The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman
August 30th 2006 04:37
The geographer in question is Al-Idrisi twelfth century geographer, whose name if you remember was usually thrown in the clash of civilizations debate two years ago. He first stayed at Baghdad and when things there became too hot, went to Sicilian court, which he left to draw a map of the world. The library in question is the curious collection of items which Al-Idrisi left behind in Sicily, all connected in some way to alchemy. The "library" was first stolen by a thief and then dispersed all over Eastern Europe.
In modern day New England small town called Lincoln, Paul Tomm, a twenty-three year old reporter who works for small community newspaper is asked to do an obituary about a Jaan Puhapaev, a reclusive Estonian professor of Baltic Studies, who has died of natural causes in his home. The facts about the professor are scarce but the few that emerge increase the mystery. The professor walked with a hand gun on his body and fired it no less than two times on the university campus. Why did the university rush to bury these incidents? And what about the surprising statements made by the pathologist who is doing the autopsy that the professor's body is surprisingly young and well-preserved for a man so old? Before he is run down by a wayward car that is?
Paul's assignment now becomes more of an investigative story than an obituary. He is joined in his quest by Paul's former professor and his young nephew who is a police detective. But quest is a big word for this essentially small town arm chair small talk.
Fasman, a reporter for The Economist, writes atmospheric prose that captures the nuances and shades of a small town ably. Also, the novel is peppered with tantalising vistas of Eastern European and ex-Soviet Republic countries and filled with a reporter's wisdom about the nature of tyranny and subversion. But, where it comes unstuck is the plotting. The novel alternates between Paul's fact-hunting for his story and the dispersion of the Al-Idrisi's collection, which in twentieth century is being slowly reassembled back. The two tracks run separately for a majority of the novel and they but coalesce briefly in the denouement where a bunch of old immortals pop up and tell Paul that he is too small to deal with big issues so back off, which being " the moderately moderate" he is, he does.
Before they vanish however, they give a lecture as to the clue of what it was all about. It is here when Fasman begins to explain alchemy, the casus belli of the plot, the novel rises above the maudlin humdrum of Katherine Neville's Motaigne chess set or Kate Mosse's labyrinthine grail and others like them. Fasman's alchemy is all about transformation and as he remarks Al-idrisi's transformative journey began from Baghdad and ended in Talinn, a former Soviet bloc. Surely he doesn't mean……?
In modern day New England small town called Lincoln, Paul Tomm, a twenty-three year old reporter who works for small community newspaper is asked to do an obituary about a Jaan Puhapaev, a reclusive Estonian professor of Baltic Studies, who has died of natural causes in his home. The facts about the professor are scarce but the few that emerge increase the mystery. The professor walked with a hand gun on his body and fired it no less than two times on the university campus. Why did the university rush to bury these incidents? And what about the surprising statements made by the pathologist who is doing the autopsy that the professor's body is surprisingly young and well-preserved for a man so old? Before he is run down by a wayward car that is?
Paul's assignment now becomes more of an investigative story than an obituary. He is joined in his quest by Paul's former professor and his young nephew who is a police detective. But quest is a big word for this essentially small town arm chair small talk.
Fasman, a reporter for The Economist, writes atmospheric prose that captures the nuances and shades of a small town ably. Also, the novel is peppered with tantalising vistas of Eastern European and ex-Soviet Republic countries and filled with a reporter's wisdom about the nature of tyranny and subversion. But, where it comes unstuck is the plotting. The novel alternates between Paul's fact-hunting for his story and the dispersion of the Al-Idrisi's collection, which in twentieth century is being slowly reassembled back. The two tracks run separately for a majority of the novel and they but coalesce briefly in the denouement where a bunch of old immortals pop up and tell Paul that he is too small to deal with big issues so back off, which being " the moderately moderate" he is, he does.
Before they vanish however, they give a lecture as to the clue of what it was all about. It is here when Fasman begins to explain alchemy, the casus belli of the plot, the novel rises above the maudlin humdrum of Katherine Neville's Motaigne chess set or Kate Mosse's labyrinthine grail and others like them. Fasman's alchemy is all about transformation and as he remarks Al-idrisi's transformative journey began from Baghdad and ended in Talinn, a former Soviet bloc. Surely he doesn't mean……?
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