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powerful. When a 'killer storm' approaches, everyone is in danger. When the Church of Souls of Those Who Died for the Sea, the most sacred building to the
Gondoliers, is struck by lightning, even the most skilled gondoliers in Venice are too overcome with fear to go out and call for the Great Fireboat of Venice to save their church from fire.
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Luigi disappears for many years, and is turned away from various singing teachers. Finally
Piccoli agrees to teach him, although unbeknown to Luigi, Piccoli has not taught in many years and is deaf. Luigi eventually returns to Venice and sings, but his singing is even worse because it has become more
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As the story unfolds, his fiancee Laura
Lorenzini breaks off her engagement, and marries a 'better suitor'. Though he is an awful singer, Luigi's friends are fond of him and his affable nature. It is agreed that although he cannot be a gondolier, he can work in the Tavern, the Gondoliers' exclusive
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We were on one of the water buses, Vaporettos, and a bunch of gondoliers came rowing down the canal and they were quiet. I suddenly turned to Ilene and I said, 'I know why the gondoliers don't sing' and we got off the bus immediately and I went running back to the hotel. I wrote the story down in
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Finally, Luigi manages to reach the Great
Fireboat of Venice, which sets out to save the church. The other gondoliers notice that Luigi did not return with the fireboat, and discover him sailing on the turbulent waters of the Grand Canal. Covered by the noise of the storm, Luigi is finally able to
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Luigi is an aspiring gondolier in Venice. Though he is a talented boatman, he is a terrible singer, and people get stomach cramps and migraines just listening to him. As gondoliers have a reputation as the best singers in the world, and customers expect it as part of the service, a tone-deaf
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Luigi is reinstated as a gondolier, without the requirement to sing. After a long career and happy life, as with all gondoliers when they die, Luigi is set in his black boat and pushed out into the
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It was released in hardcover in 1983, and a trade paperback version came out from Del Rey in 2001. Paul
Giovanopoulos provided 20 pen-and-ink illustrations for the story.
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no longer sing, through the story of the protagonist Luigi. Chapters I and II build up further mythology behind the name
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Goldman says this was one of the few times that a novel had popped into his head "fully formed", the other being
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and the backstory of
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visits. She requests a gondolier to sing for her on her royal boat. One gondolier starts to sing
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and all the solos he knows. All the gondoliers witness this and they talk about it all night.
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Goldman also uses the pseudonym "S. Morgenstern" in his better-known novel,
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gondolier is unacceptable, no matter how skilled he is with his oar..
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realize his dream of singing on the Grand Canal, singing songs from
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The Big
Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays
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259:haunt. But over time he becomes dissatisfied.
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349:William Goldman: The Reluctant Storyteller
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109:Learn how and when to remove this message
304:about five minutes on a piece of paper.
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45:Please improve this article by adding
803:The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway
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453:Your Turn to Curtsy, My Turn to Bow
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608:Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
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892:Works published under a pseudonym
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811:Adventures in the Screen Trade
410:Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole
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274:After the storm, the Queen of
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47:secondary or tertiary sources
16:1983 novel by William Goldman
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58:"The Silent Gondoliers"
760:The General's Daughter
632:The Great Waldo Pepper
477:No Way to Treat a Lady
311:No Way to Treat a Lady
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122:The Silent Gondoliers
34:relies excessively on
835:Which Lie Did I Tell?
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485:The Thing of It Is...
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882:1983 American novels
819:Wait Till Next Year
461:Soldier in the Rain
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768:Hearts in Atlantis
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624:The Stepford Wives
557:The Color of Light
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445:The Temple of Gold
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281:’O sole mio
227:Morgenstern
876:Categories
675:(1979, TV)
592:Masquerade
402:Tenderloin
339:Egan p 184
330:Egan p 184
318:References
295:Background
219:gondoliers
99:April 2011
69:newspapers
36:references
784:Wild Card
385:Works by
862:Category
728:Maverick
672:Mr. Horn
573:Brothers
250:Synopsis
149:Language
720:Chaplin
541:Control
276:Corsica
269:Bellini
153:English
83:scholar
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164:1983
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