationally famous" series. This is also the first novel by Ms. Leon that I have read, and - unfortunately - I am unable to share the enthusiasm of millions of other readers. I have not found the novel captivating at all, and, at times, continuing reading felt like a chore.

While the prose is pleasant and readable, I find it uninspiring. The psychological portrayals of the characters feel a bit naive and superficial. Ms. Leon does attempt to provide elements of the social background to the plot in several places of the novel, yet these attempts do not blend well with the plot. Commissario Brunetti does not seem a particularly interesting character. The result feels unremarkable, particularly when compared with novels by masters like Denise Mina, Karin Fossum, or Maj Sjöwall.

Clearly, the popularity of the series shows that my lack of appreciation is an outlier, and it may indicate that something is wrong with me rather than with the novel. I will read another installment in the series; maybe I will form a more positive opinion.

This is not to say that I have not found several passages that I liked. To me, the best portion of the book is the vivid and humorous account of the high-society party thrown by Brunetti's parents-in-law, Count and Countess Falier. Brunetti meets someone there, who will help him solve the case.

Three passages made me laugh out loud, and they save the novel from even a lower rating. They are funny because they are offensive. The first two make fun of three nationalities:

"Brunetti reflected upon the possible advantage of censorship of the press. In the past, the German people had got along very well with a government that demanded it, and the American government seemed to fare similarly well with a population that wanted it."

as well as this cynical gem about aristocracy:

"Where does American money come from? [...] You know how it is over there. It doesn't matter if you murder or rob to get it. The trick is in keeping it for a hundred years, and then you're aristocrats. [...] Here [in Italy] we have to keep it for five hundred years before we're aristocrats. And there's another difference. In Italy, you have to be well-dressed. In America, it's difficult to tell which are the millionaires and which are the servants."

The following hilarious passage is offensive to teenagers:

"He was fifteen [...] He had discovered, by himself, that the world is corrupt and the system unjust, and that men in power were interested in that and that alone. Because he was the first person ever to have made this discovery with such force and purity, he insisted upon showing his ample contempt for all those not yet graced with the clarity of his vision."

Two-and-a-half stars.

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