Lawrence Norfolk

[Eric Rosenbloom]

What d'y'all think of Lawrence Norfolk's novels, Lempriere's Dictionary,
The Pope's Rhinoceros, and now In the Shape of a Boar?

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Synopses from Amazon:

As the 17th century opens, a band of venturers forms the Honourable
Company of Merchants. In France the siege of La Rochelle ends with the
massacre of 30,000 people. Almost two centuries later, in 1788, John
Lempriere publishes his classical dictionary. This novel relates these
three events.

The tale of the sinking of a Portuguese ship off the coast of Italy in
1516, while attempting to deliver a rhinoceros to Pope Leo X. The hero,
Salvestro, is caught up in a mission to Rome by a sect of secretive
monks from a Baltic island, their first pilgrimage in 200 years.

The hunt for the great boar of Kalydon is re-enacted in the last days of
World War II, only this time an SS officer is the quarry and Greek
partisans the hunters. Their witness is a young Romanian Jew, finding
refuge in the Greek mountains, who is inspired to re-write the story as
a poem.
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I just ordered the last one, so I can't say how hep Norfolk's WW2
writing is compared to Pynchon's, but both earlier books are shaped by
webs of paranoia conerning the hidden threads of The Firm. Lempriere's
Dictionary is the more compelling, involving capitalist manipulations
behind the French Revolution and psychological manipulations of
Lempriere. The Pope's Rhinoceros is longer and more rambling, but
remains a stunning evocation of how different the worlds of the elect
and the preterite really are. And it's ending is great farce. In his
books -- the latest, too, by accounts -- Norfolk gives voice to the
earth's long presence as well.

Yours,
EricR



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