Here today, gondola tomorrow

From Loretta:

Didst ever see a Gondola?  For fear
    You should not, I’ll describe it to you exactly:
‘Tis a long cover’d boat that’s common here,
    Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly;
Row’d by two rowers, each call’d ‘Gondolier,’
    It glides along the water looking blackly,
Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,
Where none can make out what you say or do.
  (Lord Byron, Beppo)

Thus opens Chapter One of Your Scandalous Ways.

Thanks to all the screen adaptations of Jane Austen's work, most readers have some idea of what, say, an early 19th C carriage looks like.  But the early 19th C gondola--the carriage of Venice, whose streets are mostly water--may not be quite so clear.
Since gondolas play a big role in Your Scandalous Ways--much as a carriage might in one of my English-set “road books”--I’m going to expand on Byron’s evocative and witty description.  And, as always, I shall supply visual aids.

The first thing we modern readers need to get used to is the cabin or felze.  People think of a gondola ride today as romantic, but the passengers are in public view.  In the time of my story, the passengers were likely to be inside the felze.  It would have a door, casement windows, Venetian blinds, and a cushy interior. (Katherine Shaw kindly sent me this photo.  Please scroll down this page to see another.)

Thus Byron’s “coffin clapt in a canoe.”  It was quite private--and yes, in Your Scandalous Ways, I take advantage of that privacy in more than one scene, as in this excerpt.

      He needed desperately to be taught a lesson.
      Unhurriedly she slid shut the casement beside her and closed the blinds.  She reached across him, letting her bosom brush against his chest, and closed the window and blinds on his side.
      As she moved back to her place, she felt his chest rise and fall a little faster than it had done a moment earlier.
      She folded her hands in her lap.  “There,” she said.  “No one can see.”
      “There won’t be anything to see,” he said.
      “We’ll see,” she said.

Today, a gondola ride is an expensive luxury, reserved mainly for tourists.  It's faster and much cheaper (and noisier) to board one of the water taxis or buses.  In Byron’s time the gondolas
were everywhere.  Picture these black vessels with their little cabins, like black taxicabs, converging on a theater.  “And round the theatres, a sable throng,” as Byron puts it. 

Here's a recent view of the rear of La Fenice opera house, where Francesca's gondola would be waiting to collect her after the performance.  Below it is a (mid?) 19th C view.

     "After midnight, when the theaters let out and the parties began, the lights of hundreds of gondolas danced over the canals and candlelight twinkled in the windows of the palaces.  Here, where no coach wheels and horses’ hooves clattered over pavement, one moved in a quiet punctuated only by voices.  Carried over the water, conversations ebbed and flowed around her, as though in a great drawing room."

And no, the gondoliers did not then wear the straw hats with the ribbons and they did not sing.

In the time of my story, one would glide along in the vessel in a quiet world.  As Lord Byron's friend Hobhouse wrote, “during the night a profound stillness reigns though the canals and streets, interrupted only by the warning cry of the gondoliers, and the drop of their paddles, or by the tinkling of some solitary guitar."

Research is the closest I can come to time travel.  The challenge is to make my hero and heroine’s surroundings vivid in the reader’s mind without letting it intrude.  I don’t spend pages going into all the details of gondolas.  And I cannot illustrate my books.  But I’m thinking this blog is enough to let you answer one of those time travel questions so many of us have fun with--and get a chance to win a free book.

If you could ride in a gondola in 1820 or a gondola now, which would you rather and why?

The winning commenter will receive, sometime in early June, a signed copy of Your Scandalous Ways.

Comments

[Margay]

1820 - because everything seemed much more romantic and magical in that time period.

[francois]

It would depend on whether Venice smells better now than it did then!

[Kate]

I would take the 1820 ride. I prefer the privacy and relative quiet that I would have at that time. It sounds very relaxing to glide along without the sounds of clacking hooves. Plus I am a history major and would love to see Venice before the engine pollution. I wouldn't even mind the period dress.

[AndreaW]

I'd pick now, so I could ride it with my husband. :)

[Lindsay]

I'd take either, as I haven't made it to Europe at all and Venice is on my top 3 list of places to visit.

If I must choose, I pick 1820. Gliding along a quiet canal in a pretty gown on the way to the theatre sounds divine. I'd love to see Byron's sea of gondolas making their way to a candlelit theater. :)

[shscott21]

You know I'll take 1820, Loretta, especially if you can make sure Lord Byron will be along for the ride. :)

Susan/Miranda

[Jane O]

Definitely 1820. I would love to ride in a gondola when it was a real means of transportation, not just a tourist toy. Perhaps I could wrap myself in a domino too. But I think I would carry a nosegay, because I doubt the canals of Venice smelt better in 1820.

[Susan/DC]

1820. From your blog and the quotes, part of what makes the ride so romantic is the silence -- no motor taxis, no singing gondoliers, no electronic devices turned up loud, just the slap of the oars and whatever conversations floated over the water or out of the windows of the palazzi. Sitting in the felse, it would be so much easier to imagine myself and my SO alone in a world outside of time and place. Candlelight is so kind to complexions and linen and silk so sensuous -- with the addition of a nosegay to smell and wine to drink, I think all the senses would be engaged and happy.

[Julie F]

I would pick then because perhaps not being able to see the water moving would help with the motion sickness. Probably not, but I can dream.

[Crystal B.]

1820- I would love to experience the ride as authentically as possible. Now, it would be a tourist ride.

[Maureen]

I would pick 1820 because I would want to experience the gondola ride when it was only choice. That would be all I would see and it wouldn't be a touristy trip just everyone's normal way of living their life. You can ride in a horse and carriage today but I don't think I'm interested in doing so but it would be very interesting to go back to a time when that is the only option and riding in a carriage where roads are filled with them and it is the norm.

[laura]

1820 would be perfect - no singing, plus a private place in case some "softening of the brain" happens...

[LorettaChase]

Great comments. I love the whys--and telling myself that it's my deathless prose that's making readers incline toward 1820. I did think about the smell, but don't know how smelly it was then. I've come upon only one mention of bad smell, and that was late 17th C IIRC. The part that I'd like not to have to deal with today is the pollution from factories on the mainland and from all the petroleum-fueled forms of transport--and the noise. The quiet Hobhouse talks about makes my mouth water. Nice to know I'm not alone in this.

[cyclops8]

Any ride in a gondola would be exciting, but if I had to choose it would be riding in 1820. I would be able to see the architecture and witness the way of life in 1820.

[Louis]

I'll take either one...maybe prefer the 1820 version as it would definitely be without the noisy motorized taxis.

[Jane George]

I join the throng and say 1820, as long as I can peer out the blinds of the felze and see the architecture without 188 more years of change.

Please remove me from the book draw, as I recently received Mr. Impossible from you and am enjoying it immensely.

[Ingrid]

Well, roll on June! Your snippets indicate we're in for a treat.

I too pick 1820 for the simple reason that time travel is impossible, as you said yourself, Loretta. 80 euro for a gondola ride is expensive, and a trip to Venice costs a lot more, but I could afford it, if I had my heart set on it. But not even Bill Gates can buy a trip to 1820. I'd pick a ride in a garbage scow right here where I live over a gondola in Venice if the scow took me to 1820, and never mind the smell. Think what people are willing to pay just to get into space, I'd willingly brave some awful smells to witness the past firsthand. I'd want to come back to tell the tale, though.

[talpianna]

How about 1954? That's about when I did it.

[Ingrid]

Well, 1954 is before I was born, so I have no memory of it. It beckons me as much as 1820. For 1954 the big attraction is of course the opportunity to see all my departed loved ones alive and well and much younger than I remember them. I'd much rather stay here and travel to 1954 than go to Venice in 1954.

What was Venice like in 1954, Talpianna?

[Minna]

1820. Time travel in Venice. How cool would that be?

[JudiDW]

Having done the touristy modern day gondola ride in Venice, I would love a chance to try 1820. (It would certainly be more romantic without two young children along!) But speaking of smells ... hmm, how musty/fusty would the interior of that felze be?

[Kathy Kremer]

I would choose 1820 because of the quiet. It's one of the things I enjoy about sailing- the wind in the sails and the water sound against the hull. I have to agree about the smell though. I've only been to Venice once in August of 1969 and it was awful! Perhaps at other times of year it wouldn't be so bad.

[jeanne]

1820 - sounds so romantic. Today it sounds like just one of those touristy things that people do which is ok but I like the original notion and all its possibilities.

[cheryl c.]

I know that this is not the most romantic choice, but I would have to choose to ride in a gondola today. I hope to visit Venice one day and ride a gondola. I want to ride outside where I won't miss a thing about that lovely city! Of course, I could fantasize that I am in 1820 while I am riding!

[Alison]

After the rush and clash and clatter of the modern age with all its roaring engines and loud Tvs and the constant ring and beep of machines, I think the gentle murmur of voices and the soft splash of an oar would be like peace to the soul and sanity to the mind. I'd choose 1820 for a little peace and sanity whatever the smell. I guess if you lived in it day in day out you'd be somewhat inured to it.

[Alison]

Ok it just came to me that my previous post was not very romantic so I'm going to do another one from a romance POV...

I'd choose 1820 because I know absolutely that I would not be sharing my hero with his mobile phone, his iPod or his wristwatch alarm going off warning us we had 30 minutes to finish what we were doing before Game of the Week started.
So Loretta, what kind of ring would James have on his mobile? *g*

[LorettaChase]

Rossini. Something from the Barber of Seville, definitely.

[Carol]

I pick 1820. I would love to see what the real Venice was like. I wouldn't enjoy it as much being just another tourist.

[talpianna]

Ingrid, Venice was in a lot better shape back then. Less damage from flooding, less garbage in the canals, less crowding, and MUCH lower prices! Very romantic, even for a pre-teen.

[theo]

I think I would have to say 1820 because, quite frankly, I was born in the wrong era anyway and that would just feel so much more like 'home' to me. A few years ago, when the entire eastern half of the US had that four day power outage, I was in heaven!! No noise, no planes, no electricity, no nothing but the sun during the day and candles by night and a great book to keep me company. I could have stayed like that. *sigh* Then reality flooded back and it all went to pot but it was nice while it lasted. So yes, then for me would be ever so much better than now.