THE ANATOMIST

The Anatomist ($22.95; Sept. 1998; 256 pp.; 0-385-49132-8): This much-ballyhooed first novel from Argentina, which is set in a credibly realized 16th-century Venice, sets out to tell the story of physician Mateo Colombo, a bold scientific adventurer (likened, overemphatically, to his namesake Christopher Columbus) who in the course of his researches “discovers” the clitoris—and is promptly imprisoned by outraged Church officials. Other potentially intriguing narrative elements’such as Mateo’s unobjective clinical interest in a locally notorious prostitute—are only briefly explored, in a redundant narrative that restates tediously the right of the scientist to seek truth, and neglects to offer the initially eager reader either a fully-rounded protagonist or a satisfactorily developed story.