Venice is a Fish~ Teaser Tuesday

Hosted by MizB at shouldbereading.

Here's how to play:

*Grab your current read,
*Open to a random page,
*Share 2-3 “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page,
*Please no spoilers!
*Share the title & author.

Today's selection is from Tiziano Scarpa's 'Venice is a Fish':

"In any other boat in the world, a single oarsman, with a single oar, on one side only, would end up turning comically in circles. On a gondola, thanks to the boat's asymmetrical centre of gravity, it darts straight ahead, switches into reverse, slows and accelerates, brakes, halts, heads off diagnoally, turns a right angle, keeps balance, deadens the waves. The oar spoons the water, spanks it, scoops it, digs it, cuts it, kneads it, tickles it, turns it like a ladle, forces it like a crowbar. The oar dives suddenly, re-emerges floating almost horizontally at water level, but if necessary it plunges vertically, in a few free square centimetres, with a flick of the wrist it twists like a screwdriver, elegantly disengaging the twelve-metre black wooden beast from an impossible jam." (p.43)

This eloquent description almost makes me want to go back simply to watch the oars of the gondolas and their water dance.