Sudden Death, by Alvaro Enrigue
This wonderful novel hits two of my biggest buttons: history and originality. Its funkiness is a breath of fresh air to someone who reads constantly and is often faced with the same tired plot lines and format. Unfortunately, this very quality makes it difficult for less dedicated readers, or at least those who prefer a tried and true chronology.
There isn't really a main character, rather several key figures or things that feature prominently in each of their stories. All these protagonists are linked, and there are four that are strongest: Hernan Cortes, the infamous conquistador who opened Central and South America to European onslaught; a beautiful, ethereal miter (that big pointy hat worn by the pope) ingeniously decorated with iridescent feathers by a newly converted Indian; Caravaggio, that wondrous painter of Renaissance Italy who broke through the constraints of accepted painting norms; and tennis. This is, at the outset, a book about the history of tennis - how it evolved, what the racquet and balls were made of, how it was played in different countries - but it quickly becomes so much more.
What's intriguing about this book is it's impossible to tell (unless you know all this history intimately) what is fact and what is fiction. It reads like the most interesting history textbook you've ever laid eyes on, but it is most certainly a novel. The people are all drawn from the past, but Enrigue breathes life into them like no textbook ever could. We jump back and forth in time and between continents at will, even from paragraph to paragraph. And here is where some readers probably get lost. I find this serve and return chronology, so like the game of tennis, absolutely fascinating; I've never read a book that's attempted it and succeeded so well. Others will find it difficult to follow, and I can't fault them for it. It's confusing, but as a reader, I'm okay with being confused. I'm okay not really knowing what's going on, putting faith in the author to reveal it all in good time, that the book is written this way for a very good reason. Others may not have the patience to let themselves be pulled through the story in this manner. But for those who can, this is a treasure of a novel, and I will look for more of Enrigue's work in the future.
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There isn't really a main character, rather several key figures or things that feature prominently in each of their stories. All these protagonists are linked, and there are four that are strongest: Hernan Cortes, the infamous conquistador who opened Central and South America to European onslaught; a beautiful, ethereal miter (that big pointy hat worn by the pope) ingeniously decorated with iridescent feathers by a newly converted Indian; Caravaggio, that wondrous painter of Renaissance Italy who broke through the constraints of accepted painting norms; and tennis. This is, at the outset, a book about the history of tennis - how it evolved, what the racquet and balls were made of, how it was played in different countries - but it quickly becomes so much more.
What's intriguing about this book is it's impossible to tell (unless you know all this history intimately) what is fact and what is fiction. It reads like the most interesting history textbook you've ever laid eyes on, but it is most certainly a novel. The people are all drawn from the past, but Enrigue breathes life into them like no textbook ever could. We jump back and forth in time and between continents at will, even from paragraph to paragraph. And here is where some readers probably get lost. I find this serve and return chronology, so like the game of tennis, absolutely fascinating; I've never read a book that's attempted it and succeeded so well. Others will find it difficult to follow, and I can't fault them for it. It's confusing, but as a reader, I'm okay with being confused. I'm okay not really knowing what's going on, putting faith in the author to reveal it all in good time, that the book is written this way for a very good reason. Others may not have the patience to let themselves be pulled through the story in this manner. But for those who can, this is a treasure of a novel, and I will look for more of Enrigue's work in the future.
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