Featured image: The Glassmaker brings us to Murano in Venice, Italy | Photo by artfotodima via Envato

The Glassmaker is a ‘love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking’

by Sally Jane Smith, Book club co-host

Around the time one millennium melted into the next, I travelled with my ex to a faded grande dame of a hotel on Venice’s Grand Canal. We tasted the city’s treats as we explored her campos: the sweet rush of gelato for him; the milky flesh of a coconut – pulled from the cool water of an open-air fountain – for me. Our bedroom was furnished with baroque brocade and the intensity of desperate love one can only survive once in a lifetime. In truth, the relationship had ended seven months before, but it was in Venice I understood it was over forever.

I returned to the City of Bridges in 2013. This time I was with the woman who has been my closest friend for 40 years, my sister in everything but blood. We saved money by staying on Mestre’s ‘terraferma’, but it was only a seven-minute train ride to the Floating City. There, we found a maze of footbridges bright with riotous colour and buzzing with people from all over the world. We browsed souvenir stalls, handling smooth pieces of Murano glass to feel the solid weight lying beneath its translucent light.

My 2013 experience of Venice couldn’t have been more different from that sad romance of 2000: the passage of thirteen years felt like a hundred, or a voyage of a thousand miles. I was a different person by then, and so Venice was a different city, too.

Perhaps that is why the fluidity of time in The Glassmaker drew me so deeply into its depths. In prose as clear as handblown glass, Tracy Chevalier introduces a concept of time that defies all rules of rationality. Instead of presenting us with a multigenerational family saga, she uses a touch of magical realism to move her characters through centuries, encouraging a far deeper relationship between reader and protagonist than could otherwise occur.

The Glassmaker is a spectacular feat, crafted by a maestra at the top of her game. —The Spectator

Chevalier uses her latest novel to play ingenious games with the concept of time…a memorable addition to her oeuvre. —Sunday Times (London)

Tracy Chevalier’s exceptional novel hopscotches through five centuries of a glassblowing family in Murano, Italy. Time moves forward, but the characters age very little. Chevalier’s descriptive prose on glassmaking artistry, together with her delightful characters, creates an entrancing tale. —Christian Science Monitor

Chevalier weaves a tapestry of character and conflict, change and stability, to create a story that elegantly glides along the line between historical drama and something more experimental, while never losing sight of the tactile humanity that gives her work such pure, invigorating life…a potent, bewitching bright spot in a stellar career.” —bookpage.com

Source: The author’s website

Book Club Discussion Questions

1. The story is set in Murano, an island very close to Venice. Have you ever visited Venice? Did the setting feel familiar to you from your own travels?
2. What was your favourite passage in the book, and why?
3. Did you enjoy the detailed descriptions of the processes for making glass? Why or why not?
4. What did you think of Marco as a character? Were his traits because of his upbringing, or do you think they were intrinsic to his nature?
5. The glassmakers took a break in August, because it was too hot to work and they could let the furnace go out. Do you have flexibility in when you can take your vacation time?
6. The author introduces a highly unusual flow of time in this narrative. Why do you think she did that? Did it add to your enjoyment of the story, or detract from it?
7. Although Murano is so close to Venice, Orsola still feels like an outsider, and is soon ripped off by a gondolier in what feels remarkably like a present-day taxi scam. Do you have any tips for avoiding this kind of con?
8. Early in the story, it seems like Orsola may become involved with one of three men: Stefano, Antonio, or Domenego. Who did you think might be the best partner for her?
9. Who was your favourite character in the Rosso family?
10. This historical saga is (almost) bookended by plagues. Could you see strong parallels or contrasts in these two pandemics? Did either or both feel familiar from your own experience?
11. The story delivers a final twist in the dolphins’ tale. Did you see it coming? Did you read any symbolism into this development?
12. Did you learn anything about Venice that surprised you?
13. Did the book make you want to travel to Venice?
14. Can you recommend any other novels set in Venice, especially if they have great travel themes?

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