Laurel Corona's "The Four Seasons," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Four Seasons by Laurel Corona.

The entry begins:

Writing The Four Seasons, I quickly realized how much of a challenge it was going to bring to life the sensual extravaganza that was Venice in the early eighteenth century. I think every writer comes up against the sobering fact that in our culture we shortchange our sensory experiences, so that we really can’t, for example, describe with any great degree of specificity the way a rose smells or butter tastes. I am old enough to remember American Bandstand, where cute teenagers, when asked whether they liked a new record, would almost inevitably say they did, with no more explanation than “it has a good beat and I can dance to it.” Novels based on paintings, such as those by Tracy Chevalier and Susan Vreeland, get a visual boost from their covers, but alas, there’s no such help for the poor soul writing a novel about music.

I often joked with my friends about how I was writing “Amadeus Meets Girl with the Pearl Earring,” realizing early on that for The Four Seasons to come to full life it needed to be experienced with Vivaldi’s music backing it up. I won’t be bashful about saying that I really, truly hope it will become a movie. In addition to the two main characters that can’t be cast—Venice and Vivaldi’s music--here are some ideas for first-rate actors who could bring The Four Seasons to life on screen.

For Vivaldi, Elijah Wood and Tobey Maguire bear a pretty good resemblance, but....[read on]

Read an excerpt from The Four Seasons, and learn more about the book and author at Laurel Corona's website and blog.

Laurel Corona is the author of more than a dozen middle school books and Until Our Last Breath: A Holocaust Story of Love and Partisan Resistance, and is a professor of English and Humanities at San Diego City College.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Seasons.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Seasons.

--Marshal Zeringue