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MEET THE CAST |
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Talina Molin is the fiery daughter of the Keeper of Ancient Manuscripts in the Archives of Venice. Her wild dark-gold hair springs from her head like a curtain of tangled corn husks. After many escapades, she has come to be known as the most impudent girl in Venice, though also one of the cleverest. She longs to be a writer, and has a passion for cookbooks and magic. Mixing the two is going to cause her some problems, the least of which is a tendency to shape-shift into different creatures when she stops being calm and reasonable - two words not really associated with Talina. It would - probably - be fine if she only turned into a cat. But unfortunately Talina gets quite emotional with rats, vultures and Ravageurs too ...
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Ambrogio Gasperin is the son of a prosperous bookseller. He's an indefatigable arguer - all training as he wants to be a barrister. He's always had something of a crush on Talina, his classmate. Even when she no longer appears to be a girl, he alone recognizes her for what she is, and is determined to rescue her. As the story unfolds, Ambrogio will get his longed-for day in court, but there will not be an ordinary human judge and jury ...
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Signorina Tiozzo is the most hospitable cat-lady in Venice. She homes and feeds dozens of strays in a smelly refuge called the Ostello delle Gattemiagole. A terrible event in her past will come back to haunt her - and explain just why she can never, ever, do enough for cats. A famous Italian song, 'Quarantaquattro Gatti', tells the story of forty-four cats without a home. A cartoon video of the song can be seen on YouTube. These days, many visitors complain about the lack of visible cats in Venice. Once, colonies of cats were to be seen all over the city, living wild. Today, there are said to be 6000 cats in Venice, but most live in private homes and few are seen on the streets. A massive cull of street cats was initiated in the 1970s by an English campaigner, Helen Sanders, on the grounds that many of them were diseased and starving. Now stray cats are usually captured and taken away to sanctuaries. There are several private 'gattili' in the historic centre. The sanctuary in Talina in the Tower is based on the one in San Marcuola, now sadly diminished in numbers. The biggest cat refuge is run by the charity DINGO, at Malamocco on the Lido. There is a move afoot to set up a cat-petting café, which would not only raise money for cat charities, but also provide pleasure for cat-hungry tourists. But it is never easy to do something new in Venice.
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Bestard-Belou is one of the bully-boy cats who terrorize more timid felines in Signorina Tiozzo's ostello. He's a big grey cat with orange eyes. His language is rather vulgar, unfortunately. Catchphrases: 'Dog-bite-my-ear!', 'Is you stoopid or something?'
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The Ravageurs are mysterious hyena-like creatures - invisible to adults - who haunt Venice by night. They speak with exaggerated but terrible French accents and devour rich, complicated French food. And they think that they have a right to everything and everyone in Venice. They have
already enslaved the rats and cats. Even the sheep must serve as their waiters. And now humans, too, are disappearing.
The Ravageurs insist that Venice belongs to them. Their history, however, is murkier than they claim. And their ambitions seem to be too monstrous to be countenanced ...
Are the Ravageurs real? Or are they creatures of the imagination? Adults prefer not to believe in them - so it will be left to the children of Venice to discover the truth about the Ravageurs and their claims. |
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Grignan is the largest, fiercest and hungriest of the Ravageurs. He's hungry for flesh, for Golosi's Mostarda and most of all, for power. The terrifying thing is that he appears to be entitled to it. Although he claims the title of Lord of the Ravageurs, and is feared by even these fearsome creatures, the story will show that he is not always the leader they believe him to be.
Although the Ravageurs are not French, they pretend to be. So there are many archaic French words and French slang in their conversations and vocabulary, mostly taken from Charles M. Marchard's A Careful Selection of Parisian Slang (1917). Petit Grignon was the name of a devil said to consort with a Frenchwoman called Suzanne Gaudry, who was tried for witchcraft in 1652. A wife of a man called Nochin Quinchou was named in the same trial. Other names have the following meanings (literal translations in brackets): |
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Frimousse - vicious face
Rouquin - reddish fur
Fildefer - thin
Un Croquemort - an undertaker's man
Échalas - (a lath) lanky
Un Lèche-bottes - a boot-licker
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Restaurant is a ravenous vulture who is the minion of Grignan, Lord of the Ravageurs. He lives on the Island of the Ravageurs in his grim Stake House - so named because it is surrounded by the sharpened poles on which he likes to impale his food. By an enormous coincidence, a large vulture was to be seen in Venice during 2011, perched on an upper window-sill of the Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal. It was part of the Art Biennale, and not real - though it was extremely realistic and quite frightening. |
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Altopone is a talking rat - one of the very few who are not terrorized by the Ravageurs. His name is, of course, a pun on that of the famous American gangster Al Capone, whose family was Italian. Altopone takes offence easily, a characteristic that makes his dealings with the impudent Talina a little uncomfortable. But he too will help save the city of his birth, when it is threatened with destruction. |
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Professor Marìn is an old friend of these webpages, as he also appears in The Undrowned Child and The Mourning Emporium as a wise old expert in all things magical. Here, in Talina in the Tower, we meet the professor as a young, fresh-faced man, with some rather romantic tendencies. The white hair of the earlier books is red and curly - but the brain underneath it is just as lively.
Some of Professor Marìn's books are: Speaking Creatures: How to Loosen Beastly Tongues? Mermaids I Have Known The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts A lot of the action takes place in Professor Marìn's cosy kitchen in an old crooked house that lurches between the Calle Gradisca and the Calle Caustico. The professor's kitchen is less of a place to cook supper and more of a suitable spot to concoct spells. Here are some of the ingredients on his larder shelves: Artificial noses - iron, velvet-lined Hedgehog Gall Lockspittle Birds' Tears Amber Bat Brains Foul Philtre Middling Sprite ('More Mischief than Malice') Parboiled Brigand Toes Vampire Vomit And of course, Venetian Treacle, an ancient and complicated medicine familiar to anyone who's read The Undrowned Child and The Mourning Emporium. |
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Mademoiselle Emilie Chouette is the French mistress who teaches at Talina and Ambrogio's school. She, more than anyone, has reason to be upset with the Ravageurs, and not just because of their frightful French accents. To the pupils at her school, she has always seemed a ferocious martinet - 'a fire-breathing dragon', as Ambrogio calls her - but Professor Marìn has a way of bringing out her softer side.
When Talina's parents disappear, Uberto Flangini duly comes to claim her at the Archives, where she has come to search for them. Below is an extract from that painful scene. Talina's Guardian seems remote and forbidding, even cruel - and a confirmed cat-hater - but he nurses a tragic secret that will be revealed at the end of the book. |
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Talina was just thinking about bursting into tears when Drusilla climbed into her lap, thrusting her soft black muzzle into her mistress's face. 'I've tried everything, Drusilla,' protested Talina, stroking the cat. She was now only one prickly sneeze away from those tears. 'Indeed, and all in vain, of course.' A man's voice fell like the winter's night itself: bitter, cold and quiet. Talina looked up into a familiar face clad in skin as thin and grey as a dusty cobweb in a dark room. 'What are you doing here?' she whispered. 'Breaking the curfew? Were you lying in lurk for me?' 'Since I'm your Guardian, obviously, I've come to take you home with me.' 'I am going to wait for Mamma and Papà. Not. Going. With. You.' He sighed, a small gush of cold air without the warmth of compassion. 'In spite of your reputation as the most impudent girl in Venice, Talina Molin, that is exactly what you are going to do ...' The Guardian's hard fingers sought her shoulder, wrenching her out of the doorway and into the moonlight. He tugged her long hair until she moaned with pain and straightened up. Drusilla leapt into Talina's arms, her teeth bared. 'Evidently you do not have parents any more.'
'Liar! Liar! You're a forty-faced liar, each one of them ugly!' Talina finally succumbed to the tears that so badly wanted to come out. 'All writers are liars. And you shall soon become accustomed to the sight of this face, girl. It's a matter of indifference to me whether it appeals to you. Or not. But let me have a look at you, quickly. I may find those tears useful.' 'Useful?' sobbed Talina. 'You are a monster! And I hate all your stories, particularly The Orphan-Eaters and The Rack & Ruin of Raffaele Rasa, The Dire Deaths of Daniele Dario and The Miseries of Maria Montin. And worst of all Talina in the Tower. How dare you use my name? I can't imagine why anyone would want to read all those dreadful stories. Why do you always kill off the children or the parents in them?'
'I notice you've read all those stories. Good little girls usually die. They must do, as one so rarely hears of them in real life. And parents generally disappear ...' his voice was chill and light as mist, '... one way or another.'
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Giuseppe Tassini, the famous Venetian historian, is a real character from history. His book Curiosità Veneziane explains all the streets and palaces in Venice, and is a classic that you'll find today in every Venetian home. The real Tassini was very fond of fine dining as well as history. |
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And who is this mysterious baby with the wise eyes? Why is he in a basket? You'll have to read to the end of Talina in the Tower to find out! |
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