Not an easy read, and at times overlong, but a book with moments of brilliance.
The persecution of Majorcan Jews during the Spanish Inquisition is the rich subject of this ambitious 1994 novel, the second book in English translation from the prominent Catalan author (A Matter of Self-Esteem, 2001).
The complex, somewhat labored opening chapters offer both clever misdirection and vivid exposition—first in the romantic adventure of a corsair captain summoned to the bedroom of a mysterious beauty (later identified as a wealthy widow sympathetic to Jewish citizens), then in the emotional turmoil undergone by Jewish silversmith Rafel Cortès, Costura, who has converted to Catholicism and has all but resolved to betray his cousin and namesake (who has retained their family’s faith) to Father Ferrando, the Machiavellian priest who sees the Inquisition’s gathering momentum as his stepping-stone to higher “spiritual” achievement. Riera then introduces a fascinating gallery of variously involved characters, among them putative “rabbi” Gabriel Valls, the Majorcan Jews’ spiritual patriarch; compassionate Father Amengual (Father Ferrando’s temperamental and moral opposite); Viceroy Santomaro y Ampuero, whose official duties are compromised by insatiable sexual appetites; and merchant Pere Onofre Aguiló, who masterminds the endangered Jews’ escape aboard a ship bound for Livorno. Bad weather intervenes, informers betray their neighbors and fugitives are arrested, detained at the Zola-esque Black House deep in the recesses of the Inquisitorial Palace—and interrogation and torture ensue, climaxing with a vengeful “purificatory fire.” (In a moving final paragraph comes the explanation of Riera’s perfectly chosen title.) This is very nearly a great novel: It’s exalted by its recreation of a time (the late 17th century) and place imperiled by religious violence—surely a subject that should attract the attention of contemporary readers—but it’s flawed by the author’s tendency to provide exhaustive background information for virtually every major character, each of whose thoughts and memories are likewise lavishly detailed.
Not an easy read, and at times overlong, but a book with moments of brilliance.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2007
ISBN: 1-58567-853-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
But John Steinbeck, the philosopher, dominates his material and brings it into sharply moral focus.
Tremendous in scope—tremendous in depth of penetration—and as different a Steinbeck as the Steinbeck of Burning Bright was from the Steinbeck of The Grapes of Wrath.
Here is no saga of the underprivileged—no drama of social significance. Tenderness, which some felt was inherent in everything Steinbeck wrote, is muted almost to the vanishing point in this story of conflict within character, impact of character on character, of circumstances on personalities, of the difficult acceptance of individual choice as against the dominance of inherited traits. The philosophy is intimately interwoven with the pace of story, as he follows-from New England to California over some fifty odd years-the two families which hold stage center. There are the Trasks, brothers in two generations, strangely linked, strangely at war the one with the other; there are the Hamiltons (John Steinbeck's own forebears), a unique Irish born couple, the man an odd lovable sort of genius who never capitalizes on his ideas for himself, the tiny wife, tart, cold-and revealing now and again unexpected gentleness of spirit, the burgeoning family, as varied a tribe as could be found. And- on the periphery but integral to the deepening philosophy which motivates the story, there is the wise Chinese servant scholar and gentleman, who submerges his own goals to identify himself wholly with the needs of the desolate Adam Trask, crushed by his soulless wife's desertion, and the twin boys, Cal, violent, moody, basically strong enough to be himself—and Aron, gentle, unwilling to face disagreeable facts, beloved by all who met him. In counterpoint, the story follows too the murky career of Adam's wife, Cathy—who came to him from a mysteriously clouded past, and returned to a role for which she was suited—as a costly whore, and later as Madame in Salinas most corrupt "house," where the perversions of sex ridden males were catered to—and cruelty capitalized upon.Shock techniques applied with rapier and not bludgeon will rule the book out for the tender-skinned.
But John Steinbeck, the philosopher, dominates his material and brings it into sharply moral focus.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1952
ISBN: 0142004235
Page Count: 616
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1952
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...
An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.
Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad. The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized). As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses). Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture. Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.Pub Date: March 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-70376-4
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000
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