Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf (Contemporary English Language)
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Synopsis
This novel opens with a stomach-turning description of the state of Pope Leo's backside. The narrator is a hunchbacked dwarf and it is his job to read aloud from St Augustine while salves and unguents are applied to the Papal posterior. The dwarf moves in the highest circles of holt skulduggery and buggery...
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the sort of book that is hard to put down once you start reading, it is fast paced and well written. There is an underlying eroticism that bubbles to the surface at regular intervals and is used to graphically underline the brutality and sexuality of the times in which the book is set. The book is written from the dwarf's perspective and charts his life from gutter to Pope's household with his conversion to gnosticism along the way. Part of the gnostic belief is that flesh is Satan's invention and as such all things associated with the body, such as love making, are 'evil' and to be despised. This then explains the rather brutal detachement used to describe sexual acts and even death in the book. On one level this works well, illustrating the 'entrapment' of flesh and struggle of the soul to be free, but is less convincing when the finer emotions of love and trust are displayed. Still well worth reading as a highly original account of life in a time of religious fear and political manipulation that drags you along for the ride, whether you want to turn the page or not.
Format:Paperback
I'm a bookseller, and my first introduction to this book was an order for it when it first came out from a nun in Rome who was a customer of mine. Intrigued by the title I ordered myself a copy at the same time as I got one for her.
It's a scatalogical romp with a bit of sex and some horrific violence, but such fun. I would recommend it to anyone openminded who wants a good read. The occasional bit of mawkish sentimentality is a shame, but then Dickens descends to that quite often and it doesn't detract from his greatness. However, if the author is trying to sell gnosticism as a creed then he doesn't succeed in that. It comes over as even sillier than most religions are.
It is one of those books I just have to reread every few years, and what could be a better recommendation?
It's a scatalogical romp with a bit of sex and some horrific violence, but such fun. I would recommend it to anyone openminded who wants a good read. The occasional bit of mawkish sentimentality is a shame, but then Dickens descends to that quite often and it doesn't detract from his greatness. However, if the author is trying to sell gnosticism as a creed then he doesn't succeed in that. It comes over as even sillier than most religions are.
It is one of those books I just have to reread every few years, and what could be a better recommendation?
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I find authors who use the memoir approach, and direct references to the reader, rarely works and this novel falls short of a good read. The back cover had lots of praise from the English Press but sometimes I am dubious of their praise as I have often found later that the author is a journalist for one of the English papers too.
This novel had potential, Leo X, a rumoured gay pope, an historically tumultuous time and when Raphael, Michelangelo and Da Vinci were also enlightening the world.
However, whilst the writing was often enjoyable and the plot interesting, the novel failed to take off, a little like Da Vinci's aeroplane theories mentioned in the book.
The memoir dragged as the reader became less and less interested in the Gnostic Dwarf's life and sadly the Epilogue was just too ridiculous to be credible and left the reader cheated by a ho-hum much used historically cliched ending.
This novel had potential, Leo X, a rumoured gay pope, an historically tumultuous time and when Raphael, Michelangelo and Da Vinci were also enlightening the world.
However, whilst the writing was often enjoyable and the plot interesting, the novel failed to take off, a little like Da Vinci's aeroplane theories mentioned in the book.
The memoir dragged as the reader became less and less interested in the Gnostic Dwarf's life and sadly the Epilogue was just too ridiculous to be credible and left the reader cheated by a ho-hum much used historically cliched ending.
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