The Alchemist's Apprentice

by Jeremy Dronfield

The Alchemist’s Apprentice is a tragi-comic novel about love, loyalty and the power of imagination, in which the line between the universe of fiction and the world of reality disappears.

Madagascar Rhodes was probably the most famous author in the world. His magical, heart-warming novel, the eponymous The Alchemist’s Apprentice (about the adventures of a young Jewish girl in Malta during World War II) enchanted millions of readers. And yet, strangely, you’ve never heard of him. Or his amazing book. In fact, it’s as if Madagascar Rhodes never existed.

To unravel the tangled threads of reality and – what? Fantasy? Dreams? Plain old-fashioned fabrication? – you have to go back to the beginning. To a rather odd New Year’s Eve party in 1996. Or earlier, to a chance encounter with a ghostly girl in a sunny English garden. Or perhaps it all really began when an unsuccessful novelist called Roderick Bent embarked on a routine train journey from King’s Cross and found himself travelling into an inexplicable nightmare …

‘Funny, weird and intricate … A gifted, original writer’
Sunday Telegraph

‘Intelligent, provocative and utterly beguiling … Dronfield writes with a breezy good humour and insouciant flair and … offers some thought-provoking meditations on the nature of fiction and its relationship with reality. He also has a flawless control of the mechanisms of fiction, playing his literary tricks with baffling dexterity’
The Times

‘A captivating metaphysical mystery and an otherworldly love story’
The Sunday Times

‘The story mixes elements of Iain Banks’ wilfully perverse attitude with the absurdity of Douglas Adams at his best … A fine read’
Scotland on Sunday

‘Entertaining, funny, well observed, with a wicked viciousness when observing everyday people’
BBC Radio Scotland

‘A genuinely magical novel: funny, clever and weird’
Michael Marshall Smith

‘… absolutely huge fun, satisfying, twisty and cool in every way. … Go for it- funny, clever and, in a world starved of individual voices, *different*- a story about books, alternative worlds, mysteries and the love a man can have for a large badly behaved dog’
Jenny Colgan

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Books About Books

330 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 6, 2001

Reviews

[Mike MG · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased The Alchemist’s Apprentice on the strength of an interesting premise and an entertaining first page. What a joy it is when pages 2,3,4-350 live up to that initial promise. The basic premise is that one of the world’s best known novelists, Madagascar Rhodes, has vanished without trace, but not only that, Rhodes’ bestselling novel, The Alchemist’s Apprentice has also disappeared, and not only from the world’s bookshelves but also from the public consciousness.

To reveal more about the plot would only spoil the novel for potential readers, because from that intriguing opening the story journeys down some pretty strange roads and utilises some quite outlandish plot devices to get to where it’s going. If you’re in the mood for something a bit offbeat then this might well be for you. If I had to pick a fault with The Alchemist’s Apprentice it would be the final few pages. The reveal of what ultimately became of Madagascar Rhodes is a touch disappointing but it doesn't detract too much from the novel’s appeal. After all, the journey is often as important as the destination.

Comparison wise, The Alchemist’s Apprentice is a bit like a cross between early Iain Banks and Douglas Adams. It’s not an all time classic but it’s certainly a novel that deserves to be a heck of a lot better known than it is at present. Why not pop over to one of the retail sites and preview that entertaining first page, it might just draw you in.

[A. L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW. I'm trying to think of something more useful to say about this book, but it's the sort of story that you can't describe without spoiling it or somehow failing to do it any sort of justice. It simply needs to be READ, to be experienced, to exist. I cannot for the life of me understand how this book is not more well known or more popular. It is fantastic. Donfield's style is friendly, personable, and more often than not - hilarious. The book contorts the truth, bends its way playfully around reality and takes you somewhere hazy and indistinct, like a vivid but non-logical dream. I believed every word of it.

Should be required reading for students of creative writing.

[Mike Stoner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book year's ago, and it has stayed with me. Interesting, clever and deserves better acknowledgement.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book questions existence and all things around it. This book is hard to put into categories. Now I know that Alchemy (the creation of gold) contains Lead, Salt from the Sinai Sea (I could be wrong) and amber. Writing alchemy is the story, the writer and life. That is just surface. I do agree that it is a circular novel but it is fun and has many levels. This book is told in packets and I think about 8 books each uncovering levels of reality that are mind blowing. I think this book was written in 2001 and takes place during the 90s. We have Roderick Bent (Drick) whose story this is but it is told by one of his friends who finds a bunch of packets looking for his friend and this is his story. Roderick stopped aging at approximately 30. This book goes into his discovery of twins (?). This book is an experience to be read and I can't say much beyond that. Is time travel possible, do you have to dead to mess with history. Is this what hell is really like. Is World War II a myth and the bible just fiction. This book needs more attention then it should be getting. I learned a lot about questioning reality from this book. This is more a matrix book then anything else I have read.

[K.C. Murdarasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I massively enjoyed this novel- honestly, I can't remember the last time I relished a book so much. Other reviews have said that it can't sustain the initial cleverness all the way through, and it did get a bit Basil Exposition between about 70% and 85% (can you tell I read it on a Kindle?) but I thought the ending definitely worked. When it's revealed how he did it ('it' being the book, effectively), I had a lovely "A-ah!" moment.

The twin thing was a bit unnecessary, I thought, and I could have done with less speculation about "them" and their motives, but overall this was great and I keep recommending it to people.

[Matt Kelland · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd and intriguing time travel romance mystery. You never quite know where it's going next, but the real pleasure of this book is not just the plot, but the way it's written. I'm not a big fan of books about writers - that always feels lazy to me - but this one works because it's told in such an entertaining style. The narrator shifts several times, and they tell the story in a chatty, down-to-earth and amusing way which feels natural, even though the events are decidedly unnatural.

(And bonus points for having a Cambridge archaeology grad as a main character. That resonated with me.)

[Mike Augustine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrative was actually kind of exciting, at least based on an assumption of where it seemed headed with a nice literary conundrum to explore further. Not that where it went didn’t exude a twisting imaginative romp, but the overall effect was ultimately unsatisfying and left me feeling it was unnecessarily complicated .

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that's hard to place, this one. It's strange, and somehow it works. I'm not sure how satisfied I am with the conclusion, or the author's "almost fourth wall" approach. The plot kept me going and it maintains a mystery to the very end.

[Bec Lapham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has lived rent free in my head for over a decade, and if I'm being completely honest I don't even remember why. I lost my original copy and for a long time questioned if it ever really existed.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A kind of sub-Magus, quite clever and intriguing but ultimately not that memorable or recommendable,

[Mary Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book within a book

I really enjoyed this book - the characters the sub plots the narratives. It took me to another world where I was totally oblivious to my surroundings until with a disappointing thump I grudgingly read the last page and was promptly back in reality or was I ? It gave me a new perspective on how I view the world and my surroundings.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird and circular but brilliant. I still have a few ends that I would like wrapped up and it wasn’t a satisfactory closing of the mystery but well worth a re-read.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Actual rating 2.75)

Roderick Bent, the protagonist of The Alchemist's Apprentice, is a writer living in England. After years of being unpublished, his novel becomes hugely successful. So, why does Bent decide to throw it all away and disappear? It has something to do with the mysterious woman he met in a garden before the book was published, and the magical powers he gains after their meeting.

I enjoyed the first part of the book, but once Dronfield started delving into Kismet's back story, I lost interest. It's not that I don't enjoy a bit of magic and fantasy in what I read; it's that it seems out of place and not particularly exciting. I could have done without learning about Kismet's history, or why Roderick feels that he's been missing something throughout his life (which, oddly enough, only seems to surface more than half way through the book).

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to say much about this book without giving too much away. All I can say is that famous author Madagascar Rhodes disappears without trace, and oddly no-one except his best friend since childhood seems to remember that he or his bestselling book ever existed.

I enjoyed it, but found myself getting a bit frustrated with the constant weirdness and wishing that the author would hurry up and explain what was going on. And when he finally revealed what had happened to Drick, it was a bit of a let-down.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An original and refreshing novel, in a similar vein to Julian Barnes' earlier works (think: A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters), The Alchemist's Apprentice is the story behind the most famous book you've never read. The book deals with love, perceptions, the frailty of memory and the power of the human imagination, without ever getting bogged down in complex philosophy.
Everyone I've recommended this book to has loved it as much as I did, alas words cannot do it credit, so do yourself a favour and find a copy of this under-appreciated classic!

[Mocha VonBee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with the people who loved this book. It is very original, it is different and it is very amusing. But I also agree with the people who didn't love it. The ending is bit of a let down. Some parts are repeated. Even though this is deliberate, I am not sure that it works. The main question is whether Kismet works. Still, if you are hesitating and like literature on the alternative side, I would say go for it. I think this is a book that deserves a lot of readers, though it won't suit all of them.

[Incandragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised to find this a regular old Poirrot-style murder mystery, with a splash of magic. I expected more magic, but the historical setting was visually quite pleasing.

Three and a half, rounding down because I felt like I was expected to know more about the world ... as though this were the second in a series.

[Shirley Baby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensively sucked me inside the book's covers, wrapped me round with storyteller's mesmeric powers. (For my friends, you know who you are - I have to mention that this narrative includes both the word "foop" and a character wearing a tinfoil hat.)
I think I'll read this a second time.

[Susan Liddell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange, mental book. Quite liked it but it did verge to the ridiculous towards the end.