Joseph Brodsky

Talk about a talented writer. I don't know much about his background or flight from the Soviet Union, but Joseph Brodsky could weave a sentence. That's for sure. 

I've spent the last few days making my way through his homage to Venice, Watermark. It's an unusual little book with flashes of Calvino speckled throughout. What I liked most about it was its structure: Brodsky uses short chapters to weave a colorful tapestry, one built on memory, observation, and history. 

In many ways, Brodsky functioned - in this book, at least - as a modern flaneur. He patrolled Venice, but without the self-consciousness of nineteenth-century writers. His goal was to fade into the city, to seek its core. 

And while Brodsky acknowledges that he never quite reached the center (in some metaphysical sense), he clearly came very close.