Deborah Nourse Lattimore

It makes me happy that this book exists, and the marginal illustrations, the author's tribute to the glory of the Book of Kells, make me even happier. When you dig a little deeper, unfortunately the story is a little bit silly. The Three Brothers theme is okay. The Good Deed Rewarded theme is okay. A bit more meticulous detail about the meticulous detail that created the Book of Kells would have been nice; I'm sure the author would be up to describing the preparation of parchment, the creation of ink and colour, and the process of transcribing the text and decorating the page. But the inanity of the monks' supposed motivation is beyond belief: "According to an ancient law," explains the scribe, "once the Book is completed, no one, not an Irish king nor a Viking lord, can attack us again." Other than the law of gravity and its like, there was no law to which the Vikings subscribed that was not part of their own oral tradition, and certainly no Christian law would deter them from the prospect of loot. Christian kings weren't that much better, although moral suasion could be exerted on them; but the existence of a particular book of Gospels would never be the deciding factor. Think of Henry VIII despoiling the monasteries some hundreds of years later: the king WAS the law. This ridiculous idea was enough to make me unable to enjoy the book as much as it probably deserves. And the brothers never get together again in the story, which is a pity.… (altro)