An exhausting read. A dense, literate novel, with some staggering sequences (the sequence of mankind's conquest of the sea, as narrated by successive generations of herring, is one of the most masterful things I have ever read) but also with a sprawl that, ultimately, the author cannot control. I love large novels, however this one feels like the editor's attentions were elsewhere. No masterpiece, true. Yet I can confidently state that Norfolk's love of words, and oddball character insight, will definitely have me visiting his back catalogue sooner rather than later. ( )

I dunno ... "A" for effort, I guess?

The writing obviously took a lot of work, and there is some consummate craftsmanship going on here. Sure, the vocabulary seems too often to reach for the more obscure word (or the more obscure meaning of a word, such as using factor to refer to an agent) when there is a perfectly serviceable common word, but that is more irritating than blameworthy.

The real problem is that the novel just doesn't really work. The jokes in the carnivalesque Rome chapters fall flat, the opening tale of the sunken city (Vintra? Vespa? I've already forgotten) and its monastry-sentinel is chucked overboard when the great sea-voyage begins, and there is an entire chapter centered around an African tribe (Nri) that seems out of place. Oh, and that hackneyed device of a eurocentric author writing from a superstitious, aboriginal perspective as if he knows how they think? Yeah, that's in here too. I cringe every time I encounter one of those.

Still, the technique is superb, and at least half of the novel is quite good. I won't say that it's necessarily worth sticking through to the end, but the more stoic reader will plenty to enjoy in this novel.



( )

En febrero de 1516, un barco portugués se hundió a una milla de las costas de Italia y perecieron todos sus tripulantes. La Nossa Senhora da Ajuda había navegado 14,000 millas desde el reino Indio de Gujarat con una misión: hacer entrega de un rinoceronte al Papa.

It took me forever to get through this book. Not because it is awful, but because the author's style is very dense. What I can describe using three or four words, he uses fifteen.
Pope Leo X owns an elephant, and wants a rarer beast, a rhinoceros. No one knows what it looks like, but the Spanish and the Portuguese are vying with each other to deliver one and gain the favor of this Pope. The life story of one man, Salvestro, is woven in and around the finding of this beast. Herring and especially rats are rampant.
This novel is sometimes amusing, sometimes surprising, one small section that springs to mind was rather boring to me, but it was worth it.
( )

A unique book that defies categorisation, this is a huge, surreal, complex, all-encompassing sixteenth century picaresque shaggy dog (or should I say rhinoceros) story full of humour, complex plot twists, period detail and arcane vocabulary, ranging from the Baltic coastal island of Usedom via Rome to West Africa and back, taking in large chunks of history, geography, geology, papal politics and many other subjects.

Not an easy read, particularly the opening which spends several pages explaining the geological evolution of the Baltic in almost wilfully obscure language, but ultimately a rewarding one, and an impressive feat of research and imagination. ( )