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Monday, April 28, 2008

Faint praise?


‘Cathedral of the Sea’ by Ildefonso Falcones is now read.

I must admit that after the first few hundred pages I warmed to the narrative, but that was responding to your average tale of medieval rape, pillage, duplicity, deception, viciousness and noble brutality!

The plot is somewhat plodding and sometimes predictable but enjoyable none the less. The characters are never more than two dimensional, but at least you know where you are with them.

As soon as you realise that awful things are going to happen throughout the novel but that eventually good is going to be rewarded you can relax into a good, extended rollicking tale.

It has more in common with Harry Potter than an historical novel with literary pretensions.

Its great claim to fame is its setting in Barcelona and the adulation it gives to one of the great churches of Catalonia, the Cathedral of the Sea of the title, Santa Maria del Mar. This church was singled out by Hadyn as being the building in which, as soon as he entered, he uttered a short sharp yelp and then pronounced the acoustic excellent!

I think that I can recommend this book (such magnanimity for a book which has sold over two million copies worldwide in umpteen languages) but you should not look for profundity in its pages. An excellent beach read.

I can now start on the first volume of Ken Follett’s cathedral novel sequence. I still rate him more highly than the Catalan.

I seem to be using up my summer reads before the actually season starts.

I’ll just have to buy other volumes to compensate!

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