Lawrence Norfolk

[Richard Romeo]

Eric

I seem to recall that while Norfolk's stories are adventorous, they rang 
oddly hollow to this reader--more like eco, lots of erudition but seemed 
like set-pieces for the research, I'm thinking also of The Black Book by 
Pamuk--more metaphysical mysteries.

Of course, the 3rd book isn't out yet in America.

fwiw..

Rich

>
>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?
>
>----------------------
>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.
>----------------------
>
>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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