Read For Free Na Companhia Da Cortesã Assembled By Sarah Dunant Shared As Copy

engrossing, I devoured this one,

Dunants language and setting strikes the perfect chord between the ostentation of Venice and its squalor, Her historical detail is rich without ever becoming obtrusive, and I loved the rapport between Fiammetta and Bucino as they rise from the ashes.


I can completely understand why this might not appeal to all addicts of historical fiction, It is a relatively slow burn, and affords more attention to characterization and the political climate of the time as opposed to your more conventional plot propellers.


The best kind of rompy escapism, in my opinion, More Dunant recommendations, please!

Having had the pleasure of being in an online book discussion of IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN
last year with Ms.
Dunant, I came away with a much finer appreciation of the historical honesty of this novel!

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to finally meet Sarah Dunant at a book reading and signing of this book in Seattle.
Her passion for history is evident and just listening to her enthusiastic account of the research she does in crafting her novels was aweinspiring!

As she read a few passages, she took me back to the sights, smells and shadows of life of a courtesan called Fiametta little flame in Italian and her companion and business partner, the very clever and endearing dwarf, Bucino!

Sarah's artistry with words brings everything alive with a master touch!

When little Bucino who is deathly afraid of the canals of Venice, certain he'll drown in them passes along the narrow walkways, hugging close to the building, you are standing there feeling a bit green and vertiginous alongside him!

Descriptions are so vivid and characters are so well developed, that it's easy to move around inside the deceitful society that was Renaissance Italy.

Sarah shows us that this is a society built on religious beliefs and rules and the rules those beliefs put in place, but in reality, it's equally built on the acceptance of deception, fraud, and dishonesty.
Priests give fake confessions for money, men deceive their wives with courtesans and courtesans deceive men with their own fake sense of pleasure,

Sarah tells us in one of her posts, "One might argue that the only time in which man is/was not in deception is when faced with God, who by definition knows and sees everything.

Interesting I am not sure that God is in this book, Certainly he/she is less present within the characters than say in THE BIRTH OF VENUS, "

The Courtesan will not disappoint!

The story is richly rewarding on multiple layers, The mix of real characters Aretino, the writer and poet, . . Titian, the artist with the fictional Fiametta, Bucino, La Draga, etc, works very well in the novel! They come boldly and fabulously alive, . . and we are left standing beside them with all of their hardship, grandeur, and decadence, . . thanks to the consummate and very gifted wordsmith that is Sarah Dunant!

I can hardly wait for her next novel!!!
Two superlative protagonists partnered but never lovers.


A singular woman who cuts through boundaries and forbidden studies for her time, and yet heals as much as she deceives,

Three under characters who are defined more precisely to their actions and with deeper onion like layer complexity than a titled figure of and in a play by Shakespeare.


Just superb in any one ofother categories outside of these prime personalities because it is also of a piece, Mood, progression, knowledge all increasing as years pass, Losing portions of one thing, but trading them for something else, Often nothing of what was expected, Not even for trust or the most "known",

Plotting and pacing! Reveal and then antireveal, Immaturity in forms and content, and then growth to a formidable full adulthood, But in some ways also incorporating the universal human conditions, More than a few, but most kernel like that condition of difference, or of being "the other", All sublime in their levels of recognition,

And if that's not all it also has within it the most finely evaluated ingredient content for the essence of one city in midth century Italy against another's.
The best I've ever read myself for their tone and approach in conversations, This context/ particular set of sensibilities and "eyes" for the Roman, And now for the Venetian, And it still exists to this day,

The beginning was offputting to me, It took my attention into a distraction that until the entire combination set "in" to see the entity of the pair working their skills.
All the pragmatism! Until then, I had a difficult time setting the crude and foul temper meanness of language, aside, But DO continue.

Sarah Dunant truly has created a cast to remember in this one, And she also knows about the black fractions of millions of pieces of solid that live in the water at night, This is the world of dark bodies of water, Of lakes and lagoons everywhere,

Strongly recommend. Very few physical, mental, or emotional human commodities of natural occurrence are obscured in this book, It's often raw and it often tends to seductions, Not only to the biological impulses, but to levels of other comprehensions, most forbidden to those who hold them,

Come and watch Bucino juggle the Murano glassware duds, the throwaways, And live within his mind these

years, I liked this book alright, The story was interesting enough to keep me flipping pages, I do have sort of a bone to pick over the narrative voice, though, Enter Bucino: affable dwarf, loyal friend, astute business partner, curious bed buddy, annoyingly detached story teller, . . I had a tough time bonding with the characters in this story I don't feel like I really got to know any of them.
As the narrator, Bucino kind of peripherally describes events and characters' feelings about said events, but you never feel present in the story's action and you can't really grasp the characters' emotions or motivations.
I'm reminded of the "show not tell" mantra from Middle School Language Arts class, Dunant might have been better off writing this story after hanging out with Ms, Phillips for a semester or two, This book was great, as the plot was creative,
the characters interesting and there was lots
of action, At first I figured that I wouldn't
be able to relate well to the story of a courtesan
and dwarf, but the themes of love and friendship,
hardship and politics, drew you into the story.

Sarah Dunant is a talented author, I enjoyed her
use of analogies, I especially liked reading
about Venice in the's, and thought her
account of the times was well documented, Of
course I checked the net to see the complete
painting of Venus of Urbino, For starters, the title and the cover page of this really can mislead you! "In the Company of the Courtesan" sounds erotic and this is the cover page of my book which I can't find here I'm guessing Amazon must have stolen it!:

I started to read this while going to and coming home from work and I began to notice some are staring at the cover : so I started to read this before going to bed.
Anyway there is no noticeable erotic content in the novel although it is an insider view of the business of highend prostitution, The novel's name however is also misleading because it should be something like "In the Company of a Dwarf" or if you want to go with the job description, "In the Company of the Pimp".
Because the narrator/the protagonist of this is Bucino Teodoldi, the pimp of Fiammetta Bianchini, the Courtesan,

Bucino may be a dwarf but his observations are often philosophical, sour, ironic but always honest and smart, The deep understanding relationship between them is also unique, They highly rely on each other, understand each other and honest to each other, But the most interesting relationship in the book is between La Draga, the healer amp Bucino whose relationship put Fiammetta into the background,

In short, the novel is aboutsinners/misfits of Venice, the sin city full of sinners duringth century: Bucino, a deformed pimp, La Draga, a female healer branded as a witch and Fiammetta, a young courtesan/prostitute.


This book has most everything you would want in a historical fiction, It's wellresearched and the sights, sounds, smells ofth century Venice are almost lifelike, You can imagine you are there, So if you feel like it's too long don't give up! You'll not regret a minute of holding onto this, .