Whittemore gets that it is impossible to be rational about anything to do with the Middle East and multiply that by infinity when the subject is Jerusalem. Likely the initial settlement there was chosen for practical reasons, e.g. that there is no inherent spiritual reason why this 'hilltop' has become the possibly the most important city on the planet, as regards the life of the spirit. Whittemore does not try to unravel the mystery, instead he weaves a story of improbabilitie and intersections, layering one upon another from the Babylonians to the Crusaders, the Greeks to the Ottomans, to the early moments of the Zionist movement. In this second of the Quartet, a poker game begun in 1921 between three people, a black Arab-Sudanese, a Jewish-Hungarian ex-diplomat/soldier and an Irish ex-Independence fighter continues. The stakes are high: the winner will win Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the quest for the original bible (known as the Sinai Bible) is still on, though muted through this book. 3000 year old Haj Harun, the defender of Jerusalem, hosts the poker game and arbitrates when needed. That's all you need to know. Either you will be drawn in or you won't. ****1/2 ( )

I prefer _Quin's Shanghai Circus_ to this later book by Whittemore, but it's good too. Perhaps this one pushes "whacky" a bit too far for me. ( )

"…..Mummy dust. Trading in futures, Religious symbols.
With that kind of backing, the three men seemed unbeatable. Year after year, they stripped visitors to Jerusalem of all they owned, bewildered emirs and European smugglers and feuding sheikhs, devout priests and assorted commercial agents and pious fanatics, every manner of pilgrim in that vast dreaming army from many lands that had always been scaling the heights of the Holy City, in search of spiritual gold, Martyr and Szondi and O'Sullivan Beare implacably dealing and shuffling and dealing again"

2nd in the quartet and a nice place to start. A place where harsh surrealness(?) meets whimsical reality. Where a 12 year poker game is played for the control of Jerusalem and an insane millionaire alchemist who tries to destroy them destroy what?. Or it’s a story of three (four?) lives, unreliable narrators all.

For the characters at first loom larger than life before we scratch underneath and find them unerringly human before the heroism bleeds back in and it goes full circle. Myths and legends deserving of the sweep history from the garrulous, gun running Irish man, saved by the dancing baking priest to Harun defender of Jerusalem for 3,000 years, wearing his rusty helmet and tattered cloak living in the slipstream of memory or maybe just insanity. It doesn’t matter much which, there is a different truth here.

Of all the four it has most contrast and I think therefore most interesting. It has the myth but also heavy history and these play on each other wonderfully. Whittemore really draws you in to care about the characters. It’s not perfect in a reread, I guess because the tension of who wins the poker game is lost, but the 1st time I was blown away.

So just be prepared to relax and enjoy the ride, as he does wander off track. It's a brilliant, utterly unique book and if you go in open minded it might just break your heart.

Highly recommended. ( )

Of the 5 Whittemore books this one is the best. It is an amazing book and 1 of my all time favorites. ( )

*note to self.copy from Al.