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Septimania
Malory es un ingenuo chico de 26 años que conoce al amor de su vida mientras realiza su trabajo como afinador de órganos a las afueras de Oxford. Un día, después de la muerte de su abuela, emprende una aventura que le cambiará la vida. Malory descubre que es el heredero de grandes secretos que llegan hasta lo más profundo de la historia de Occidente, de la ciencia y de la humanidad.
420 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2016
30 people are currently reading
374 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Levi
18 books18 followersMúsico, periodista, escritor y productor. Es cofundador de una de las revistas literarias más reconocidas de Norteamérica: Granta. Ha publicado artículos y reseñas de libros en grandes publicaciones como The New York Times y Los Angeles Times. Ha trabajado escrito y dirigido obras de teatro y óperas. También trabajó con The Metropolitan Opera Guild y el Kennedy Center. «Septimania» es su regreso a la literatura después de un poco más de veinte años.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
April 6, 2016
Reading Jonathan Levi’s "Septimania" is like making love to an emotionally or psychologically unbalanced person; in the moment it is extremely enjoyable and even exciting, but upon some sober reflection it is a rather deep matter that is somewhat frightening. Synesthesia is the neurophysiological gift that allows one to see certain musical notes as individual specific colors, quite literally to hear cerulean, or to see a G above high C as orange, in an inherent way that that is similar to the more forced manner in which certain geniuses have been able to make music into mathematics. These recondite and ineffable connecting mechanisms are woven through this gripping and entertaining and layered narrative in such a way that it evolves into a novel that unifies many disparate and varied intellectual and aesthetic elements. It is written in both a major and a minor key. It is the literary astrolabe for the twenty-first century.
The reader is joyously compelled along a clever and gripping story arc that would make Dan Brown wish he were funnier and smarter, while the tale’s underlying harmonies not only bring to mind history, astronomy, music, grammar, faith, love, mathematics, logic, sex, rhetoric, science, and art, they make the reader begin to see that perhaps these are all the same one thing. "Septimania" is a suspenseful page-turner that invests you in the developments that grasp a hold of its protagonist and stun him along his and our road to very deep and broad discovery. You cannot take your eyes off of the spectacle. But other realizations play the accompaniment. The whole intellectual world is contained in the map of Rome. Music is making love is literature. We are, each one of us, a Jew, and a Gentile, a Muslim, and a pagan. A violin plays to us in the colors of a Michelangelo or a Titian. Gravity is light and electricity and perhaps God. One woman is all the women in the world.
If you do not find that you cannot put this book down even after you have finished it, you will not long be a virgin. It compels you to read it over again and to draw from it some things that are new or were unseen before. It is a Borgesian smorgasbord of meaning and beauty. Jonathan Levi is the wise shaman, or the unifying field theorist, of all the things that matter to the thinking and feeling heart. "Septimania" will synesthetically leave you seeing red and feeling blue and being green with envy, because it will strike you with the Emersonian truth that genius is the property of convincing us that what we knew all along is what we have just been told.
The reader is joyously compelled along a clever and gripping story arc that would make Dan Brown wish he were funnier and smarter, while the tale’s underlying harmonies not only bring to mind history, astronomy, music, grammar, faith, love, mathematics, logic, sex, rhetoric, science, and art, they make the reader begin to see that perhaps these are all the same one thing. "Septimania" is a suspenseful page-turner that invests you in the developments that grasp a hold of its protagonist and stun him along his and our road to very deep and broad discovery. You cannot take your eyes off of the spectacle. But other realizations play the accompaniment. The whole intellectual world is contained in the map of Rome. Music is making love is literature. We are, each one of us, a Jew, and a Gentile, a Muslim, and a pagan. A violin plays to us in the colors of a Michelangelo or a Titian. Gravity is light and electricity and perhaps God. One woman is all the women in the world.
If you do not find that you cannot put this book down even after you have finished it, you will not long be a virgin. It compels you to read it over again and to draw from it some things that are new or were unseen before. It is a Borgesian smorgasbord of meaning and beauty. Jonathan Levi is the wise shaman, or the unifying field theorist, of all the things that matter to the thinking and feeling heart. "Septimania" will synesthetically leave you seeing red and feeling blue and being green with envy, because it will strike you with the Emersonian truth that genius is the property of convincing us that what we knew all along is what we have just been told.
May 12, 2016
This novel didn't work at all. Sort of Dan Brown mixed with those John Crowley-Aegypt novels that Harold Bloom thinks are so great. But this was completely ridiculous - one lame guy is King of the Jews, Emperor of Rome, Charlemagne, Isaac Newton, Thomas Malory, Haroun al Rashid, I don't know Jesus Christ and then throw in quantum physics and goddess worship and Pope John Paul II and an annoying little apple pip (?!). I clearly didn't understand it all or care to, but I know enough history and science to recognize nonsense. Add to that hot mess many cringe-worthily bad sentences. At the 40% mark I began skimming to the end just to see how many wacky things Levi could shoe-horn in - and I was richly rewarded with a lot of verbose crapola. I'm pretty sure I read Levi's Guide for the Perplexed back in the early 1990s and though I can't recall much about it I would have remembered if it had been as awful as this. But I probably had more tolerance for this sort of "ambition" back then.
May 15, 2016
Best book of 2016, so far. Septimania is erudite but also smoothly written, intricately plotted but not complicated, and a complete pleasure from the first page to the last. While it has much of the character of a time/continent/genre hopping novel by the likes of David Mitchell, it is also a linear narrative with historical interludes that tells the story of a Trinity College Cambridge grad student who is failing out of the physics program who meets his soulmate of a woman and spends a brief moment with her in Cambridge before she is whisked away. He sees here again, briefly in Rome, seven months later when she is about to give birth to their child and he is about to become the King of Septimania, a secret Kingdom, a role that makes him heir to both King David and Charlamagne. He spends the rest of the book following up on his obsession with Isaac Newton, looking for the woman and colliding with 9/11 in New York. The novel has a small number of characters with an intimate feel but also an epic that spans decades--and even centuries--while telling a secret understory to the world we live in, but one that is not fantasy or even really historical fiction. And all of this is interspersed with discussions of physics, math, music, and more--none of which are digressive or showy.
June 24, 2016
This was certainly not the book I was lead to believe from the little review I had read. I was expecting a grand mystery full of archaeological and arcane lore. A grand tale of travel to foreign lands. A grand discovery at the end.
So perhaps that's why I was disappointed in the story. I kept it expecting to go one way or another and it never did. Truth to tell, I stuck with it because it seemed to keep promising that it would. And by the time I realized I was fooled I figured I may as well stick it out.
Or maybe because it's an allegory. I'm not a big fan of allegory.
But if you are, if you like those old morality plays in which the little girl is whisked away to live with the Saints, leads a life of drudgery and toil, and returns to the real world just in time to die sinless, then perhaps this is the book for you. (that was not a spoiler, btw. Septimania has none of those elements. It just reads that way.)
That said, I think Mr. Levi is a masterful storyteller. I just didn't like the story he told.
So perhaps that's why I was disappointed in the story. I kept it expecting to go one way or another and it never did. Truth to tell, I stuck with it because it seemed to keep promising that it would. And by the time I realized I was fooled I figured I may as well stick it out.
Or maybe because it's an allegory. I'm not a big fan of allegory.
But if you are, if you like those old morality plays in which the little girl is whisked away to live with the Saints, leads a life of drudgery and toil, and returns to the real world just in time to die sinless, then perhaps this is the book for you. (that was not a spoiler, btw. Septimania has none of those elements. It just reads that way.)
That said, I think Mr. Levi is a masterful storyteller. I just didn't like the story he told.
September 1, 2024
This is a clever but ultimately narrative mess. Levi ambitiously, and that's an understatement, tries to craft a Dan Brown-meets-Umberto Eco mash-up of sinister thriller and intellectual adventure. He's much better on character than control over an overly imaginative plot. The latter veers wildly all over the place, into improbable situations. One day so-and-so is in the middle of England, the next such-and-such is being made a green-vested cardinal in haste to elect a "Polish Pope." And then that barely gets mentioned again, as the mad tale gallops on. Mathematics, secret cabals, the organ, Rome, the (pseudo-scholarly though you'd not suspect it herein) "Jewish kingdom of Septimania," and all kinds of maddening coincidences, astonishing births kept secret for decades, and inevitably love lost and won again after many intervening years and dalliances: it's all here. Jonathan Levi's very clever, but his inventive energy gets ahead of coherence in this sprawling saga.
(Also see my take on the medieval realm of "Septimania" as advanced by Arthur Zuckerman in his 1972 book, a Jewish Princedom in Feudal France.)
(Also see my take on the medieval realm of "Septimania" as advanced by Arthur Zuckerman in his 1972 book, a Jewish Princedom in Feudal France.)
December 28, 2018
Have you ever found yourself in a dream that is just totally fucked up and makes no sense, but you're dreaming, you have no choice, and the dream just goes on until you finally wake up in a cold sweaty bed needing a change of sheets, a hot shower and mug of cocoa?
Well this is the literary version, and it's someone else's fucked up dream you're stuck in.
I say 'you're stuck in', like you couldn't just delete it from your Kindle if you wanted to, but that's the thing, you just don't want to. Like the fucked up dream, you just seem to be stuck in it and you have to wait until the end when it releases you back to reality.
I won't say more as i wouldn't want to spoil it for any literary masochists out there, other than buyer beware. It will seriously disturb you that you wasted your time reading it, but once you start reading it you'll be in it until the end - you have been warned!
Well this is the literary version, and it's someone else's fucked up dream you're stuck in.
I say 'you're stuck in', like you couldn't just delete it from your Kindle if you wanted to, but that's the thing, you just don't want to. Like the fucked up dream, you just seem to be stuck in it and you have to wait until the end when it releases you back to reality.
I won't say more as i wouldn't want to spoil it for any literary masochists out there, other than buyer beware. It will seriously disturb you that you wasted your time reading it, but once you start reading it you'll be in it until the end - you have been warned!
July 10, 2016
I carry Septimania with me because in every batch of free time, I want to get back into this intellectually sweeping, magical world. Jonathan Levi’s novel is wonderful—adventurous, romantic, learned, complex and daring. Malory, a failed PhD candidate, is surprisingly crowned king of Septimania, His search for Louiza, a mathematical genius who, unknown to Malory, is pregnant with his child, is one of many threads that pull me through this amazing story. When Louiza disappears, Malory’s pursuit takes us to Rome. Passages include Newton, Bach, Charlemagne and modern-day life. I am astonished by the questions and quests about Grand Unified Theory, love, quantum behavior, numerology and music. In this fable, I feel I’m traveling the grand and compelling terrain of a romantic intellectual. The conclusion is killer--magnificent.
March 16, 2020
Malísimo. Le doy dos estrellas porque me mantuvo entretenida hasta la página 150,de ahí para allá las cosas perdieron sentido y nada conectaba con nada, además de tener muchos sucesos sueltos y puestos en la historia sin ningún objetivo.
Al principio habían buenas referencias históricas pero después todo empezó a ponerse raro, el protagonista resultó ser rey de los judíos, los cristianos, los musulmanes y no sé cuántas cosas más ¿qué? Y enseguida resultó que por sus títulos podía también elegir un Papa, que cosa tan absurda, además me desesperaba mucho porque nunca sabía qué hacer, esperaba a que la vida decidiera por él. No recuerdo que haya tomado una sola decisión en todo el libro.
Solo lo leí porque en la reseña suena bien, pero no lo recomendaría a nadie
Al principio habían buenas referencias históricas pero después todo empezó a ponerse raro, el protagonista resultó ser rey de los judíos, los cristianos, los musulmanes y no sé cuántas cosas más ¿qué? Y enseguida resultó que por sus títulos podía también elegir un Papa, que cosa tan absurda, además me desesperaba mucho porque nunca sabía qué hacer, esperaba a que la vida decidiera por él. No recuerdo que haya tomado una sola decisión en todo el libro.
Solo lo leí porque en la reseña suena bien, pero no lo recomendaría a nadie
January 30, 2025
This is a marvelous novel, packed with incident and history that startles you into believing that it must be more pages than its true brevity. It doesn't feel tediously long, don't misunderstand, but it feels richer than its length would make possible. Imagine an Umberto Eco novel like Foucault's Pendulum compressed into this page length. Levi has an accessible style and writes engaging characters in interesting venues. Highly recommended.
October 5, 2021
No book before disappointed me more than Septimania. I am a physicist, lover of maths and music, and thought that Levi would really treat them or at least use them. What else one can expect from a book that starts saying that Newton has found the final rule that allows him to make an apple float? But everything in the book was superficial, no even music was relevant for the plot.
Something that he really cares about, too much, is in describing the streets of Roma, England, and NewYork (almost like a tourist guide)
The only character on which he stops a bit happens to be silly, weak, simple, and vague, just like the book. You cannot get involved even with the main character. It is not an exaggeration that every teen pages appear a new problem, a new issue, a new character, usually out of the blue. But practically all of them leaving only pages and pages of... nothing. Sometimes I had the impression that he wanted to give a kind of atmosphere like Japanese literature, where time passes and vacuum fills the scene, but instead of you feeling emotions you get the feeling that he just wanted to fill pages describing a building and a street or the life cliche style of an English Ph.D. student or an Italian girl.
It is true that it is well written, and at least I finished it because all time one thinks that things are going to get intertwined, slowly solve the whole bunch of problems that appeared. But no. Only until the last 12 pages, in a chapter as silly as the main character, it is solved, again out of the blue, the main mystery, with an answer of a teenager: the final rule is LOVE.
I am sorry but this book is a waste of paper.
I cannot believe that Levi waste a Rockefeller fellowship in this.
Something that he really cares about, too much, is in describing the streets of Roma, England, and NewYork (almost like a tourist guide)
The only character on which he stops a bit happens to be silly, weak, simple, and vague, just like the book. You cannot get involved even with the main character. It is not an exaggeration that every teen pages appear a new problem, a new issue, a new character, usually out of the blue. But practically all of them leaving only pages and pages of... nothing. Sometimes I had the impression that he wanted to give a kind of atmosphere like Japanese literature, where time passes and vacuum fills the scene, but instead of you feeling emotions you get the feeling that he just wanted to fill pages describing a building and a street or the life cliche style of an English Ph.D. student or an Italian girl.
It is true that it is well written, and at least I finished it because all time one thinks that things are going to get intertwined, slowly solve the whole bunch of problems that appeared. But no. Only until the last 12 pages, in a chapter as silly as the main character, it is solved, again out of the blue, the main mystery, with an answer of a teenager: the final rule is LOVE.
I am sorry but this book is a waste of paper.
I cannot believe that Levi waste a Rockefeller fellowship in this.
May 8, 2016
Warrants re-reading
I enjoyed reading this strange novel. I found every main character sympathetic in a different way. The Rome setting was very familiar, and the descriptions of the "feel" of Rome at different hours and in different weather were accurate - with a degree of subtleness that few writers could manage.
Many of the mathematical and historic references eluded me. Here is a work of fiction that cries out for annotation as well as illustration. I would by that edition and read the book again.
I enjoyed reading this strange novel. I found every main character sympathetic in a different way. The Rome setting was very familiar, and the descriptions of the "feel" of Rome at different hours and in different weather were accurate - with a degree of subtleness that few writers could manage.
Many of the mathematical and historic references eluded me. Here is a work of fiction that cries out for annotation as well as illustration. I would by that edition and read the book again.
April 25, 2016
It would have been a 5 had I understood what was going on....
An important, engaging book on the history of the Jewish state of Septimania in the South of France, around 700. This really happened. http://www.jewishmag.com/175mag/septi...
This novel is worth reading but requires some effort to follow.
An important, engaging book on the history of the Jewish state of Septimania in the South of France, around 700. This really happened. http://www.jewishmag.com/175mag/septi...
This novel is worth reading but requires some effort to follow.
August 22, 2016
I could hardly put this book down. It was kind of surrealistic. It had the hidden history thing going on kind of like Dan Brown and some mystical characteristics. The characters were very original. There were joyous and heartfelt times throughout the story. I really enjoyed this story. It was one that you wanted to get to the end to see how things ended but you didn't want the story to end.
September 7, 2017
This book is definitely quirky and fantastical, and I appreciate Levi's imaginative powers. While Entertaining, it also left me with far too many questions. Obviously it's intended to be fanciful, but it's more than that. What's with the abrupt dethroning at the end? Just because Malory's servant died? think I need to read it again to see if something new occurs to me.
The bizarro Romanian couple make Malory and Louiza seem like Ward and Joan (June?) Cleaver. I mean, really. Neither Louisa nor Malory suspected Tibor and _?_ had kidnapped their baby? For 2 otherwise intelligent adults, each must have experienced more than a few misfirings between synapses. Tibor is a sleaze, and knows it. He supposedly blew himself up because he was filled with such self-loathing, right?
(As an aside: his decision to direct a performance of Dante's 9 circles of Hell on Christmas Eve was mighty bizarre. And yet it was such a hit with the populace!)
Speaking of Hell... Louisa gets a bum rap; she experienced her own 9 levels, for decades, while what's-his-face gained a kingdom. She lost everything and was held hostage for years. Malory's later-in-life decision to stop trying to find her just felt wrong. Why do you think he gave up? Justbtoo old and too tired to try again?
Ach, I should have written down my thoughts right after finishing the book, rather than starting a new one. But Why bother writing anything at all if I have so little (of worth) to say? So little of certitude, anyway.
I was first drawn to the book because the press had mentioned that the main character was an organist in Cambridge, and she a math whiz. Both subjects interest me, as did the spy angle (see reference to red-haired man).
It's just bizarre that the malevolent, mysterious red-haired man is never identified, nor are we given an explanation as to why Louiza (supposedly) married his loser-sidekick 'Vince'. I may be naive, so someone please explain: Did they rape her, too? Besides drugging her? To overcome all her defenses until she submitted to their demands? Ugh. (And shame on other reviewers for not deeming this worrisome or worthy of note.)
Meanwhile, Mal-pal has no problems whatsoever; Antonella (sp?) has been in love with him forever, since he first came to Cambridge, anyway. He subsists on biscuits and tea for his entire tenure at university it seems, which she always has at the ready. We catch up with her later in life—when Malory is in his 70s—where she tells him she married and has 3 kids. (Or was it 2? Not important.) Her hubs is dead, but she feels nothing more for Mal now than friendship. And she is a good friend, putting him up indefinitely at her home.
He considered Tibor a friend though, too, who could not be more different from Antonella and less worthy of being called Friend. (Why does he hate Malory so much, anyway? For inheriting a kingdom?)
Didn't he and Wifey kidnap Louisa and Malory's baby? Was i the only reader confused by his varied explanations for how they came to have a child? At the beginning, it's because she miscarried, and he found a baby out back in the dumpster. (yeah, right.) (Was that the correct location? I fear I've already forgotten too many details.) An infant that grows up to be gifted in math and is very pale and blonde—obviously a product of someone of Northern heritage, not swarthy like Tibor. somehow Malory misses that. But then I forget the number of years that pass before he next sees Tibor et al. yet they live in the same city, for decades. How could Malory not see their child as it grew up? If he did, surely he would have suspected that she was Louisa's missing child. Even if He didn't see the baby when it was born. Buying Tibor's story about a miscarriage is one thing, but did he never once link the disappearance of Louisa's babe with the coincidental appearance of theirs? Especially after learning that Louisa was immediately wrenched from her infant and hustled from the hospital by the so-called physician, the dastardly Red-Haired Man. Did Malory really never see the child until she was an adult? The whole thing is so far-fetched it's ridiculous—but then this _is_ a work of fiction, and a _very_ imaginative one at that. I guess the reader is just supposed to suspend his/her disbelief.
Definitely need to reread if I have a hope of understanding this book. Or does the author not want us to understand? I.e., is the work just a ramble that is not supposed to make sense? Not meant to have any deeper meaning? I was going to say that perhaps I'm not sophisticated enough a reader to know anything for certain (in this case, anyway), because one review (by a GR author) just blew me away with its erudite conclusions. But who knows whether he is right or wrong. Can any of us say we understand this completely?
This is my 3rd rewrite since GR zapped the second (expletive, expletive). In the 2nd I mentioned another review here, by Boris, who graciously included a link to another recent book, entitled The Messiah of Septimania—which is based on historical fact. There really was a Jewish kingdom of Septimania in southern France, in the 700s. I know, it's mind-boggling. Trés cool. Thank you, Boris!
The bizarro Romanian couple make Malory and Louiza seem like Ward and Joan (June?) Cleaver. I mean, really. Neither Louisa nor Malory suspected Tibor and _?_ had kidnapped their baby? For 2 otherwise intelligent adults, each must have experienced more than a few misfirings between synapses. Tibor is a sleaze, and knows it. He supposedly blew himself up because he was filled with such self-loathing, right?
(As an aside: his decision to direct a performance of Dante's 9 circles of Hell on Christmas Eve was mighty bizarre. And yet it was such a hit with the populace!)
Speaking of Hell... Louisa gets a bum rap; she experienced her own 9 levels, for decades, while what's-his-face gained a kingdom. She lost everything and was held hostage for years. Malory's later-in-life decision to stop trying to find her just felt wrong. Why do you think he gave up? Justbtoo old and too tired to try again?
Ach, I should have written down my thoughts right after finishing the book, rather than starting a new one. But Why bother writing anything at all if I have so little (of worth) to say? So little of certitude, anyway.
I was first drawn to the book because the press had mentioned that the main character was an organist in Cambridge, and she a math whiz. Both subjects interest me, as did the spy angle (see reference to red-haired man).
It's just bizarre that the malevolent, mysterious red-haired man is never identified, nor are we given an explanation as to why Louiza (supposedly) married his loser-sidekick 'Vince'. I may be naive, so someone please explain: Did they rape her, too? Besides drugging her? To overcome all her defenses until she submitted to their demands? Ugh. (And shame on other reviewers for not deeming this worrisome or worthy of note.)
Meanwhile, Mal-pal has no problems whatsoever; Antonella (sp?) has been in love with him forever, since he first came to Cambridge, anyway. He subsists on biscuits and tea for his entire tenure at university it seems, which she always has at the ready. We catch up with her later in life—when Malory is in his 70s—where she tells him she married and has 3 kids. (Or was it 2? Not important.) Her hubs is dead, but she feels nothing more for Mal now than friendship. And she is a good friend, putting him up indefinitely at her home.
He considered Tibor a friend though, too, who could not be more different from Antonella and less worthy of being called Friend. (Why does he hate Malory so much, anyway? For inheriting a kingdom?)
Didn't he and Wifey kidnap Louisa and Malory's baby? Was i the only reader confused by his varied explanations for how they came to have a child? At the beginning, it's because she miscarried, and he found a baby out back in the dumpster. (yeah, right.) (Was that the correct location? I fear I've already forgotten too many details.) An infant that grows up to be gifted in math and is very pale and blonde—obviously a product of someone of Northern heritage, not swarthy like Tibor. somehow Malory misses that. But then I forget the number of years that pass before he next sees Tibor et al. yet they live in the same city, for decades. How could Malory not see their child as it grew up? If he did, surely he would have suspected that she was Louisa's missing child. Even if He didn't see the baby when it was born. Buying Tibor's story about a miscarriage is one thing, but did he never once link the disappearance of Louisa's babe with the coincidental appearance of theirs? Especially after learning that Louisa was immediately wrenched from her infant and hustled from the hospital by the so-called physician, the dastardly Red-Haired Man. Did Malory really never see the child until she was an adult? The whole thing is so far-fetched it's ridiculous—but then this _is_ a work of fiction, and a _very_ imaginative one at that. I guess the reader is just supposed to suspend his/her disbelief.
Definitely need to reread if I have a hope of understanding this book. Or does the author not want us to understand? I.e., is the work just a ramble that is not supposed to make sense? Not meant to have any deeper meaning? I was going to say that perhaps I'm not sophisticated enough a reader to know anything for certain (in this case, anyway), because one review (by a GR author) just blew me away with its erudite conclusions. But who knows whether he is right or wrong. Can any of us say we understand this completely?
This is my 3rd rewrite since GR zapped the second (expletive, expletive). In the 2nd I mentioned another review here, by Boris, who graciously included a link to another recent book, entitled The Messiah of Septimania—which is based on historical fact. There really was a Jewish kingdom of Septimania in southern France, in the 700s. I know, it's mind-boggling. Trés cool. Thank you, Boris!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2021
Era un viernes, tipo 4:00 PM, yo miraba por la ventana del apartamento de una amiga y ella me tiró este libro y me dijo: “Ve, léete este libro y me lo explicás luego, porque yo no he podido con él”. Yo lo tomé, lo metí en mi bolso y medio lo hojeé en el metro: Newton, árboles, Septimania, Bach y un viaje de cosas más. Sabía que no iba a ser un libro fácil de leer, entonces me preparé mentalmente para leerlo, pero creo que me faltó preparación.
La verdad es que es un libro raro, muy raro; y si a usted le gustan los libros raros, este es su libro. Si no, le pasa lo mismo que a mí, que llegó un punto donde lo único que quería era que el libro terminara, que me mostraran el final, que, aunque ya lo veía venir, era mejor salir de las dudas y saberlo de primera mano.
La historia comienza en Cambridge en la década de los 70’s, Malory: un estudiante de doctorado que pasa su tiempo libre tocando el órgano en algunas iglesias que lo han contratado para tales fines y Louiza, una recién doctorada en matemáticas, son nuestros personajes principales y salen pronto en escena. Su primer encuentro propio del mejor idilio que uno se pueda imaginar tiene también una parte de música, matemáticas, física, de casualidad e ironía. En los ires y venires del tiempo, Malory no va a olvidar aquel día en que conoció a Louiza.
Una narración pausada que tiene ciertos dejes de dramaturgia en uno que otro lugar y que describe con mucho lujo de detalles los lugares en los que se encuentran los personajes, las pequeñas cosas que pasan a su alrededor y la gran mayoría de sus pensamientos y que combina de forma muy interesante dentro de la narración música con matemáticas y física.
La historia propone un viaje a lo largo de gran parte de la vida de los personajes con saltos en el tiempo que me tomaron por sorpresa la mayoría de las veces y que se complementa con un cambio de la tercera a la primera persona a la hora de pasar de un personaje a otro, algo que me resulta muy interesante y de lo cual no tengo recuerdo alguno de haber leído antes.
Queda en evidencia que el autor tiene un profundo conocimiento —por no decir que admiración— por Dante y La Comedia, pues llega a mencionarla y parafrasearla más que la obra de Newton, que se supone es parte importante de la historia. Las referencias que hace de esta me dejan un enfoque diferente y me abren los ojos sobre un par de cosas que no noté en su momento cuando leí la obra de Dante y que ahora dan curiosidad de volver a ella para encontrarme con lo descrito aquí.
La verdad, si se le quitaran todos los adornos que tiene la novela —son demasiados para mi gusto— esta podría ser una novela sobre un hombre en búsqueda de su lugar en el mundo: El contra su destino, contra la historia de su familia, contra el querer y no poder, contra la burocracia. Hay momentos en los que todo esto parece absorber al 100% al personaje y no lo deja ser más que un vehículo para otro mar de cosas que pasan a su alrededor.
A la historia es difícil cogerle el hilo y en muchas ocasiones cuando uno cree que por fin entiende para dónde va, resulta que por ahí no es y va para otro lado, que tampoco es… En este punto tampoco ayuda mucho el hecho de toda la carga histórica que presenta la novela, pues acá se habla de Carlomagno, de Newton, de Septimania, de Bernini y de historia actual; pero la mayoría de las veces tener tanta información en la cabeza me dificultó mucho seguir la narración o entender el porqué se introduce una mención en particular, es una inversión muy alta en concentración la que se tiene que hacer.
Esto hace que la historia se torne demasiado inverosímil, a tal punto que yo, como fantasista empedernido me llegara a cuestionar sobre uno que otro suceso del libro. Es que en serio es demasiado poco probable que todas las grandezas y desgracias le pasen a Malory, que esté tantas veces en el lugar justo o que se salve por un pelo, eso sin dejar de lado el par de Deus ex machina que hay aquí y allá y que sabe uno que van a llegar en cualquier momento para salvar el día.
Este es un libro que tiene más preguntas que respuestas, que tiene más callejos sin salida que vías principales. Es un libro que seguro alguien que disfrute de una historia que lo ponga a pensar y repensar en lo que va a pasar más adelante lo disfrutará; a mí, por el contrario me parece un completo despropósito adornar tanto una historia con tantas cosas que no van a ningún lado.
La verdad es que es un libro raro, muy raro; y si a usted le gustan los libros raros, este es su libro. Si no, le pasa lo mismo que a mí, que llegó un punto donde lo único que quería era que el libro terminara, que me mostraran el final, que, aunque ya lo veía venir, era mejor salir de las dudas y saberlo de primera mano.
La historia comienza en Cambridge en la década de los 70’s, Malory: un estudiante de doctorado que pasa su tiempo libre tocando el órgano en algunas iglesias que lo han contratado para tales fines y Louiza, una recién doctorada en matemáticas, son nuestros personajes principales y salen pronto en escena. Su primer encuentro propio del mejor idilio que uno se pueda imaginar tiene también una parte de música, matemáticas, física, de casualidad e ironía. En los ires y venires del tiempo, Malory no va a olvidar aquel día en que conoció a Louiza.
Una narración pausada que tiene ciertos dejes de dramaturgia en uno que otro lugar y que describe con mucho lujo de detalles los lugares en los que se encuentran los personajes, las pequeñas cosas que pasan a su alrededor y la gran mayoría de sus pensamientos y que combina de forma muy interesante dentro de la narración música con matemáticas y física.
La historia propone un viaje a lo largo de gran parte de la vida de los personajes con saltos en el tiempo que me tomaron por sorpresa la mayoría de las veces y que se complementa con un cambio de la tercera a la primera persona a la hora de pasar de un personaje a otro, algo que me resulta muy interesante y de lo cual no tengo recuerdo alguno de haber leído antes.
Queda en evidencia que el autor tiene un profundo conocimiento —por no decir que admiración— por Dante y La Comedia, pues llega a mencionarla y parafrasearla más que la obra de Newton, que se supone es parte importante de la historia. Las referencias que hace de esta me dejan un enfoque diferente y me abren los ojos sobre un par de cosas que no noté en su momento cuando leí la obra de Dante y que ahora dan curiosidad de volver a ella para encontrarme con lo descrito aquí.
La verdad, si se le quitaran todos los adornos que tiene la novela —son demasiados para mi gusto— esta podría ser una novela sobre un hombre en búsqueda de su lugar en el mundo: El contra su destino, contra la historia de su familia, contra el querer y no poder, contra la burocracia. Hay momentos en los que todo esto parece absorber al 100% al personaje y no lo deja ser más que un vehículo para otro mar de cosas que pasan a su alrededor.
A la historia es difícil cogerle el hilo y en muchas ocasiones cuando uno cree que por fin entiende para dónde va, resulta que por ahí no es y va para otro lado, que tampoco es… En este punto tampoco ayuda mucho el hecho de toda la carga histórica que presenta la novela, pues acá se habla de Carlomagno, de Newton, de Septimania, de Bernini y de historia actual; pero la mayoría de las veces tener tanta información en la cabeza me dificultó mucho seguir la narración o entender el porqué se introduce una mención en particular, es una inversión muy alta en concentración la que se tiene que hacer.
Esto hace que la historia se torne demasiado inverosímil, a tal punto que yo, como fantasista empedernido me llegara a cuestionar sobre uno que otro suceso del libro. Es que en serio es demasiado poco probable que todas las grandezas y desgracias le pasen a Malory, que esté tantas veces en el lugar justo o que se salve por un pelo, eso sin dejar de lado el par de Deus ex machina que hay aquí y allá y que sabe uno que van a llegar en cualquier momento para salvar el día.
Este es un libro que tiene más preguntas que respuestas, que tiene más callejos sin salida que vías principales. Es un libro que seguro alguien que disfrute de una historia que lo ponga a pensar y repensar en lo que va a pasar más adelante lo disfrutará; a mí, por el contrario me parece un completo despropósito adornar tanto una historia con tantas cosas que no van a ningún lado.
August 30, 2020
SEPTIMANIA by Jonathan Levi
New York: Overlook Press, 2016.
It's 1978; Pope John Paul has died after only 30 days in office; Aldo Moro, former Italian Prime Minister, is kidnapped and killed.
In this world, a beautiful, magical story of true love and destiny unfolds. Enter Malory, Isaac Newton expert and organ-tuner and Louiza, eccentric math whiz. They have one fateful encounter from which she (pregnant) leaves in pursuit of strange mathematical problems. Malory is enticed away to Italy and casts the deciding vote that seats John Paul II in the Papacy. While in Rome Malory becomes the Holy Roman Emperor and heir to Septimania. His encounter with a gravity defying Bernini-sculpted apple is only one of the Aladdinesque marvels in his new kingdom. All the while he only wants to reunite with Louiza.
Levi has concocted a multi-dimensional roller coaster ride that includes asides to contemplate Isaac Newton in 1666 and Haroun al Rashid in 789. The pieces of this superbly crafted tale fit together like an Escher print. This is the author's second novel in 24 years.
New York: Overlook Press, 2016.
It's 1978; Pope John Paul has died after only 30 days in office; Aldo Moro, former Italian Prime Minister, is kidnapped and killed.
In this world, a beautiful, magical story of true love and destiny unfolds. Enter Malory, Isaac Newton expert and organ-tuner and Louiza, eccentric math whiz. They have one fateful encounter from which she (pregnant) leaves in pursuit of strange mathematical problems. Malory is enticed away to Italy and casts the deciding vote that seats John Paul II in the Papacy. While in Rome Malory becomes the Holy Roman Emperor and heir to Septimania. His encounter with a gravity defying Bernini-sculpted apple is only one of the Aladdinesque marvels in his new kingdom. All the while he only wants to reunite with Louiza.
Levi has concocted a multi-dimensional roller coaster ride that includes asides to contemplate Isaac Newton in 1666 and Haroun al Rashid in 789. The pieces of this superbly crafted tale fit together like an Escher print. This is the author's second novel in 24 years.
February 15, 2021
It's rare for me to not finish a book, but this one made no sense to me. I mean, I could follow it, but there suspension of disbelief required became greater and greater until I simply gave up.
It was hard enough at the start when two strangers met and had sex in an organ loft within moments, but that they managed not to find one another for seven months and then both end up in Rome -- she about to give birth, and he being used as a human I Ching to pick the next pope -- it was all too ridiculous.
The side stories of the Kingdom of Septimania and of Issac Newton were kind of interesting (though the blatant steal of Fermat's little prank being transfered to Newton grated) but not enough to make me want to stick with it. Sorry.
It was hard enough at the start when two strangers met and had sex in an organ loft within moments, but that they managed not to find one another for seven months and then both end up in Rome -- she about to give birth, and he being used as a human I Ching to pick the next pope -- it was all too ridiculous.
The side stories of the Kingdom of Septimania and of Issac Newton were kind of interesting (though the blatant steal of Fermat's little prank being transfered to Newton grated) but not enough to make me want to stick with it. Sorry.
February 12, 2019
This is a beautiful book
The authors prose sing. The characters are complex. Almost as if there is a 4th dimension, and in this book the 4th dimension arises. All the way to the end of the book. Magic lies within these covers. A main character is a pip from an apple. It survives amazing adventures for over 50 years, changing ownership hands occasionally, but always staying true to itself. Isaac Newton would have been proud. If this all sound airy fairy mystical, it is. But it is also grounded in 17th century history to the present with the tragedy of 9/11 woven into the plot. I highly recommend this book.
The authors prose sing. The characters are complex. Almost as if there is a 4th dimension, and in this book the 4th dimension arises. All the way to the end of the book. Magic lies within these covers. A main character is a pip from an apple. It survives amazing adventures for over 50 years, changing ownership hands occasionally, but always staying true to itself. Isaac Newton would have been proud. If this all sound airy fairy mystical, it is. But it is also grounded in 17th century history to the present with the tragedy of 9/11 woven into the plot. I highly recommend this book.
June 28, 2022
There exists, among our writers, many who believe in the 'madness of the multiverse'; who write with the object of instilling bewilderment in their readers while parading under the guise of literature.
Such we have here. Readers who enjoy being adrift inside a story without rhyme or reason, with non-sense at every page-turning, will flourish here. For me, my first problem was the title, oft-repeated in the text: Septimania. While a real place, sort of (look it up if you must know), it is too close to 'septicemia', a word I am all too familiar with and kept seeing instead of the title word. Perhaps other things in the book also slipped by me in disguise: I doubt it, but...
Such we have here. Readers who enjoy being adrift inside a story without rhyme or reason, with non-sense at every page-turning, will flourish here. For me, my first problem was the title, oft-repeated in the text: Septimania. While a real place, sort of (look it up if you must know), it is too close to 'septicemia', a word I am all too familiar with and kept seeing instead of the title word. Perhaps other things in the book also slipped by me in disguise: I doubt it, but...
August 26, 2020
Purchase Septimania here for just $8!
Surreal and suspenseful, Levi takes you on the wide ride of Malory, the new heir to the Kingdom of Septimania, searching for his love across the world, over many decades. You'll encounter characters as varied as Pope John Paul II to an elephant that changes colour; you'll never the next twist coming!
Anastasia - The Book Grocer
Surreal and suspenseful, Levi takes you on the wide ride of Malory, the new heir to the Kingdom of Septimania, searching for his love across the world, over many decades. You'll encounter characters as varied as Pope John Paul II to an elephant that changes colour; you'll never the next twist coming!
Anastasia - The Book Grocer
July 12, 2017
I did not enjoy this book at all. It may be that it was all just over my head, but I also found it boring, disjointed and irrational. The one redeeming thing I took from this novel is that there actually was a King/Kingdom of Septimania - he ruled for approx 140 years, and it is a lost fact of history! Please see Boris Feldman's review (April 12, 2016) for a link to a review of his book for details about the true story!
Want to read
January 17, 2019NoveList Plus gives it these read alikes: The Flanders Panel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and The Goldfinch.
February 21, 2020
Septimania is a lyrical novel of depth, mystery, and beauty. It is awesome in scope, incorporating myths and realities each epic in their own right and yet interwoven gently into a whole. The text evolves slowly and offers significant surprises along the way. I feel I will be returning to this book to get even more from it, though the message was delivered stunningly in the end the first time around. Bravo, Jonathan Levi.
March 2, 2021
I got this book in a mystery bundle of sci-fi/fantasy books. And this is a book heavily in the Science category, specifically Isaac Newton’s physics and is written quite well but has a slow pace (besides when it jumps ahead a few decades?)
If you’re a fan of fictional Isaac Newton, organ tuners, Rumania and/or a secret society based on a mixture of religions, this may pique your interest. It just wasn’t quite my taste 😊
If you’re a fan of fictional Isaac Newton, organ tuners, Rumania and/or a secret society based on a mixture of religions, this may pique your interest. It just wasn’t quite my taste 😊
March 28, 2018
I found this book difficult to get my head around. Well imagined and well written, it was probably too cerebral for me at this time of life. I did like the characters and loved the descriptions of Cambridge and Rome, both places I have visited.
May 4, 2017
See my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...
October 6, 2017
DNF, opgegeven rond blz 210. Ergens tussen Dan Brown en Umberto Eco in. Ambitieuz, maar volstrekt ongeloofwaardig.
February 21, 2018
This was great for a cruise to Iceland, where the sun is out 24/7 and you lose all sense of time. In retrospect, kind-of silly!
August 2, 2018
Taai...
September 1, 2018
Prachtig boek dat je vanaf pagina 1 aangrijpt en ik niet kon neerleggen tot het eind.
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