Written Script

by Annalita Marsigli

A stunning debut novel of fame, fate and immortality. Accept a premise. A man dies. Ten years later he returns to earth in his beloved country home in France only to discover that his wife has married his cousin and that his scholarly writings, which represent the culmination of his life's work, have disappeared under the most extraordinary of circumstance. During his life, the man, Ivain La Baille, professor of Latin literature and a specialist on Caedar, is fascinated by fame. Now in his death, he must plot his escape from a destiny of obscurity outlined for him in the written script of his life. Annalita Marsigli has written a novel that is at once a mystery and a work of thoughtful, almost excruciating frankness about the vanities and pleasure of life and work. The Written Script is a novel in which revelations of truth and lies, being and pretending, mingle in a world where time and space have different meanings―precipitating a courageous fight against fate that results in a deeper understanding of the human condition.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1998

Reviews

[Mona Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing first novel; hats off to Annalita Marsigli!

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a simple premise: a professor/writer dies and is given a chance to return to earth. In the telling of what happened with that, Professor Marsigli has written an encyclopedic dream of what she sees as the human condition. I warn you it's a fertile dark conjuration of a point of view, containing therein a professor's list of writers and artists floating here and there amid a myriad objects man-made and supernatural in scenes natural and unnatural, dark and light. Opposites abound: truth/lies and deception, being/nothingness, time and space/void. That this is a script written by a largely absent 'Godlet' (apparently a smallish, distant onlooker) is significant. No C. S. Lewis God as Artist and we God's Divine work in this book. Godlet is a cruel and perhaps sadistic author bent on self amusement by erasing all evidence of his creation's existence. There is love, of course. And rebirth of a sort...
This book is good- at times even brilliant. However in the end to me it reads like Ms. Marsigli's angst as an artist who fears Time's ultimate forgetfulness of human lives and effort. Judge it on its own terms.
I was reminded to go back and read T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is best epitomized by one word: weird. I did not like it at all but the actual premise of the book was so intriguing that despite my loathing for it I had to finish reading it. The main character in this book dies and then gets a second chance at living as someone else but he must not reveal his real name to anyone. He is living his life according to the Written Script, which dictates everything he says and does. Interesting idea, huh? Too bad the book was just so WEIRD that it detracts from the ingenuity of the plot. So, don't read this book.