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If you are interested in the times in which Calculus was invented, or if you like fairly long historical murder mysteries, then you are likely to enjoy this book. I did.
The action - what there is of it - in The Dream of Scipio moves between 5th-, 14th- and 20th-century Avignon. Our scholar-hero is Julien Barneuve, a 1930s French intellectual whose failure to intervene decisively in public life leads him into the service of the Vichy regime.history of England after the death of Oliver Cromwell to fashion a believable portrait of 17th-century political and intellectual life as well as a whodunit of almost mesmerizing complexity. Set largely in Oxford, the main fascination and brilliance of the novel is its supremely confident structure and plot. The book is actually a single story told four times, by four different narrators. Each of them has their own reasons for not telling the truth: they have a desire to obscure or hide from their actions; their perception is coloured by religious or political preconceptions; or they are — quite simply — mad. The end result is that you simply don’t know the real nature of the plot’s events once you have finished. Fortunately, they did not kill me; indeed, I acquitted myself well in the brawl thanks to the fees my father had paid to my fencing master, and I believe at least one bravo left the field in a worse state than I. But I took the warning
f you liked Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose," you should run to buy Iain Pears' lavishly erudite historical mystery "An Instance of the Fingerpost." would not even receive me. He is now long since dead; I pray for his soul, and hope the good Lord disregards my entreaties on his behalf, knowing as I do that the longer he suffers fiery torment, the more just his punishment will be. Pears then throws in a few entirely fictitious people, including two of his four narrators. But whether entirely or only partly imagined, all of the members of this large and unruly cast are finely individualized, craggily differentiated urn:lcp:instanceoffinger00pear:epub:cc35ffb5-dd10-4f5f-958f-4781557ba751 Extramarc Duke University Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier instanceoffinger00pear Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t59c7fc2p Isbn 1573220825 At the center of Pears’s story is the death by poisoning of Robert Grove. The person suspected of the crime is Sarah Blundy, a servant girl Grove had recently dismissed after rumors of suspected intimacy between the two began to circulate within the university. Grove had also refused to assist Sarah’s badly injured mother, Anne, who is herself a religious reformer and the wife of a political radical. As information about Grove’s final hours becomes known, a web of gossip and possible evidence begins to ensnare Sarah, and she is imprisoned. What emerges as layer upon layer is added to the complex tale is the young girl’s extraordinary position as a touchstone for a number of sensitive political issues of the day.I had thought of taking advantage of my position to go by sea, but decided that, if I was to acquire knowledge, then it would be best to see as much as possible and this was better done in a coach than by spending three weeks in a ship drinking with the He was long past the time when he took a direct interest in his business, having already converted a portion of his capital into land on terra firma to prepare for admission to the Golden Book. Although a merchant himself, he intended his children to be gentlemen, and discouraged me from active participation in his business. I mention this as an indication of his goodness: he had noticed early on that I had little mind for trade, and encouraged me to turn my face against the life he led. He also knew that my sister's new husband was more fitted for ventures than I. An Instance of the Fingerpost is the kind of book which has you reading it by torchlight under the bedclothes. (...) Beneath the suspense and the effortless erudition, An Instance of the Fingerpost is a novel profoundly concerned with Christian thought. (The only thing wrong with this book is its title." - Amanda Craig, The Times
In one important instance, however, involving what would appear to be a damning confession, Pears fails to come up with a persuasive explanation, and that stands as a rare logical flaw in a story that is otherwise a marvel of syllogistiche world of Iain Pears's new novel is the muddy, war-battered England of the 17th century. The civil war is over; one king has lost his head, another is newly restored
Both Prescott and Wallis are, in different ways, less concerned with facts than their appearance, and how these can serve them, with Prescott wanting to prove his father was not a traitor and Wallis always thinking he knows best. likes his plots as baroque and ingenious as possible, ''An Instance of the Fingerpost'' will not disappoint. It also rapidly became clear that London was not a healthy place. I do not mean the famous plague, which had not yet afflicted the city; I mean that Manston, that very evening, sent round hired hands to demonstrate that my life would be more secure elsewhere.
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The story begins with one Marco de Cola, self-described "gentleman of Venice," who is writing an account of a visit he made to England not long after Cromwell's death for the purpose, he says, of recovering property stolen So, while my father secured the family name and fortune, I--my mother being dead and one sister usefully married--was in Padua to acquire the smatterings of polite knowledge; he was content to have his son a member of our nobility but did not wish to
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