What do you think?
Rate this book
Four of Fools
Meeting in the ancient Italian town of Frascati, an ex-history professor, his wife, their friend, and an enigmatic scientist discover that their lives are in danger due to a circumstance that each controls in some way. IP.
177 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1995
17 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 27, 2018
what is The Fool?
someone who is carefree, optimistic... foolish? an innocent? Webster's defines a fool as such: a person who lacks good sense or judgment : a stupid or silly person : a person who enjoys something very much. but Webster's definition has little bearing on the decidedly not-foolish characters on display. it is The Fool of the Tarot - card 0 - that Sullivan summons in text and title. unfortunately!
this is a chilly, precisely written chamber piece involving four characters. three men love a woman. all four fool themselves in deeply unhealthy ways. the story takes place in Italy and much is made of the work of a well-regarded professor, the tarot, coincidence and serendipity, the secrets we keep buried within ourselves and away from others - secrets that mold and direct us, despite their hidden nature. it is an intriguing novel, full of human mysteries. it mines emotional depths; it dispassionately describes horrific actions; despite its overtly intellectual characters and rarified milieu, it has a particularly well-wrought air of foreboding and menace and potential violence. it is also a disappointing novel, to me at least, for two very petty and foolish reasons.
there is something triggering to me about "trigger warnings" - the very idea irritates me, and I've said or implied as much elsewhere. mea culpa: molestation is just not a topic that I can deal with. it triggers me. it is hard for me to enjoy any work with a molestation at its core, rather than in its margins - something I can read about quickly and move on from just as quickly because that act is not the book's reason for existence. in Four of Fools, a molestation - and the differing interpretations of that event, how it transforms its victim and how its perpetrator justifies it - is the central component of the story, linking all of its characters. I sure wish I had a warning about that. foolish, I know. why in the world would the author owe me a warning?
sadly, even if that component were replaced by something less repulsive, I would still have one major issue with Four of Fools... its misinterpretation of Tarot! Sullivan centralizes the Tarot to the point of naming her book after one of its major arcana and having a key scene be a tarot reading. and yet she doesn't appear to truly understand what The Fool represents. namely, new beginnings, the beginning of a journey; new choices and important decisions. this is not a book about either. the woman at the heart of the story simply retraces her past, lives in it, tries to make it her present... no journey begun, only stasis and regression. The Fool does not go backwards! the poor Fool may ignore the perils of their path and stumble or fall - but this is the card of taking a leap of faith, forward. more: neither protagonist nor villain makes any important decision - the latter plots and plans, the former reacts. the fourth character similarly lacks any correlation to the card. and so The Fool represents neither the cast nor the narrative. if you're going to make clever references in your title and then throughout your book, try to understand those references first! argh so irritating.
The Devil and The Tower cards are also misused, but hey who's counting.
someone who is carefree, optimistic... foolish? an innocent? Webster's defines a fool as such: a person who lacks good sense or judgment : a stupid or silly person : a person who enjoys something very much. but Webster's definition has little bearing on the decidedly not-foolish characters on display. it is The Fool of the Tarot - card 0 - that Sullivan summons in text and title. unfortunately!
this is a chilly, precisely written chamber piece involving four characters. three men love a woman. all four fool themselves in deeply unhealthy ways. the story takes place in Italy and much is made of the work of a well-regarded professor, the tarot, coincidence and serendipity, the secrets we keep buried within ourselves and away from others - secrets that mold and direct us, despite their hidden nature. it is an intriguing novel, full of human mysteries. it mines emotional depths; it dispassionately describes horrific actions; despite its overtly intellectual characters and rarified milieu, it has a particularly well-wrought air of foreboding and menace and potential violence. it is also a disappointing novel, to me at least, for two very petty and foolish reasons.
there is something triggering to me about "trigger warnings" - the very idea irritates me, and I've said or implied as much elsewhere. mea culpa: molestation is just not a topic that I can deal with. it triggers me. it is hard for me to enjoy any work with a molestation at its core, rather than in its margins - something I can read about quickly and move on from just as quickly because that act is not the book's reason for existence. in Four of Fools, a molestation - and the differing interpretations of that event, how it transforms its victim and how its perpetrator justifies it - is the central component of the story, linking all of its characters. I sure wish I had a warning about that. foolish, I know. why in the world would the author owe me a warning?
sadly, even if that component were replaced by something less repulsive, I would still have one major issue with Four of Fools... its misinterpretation of Tarot! Sullivan centralizes the Tarot to the point of naming her book after one of its major arcana and having a key scene be a tarot reading. and yet she doesn't appear to truly understand what The Fool represents. namely, new beginnings, the beginning of a journey; new choices and important decisions. this is not a book about either. the woman at the heart of the story simply retraces her past, lives in it, tries to make it her present... no journey begun, only stasis and regression. The Fool does not go backwards! the poor Fool may ignore the perils of their path and stumble or fall - but this is the card of taking a leap of faith, forward. more: neither protagonist nor villain makes any important decision - the latter plots and plans, the former reacts. the fourth character similarly lacks any correlation to the card. and so The Fool represents neither the cast nor the narrative. if you're going to make clever references in your title and then throughout your book, try to understand those references first! argh so irritating.
The Devil and The Tower cards are also misused, but hey who's counting.
July 30, 2015
Melodrama is classically the stuff of coincidence and forced causality. Our lives may be melodramatic, but also full of loose ends and counter examples that defy any such narrative ordering principles. Melodrama, though, thrives on these improbably forced terms, the sorts that usually take me out of the experience for being manipulative in unimaginative ways. Here, though, we have a novel that is essentially melodrama in its most entertaining manner (love triangles, hidden pasts, dangerous secrets), while being fully concerned with exactly those forces of coincidence and deterministic causality that usually propel the genre. Scientifically (or perhaps pseudoscientifically) concerned, even, with whether coincidence is in fact a credible universal force. Thus (physics-trained author) Evelin Sullivan deftly sidesteps what would otherwise be a review of caveats as to why this was enjoyable but not something I'd tend to seek out. Instead, by manipulating the constraints of genre into thematic and structural significance, she has devised something far more clever and interesting. (Even as it melodramatically succeeds in pulling the reader into its plotting.)
Evelin Sullivan, by the way, seems criminally overlooked, even though I believe she's still around and writing. A 1994 issue Review of Contemporary Fiction lead me to note four now seemingly forgotten authors with glowing notes. Sullivan is the first I've run down, and entirely worth it.
Evelin Sullivan, by the way, seems criminally overlooked, even though I believe she's still around and writing. A 1994 issue Review of Contemporary Fiction lead me to note four now seemingly forgotten authors with glowing notes. Sullivan is the first I've run down, and entirely worth it.
Read
November 9, 2016Gosh but aren't I a sucker for plot=driven novels? Especially ones stuffed with academia and pedophilia. And boy howdy! Drove straight through this charming little nugget in an afternoon. Totally worth seeking out this Evelin Sullivan person, because chances of you running across her work quite randomly, as I seem to have, are slim to none. Here's what happened to have happened ::
File under :: Sorrentino blurb'd (how many of these do you see?) ; Tarot'd (there oughta be a list!) ; academic/pedophilic (ie, Lolita) ; American-tourist-in-Italy ; inscribed=1st/1st ; Spine'd like Red the Fiend ; Designed by C. Linda Dingler ; El/fucktion=2016-unrelated.
So I was looking for something by Rob Swigart (he's discussed in Beyond Suspicion ; saw a Sukenick instead. Then right next door I see a spine that looks like Red the Fiend (turns out it's the same pub'er). It's Evelin Sullivan. This one turns out to have ZERO gr=ratings ; and it's signed ;; and there's a Sorrentino blurb!!!! ["Evelin Sullivan is a daring, adventurous writer who works in a luminous, compelling prose."]. And there's two more from her ; all signed ;; and Nate D's is the only gr=Review (almost) of her work. So, yeah, brought home all three ;; sight unseen.So, yes, veryvery pleased. I won't even speculate about why you and I and everyone's never heard of her. Very pleased.
File under :: Sorrentino blurb'd (how many of these do you see?) ; Tarot'd (there oughta be a list!) ; academic/pedophilic (ie, Lolita) ; American-tourist-in-Italy ; inscribed=1st/1st ; Spine'd like Red the Fiend ; Designed by C. Linda Dingler ; El/fucktion=2016-unrelated.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews