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eddie's review
3.0
There is much to enjoy in this novel, and I did, but truthfully it is a bit of a pick and mix. There are inconsistencies of tone and genre.
It felt bizarre that it reminded me forcefully of books written decades later - most pertinently, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (Fitzgerald is crimsoning in her coffin with shame and anger at that comparison) and, more flatteringly, Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum.
In between the two, there is a satire of English social stratification á la Evelyn Waugh (perhaps a little too leaden on its feet to completely charm), and a metaphysical contemplation of what is art; how do we determine and manufacture value and meaning; the paradoxical relationship with truth and falsehood; real and fake.
It felt bizarre that it reminded me forcefully of books written decades later - most pertinently, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (Fitzgerald is crimsoning in her coffin with shame and anger at that comparison) and, more flatteringly, Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum.
In between the two, there is a satire of English social stratification á la Evelyn Waugh (perhaps a little too leaden on its feet to completely charm), and a metaphysical contemplation of what is art; how do we determine and manufacture value and meaning; the paradoxical relationship with truth and falsehood; real and fake.
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