• Complain

Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

Here you can read online Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2016, publisher: Melville House, genre: Prose / Science fiction. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Martin Seay The Mirror Thief
  • Book:
    The Mirror Thief
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Melville House
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2016
  • Rating:
    4 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 80
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

The Mirror Thief: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Mirror Thief" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old worlds most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing? the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death. One man, however a world-weary war hero with nothing to lose has a scheme he thinks will allow him to outwit the citys terrifying enforcers of the edict, the ominous Council of Ten. . Meanwhile, in two other Venices Venice Beach, California, circa 1958, and the Venice casino in Las Vegas, circa today two other schemers launch similarly dangerous plans to get away with a secret. . All three stories will weave together into a spell-binding tour-de-force that is impossible to put down an old-fashioned, stay-up-all-night novel that, in the end, returns the reader to a stunning conclusion in the original Venice. . and the bedazzled sense of having read a truly original and thrilling work of art.

Martin Seay: author's other books


Who wrote The Mirror Thief? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Mirror Thief — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Mirror Thief" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Martin Seay

The Mirror Thief

For

Kathleen Rooney

and

in memory of

Joe F. Boydstun

Did you ever happen to see a city resembling this one? Kublai asked Marco Polo, extending his beringed hand from beneath the silken canopy of the imperial barge, to point to the bridges arching over the canals, the princely palaces whose marble doorsteps were immersed in the water, the bustle of light craft zigzagging, driven by long oars, the boats unloading baskets of vegetables at the market squares, the balconies, platforms, domes, campaniles, island gardens glowing green in the lagoons grayness.

No, sire, Marco answered, I should never have imagined a city like this could exist.

ITALO CALVINO, Invisible Cities

1

Listen. This is what you see:

A tall casement window. Floorlength drapes of green brocade, parted along the curtainrod. Gray halflight seeping through. Tasseled valance, sheer lace beneath. The wind shakes the glass, and the curtains sway into the room.

Chairs. Desk. Chest of drawers. Wardrobe they never have closets, these old places. Whitewashed walls. Polished parquet floor, too slick for socks. Nightstands, frilly lamps. White telephone. Tacky glass chandelier: aqua petals, frosted forty-watt bulbs. Hotel shit. The type of shit they always put in hotels. Doesnt matter where.

The bed, of course. Queensize. Canopied. Fancy pillows stacked in the corner, like somebodys weddingcake. Linen sheets. Every blanket the innkeeper can spare. Coperte, per favore! Pi coperte! Still, it never gets warm.

Coperta. Add it up. Two hundred ninety-nine: to overthrow. Or twenty: to breathe, to hide, to sweep away dirt. An illness. A sickness at heart. In Hebrew, : thats a hundred and twenty-four, which can mean a torch, or a lamp. A forsaking. A passing-by. A delay, maybe. How long?

Clothes laid out on the dresser: gray slacks, black socks, blue oxford shirt. Hat. Wallet. Bunch of weird coins. On the floor, your new white sneakers and your suitcase. Propped in the corner, your ironheaded cane.

Another minute and youll sit up. Stand. Go to the window. Steady yourself for the long look across the rooftops: the sliver of the Calle dei Botteri on one side, the Calle dei Morti on the other, emptying the quiet campo. Youll stand there and youll watch. Like you always do.

In this city, nobodys supposed to know you. Though youve walked its streets in your head a million times, youre a stranger here, a tourist. Thats a big part of why you came. But somebody down there knows you, and hes headed your way: a bug crawling up your pantleg, making it tough to concentrate. Before he shows up at your door you want to spot him, to sieve his shape from the sparse Lenten crowds. Buzzcut head. Cadenced step. Muscled frame. Easy enough to notice. Just go to the window and wait.

But not right now. Maybe in a while. Not feeling too good now. No pain, just a funny heavy feeling. The layered blankets rise and fall.

On the wall above the headboard upsidedown at this angle, cant quite see theres a framed print. Muddy watercolor. Rickety boats. Smeared sky. San Giorgio Maggiore in the background. A view from the Riva degli Schiavoni, probably. J.M.W. TURNER: black letters in the white margin. Some guy who didnt know when to quit. Looks like he tried to erase it with a wet toothbrush.

Turner. Thats five hundred and five. Drinking vessels. To declare perverse.

Another gust: the sashes rattle. Three days of cold, late in the season. At low tide the canals are bled out, the gondola-keels stuck in the mud. The whole city kashered. Yesterday at noon you could just about walk to Murano from the Fondamenta Nuove. Imagine it: wading through the muck under the white stones of San Michele. God, what a smell. Slick worms and snailshells. Black ooze between your toes.

Through the angled glass, the fat brick belltower of San Cassiano, dark against damp gray clouds. Crumbling apartments under it: painted stucco flaking from red bricks. Pigeons coo under the eaves; pale shit glues downy puffs to the sill. Seagulls glide by like kites, their little heads moving. So white they seem cut from a different sky.

What did this place use to be? Everyplace here used to be something.

On the wall opposite the window is the mirror. Big, in a heavy wood frame. Nothing special about it. More than adequate to your needs. In some crazy way, its what started everything.

What does a mirror look like? What color is it? Who ever really looks at one and how would you, anyway? You know when its there, sure. But do you ever really see it? Sort of like God. Or maybe not. But thats the mirror, all right. Invisible commonplace. Machine for unseeing.

Thats pretty much what youve wanted all along: to see the mirror. Only that. Not too goddamn much to ask. Is it?

Bells again. One church always starts up as anothers nearly finished, so its tough to keep the count. Plenty late, anyway. The girls at the Biblioteca are probably worried. Wondering where you are. Wondering whether today is the day. Well, ladies, maybe it is.

After the window, the commode. Then dressed. Bite to eat. The phone, maybe. Couple of calls. Night now in Vegas. No sun yet on the East Coast. Wait a little longer. No big rush. Youve got time to settle things. A few good cards left to play. No matter what your friend outside thinks: the lovely soldierboy sniffing your trail from the narrow streets, whos worked so hard and come so far just to kill you.

Plenty of time to deal with him, and with the rest. To go to the window. To look. Meantime, think, why dont you? Put it together, as well as itll stick. Shut your eyes. Listen. The old voices. Theres a trick to it, just like everything. Never too late to learn. Remember everything you can. Imagine the rest.

You wish like hell youd brought the goddamn book.

SOLVTIO, MARCH 13, 2003

All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks draw us constantly toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors.

IVAN CHTCHEGLOV, Formulary for a New Urbanism

2

A little farther up the Strip the pirates are at it again: their last cannons boom as the taxi drops him at the curb, and he crosses the Rialto Bridge to the sound of distant applause. A whiff of sulfur in the scattered air turns the early-evening breeze slightly infernal. He wrinkles his nose, fights the urge to spit.

Picture him there, on the moving sidewalk: short and broad-shouldered, high-yellow skin and black freckles, around forty years old. He wears wraparound sunglasses, new bluejeans, a leather blazer and a slate-gray T-shirt. A Redskins cap perches on his freshly shaven head, brim low on his brow. His feet move across the walkways textured surface, weaving around tourists who stop for photos, cluster at the rails. Below, somewhere out of sight, a gondolier sings in a high clear voiceo mia patria s bella e perdutaas he turns his boat around. A gust comes from the west, and the song fades like a weak broadcast.

The man his name is Curtis enters the hotel beneath the lancet arches of a portico, then walks through the slot machines to the elevators. A blast of perfumed air from the HVAC raises gooseflesh on his sweaty neck. He eyes the blackjack tables as he passes, studying every gambler seated there. Hes tense, fretful, afraid hes missing something.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Mirror Thief»

Look at similar books to The Mirror Thief. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Mirror Thief»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Mirror Thief and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.