I am reading a book about Venice, which arrived by mail only yesterday morning. It is an intimate portrait of the sinking city, or so the subtitle announces gratingly. I am not sure that I really enjoy my reading, though. I take it a bit too personally, I reckon. “Great,” I can almost hear myself mumble on one page, “I would’ve been miserable there.” But the next page is rather different. “Shit,” I am just short of hissing with disappointment, “I would’ve been quite happy there.” And so on, my reactions keep shifting from page to page. Not surprisingly, the pages I like most are those that leave me ever-so-slightly indifferent. “Yup,” I start nodding all of a sudden, “it’s the same as in bloody Motovun.” It is a Venetian town, after all.