I've never been able to understand that custom." "Not all customs have to have a reason. - Robert Sheckley

As a matter of fact, I am amazed at what has happened to science fiction in recent years. It has become a heavy academic field. And science fiction writers are being accorded a respect now, which I, as one of their peers and well-wishers, can only view with alarm and suspicion.
It seems like only yesterday, though it was in fact some 20 years ago, that all of us were writing pulp-action stories about a nebulous and ill-defined region that we called the future. Now our yarns are analysed in university classrooms for virtues we never suspected that they had. This is particularly true in America, the country that coined the word ‘overkill’ and then demonstrated its practical applications.

Sven had the sensation of discovering a new world, a world no civilized man had ever encountered. He was amazed to discover that weirder customs could be found on Earth than anywhere else in the galaxy.

I recognized this as one of the illusions that Venice casts over the visitor.
This cunning city fostered and endless capacity for self-deception. Labyrinthine, it encouraged convoluted thinking. It was the spell of Venice that lured Guesci into expending the maximum of guile for the minimum of effect.