An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

We are in Oxford in the 1660s - a time, and place, of great intellectual, scientific, religious and political ferment. Robert Grove, a fellow of New College is found dead in suspicious circumstances. A young woman is accused of his murder. We hear about the events surrounding his death from four witnesses: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion; Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer to both Cromwell and Charles II, a mathematician, theologican and inveterate plotter; and Anthony Wood, the famous Oxford antiquary. Each witness tells their version of what happened. Only one reveals the extraordinary truth.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is a magnificent tour de force: an utterly compelling historical mystery story with a plot that twists and turns and keeps the reader guessing until the very last page.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Historical, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Dark Academia

Library Binding

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Iain Pears is an English art historian, novelist and journalist. He was educated at Warwick School, Warwick, Wadham College and Wolfson College, Oxford. Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 (UK) and ZDF (Germany) and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK and US. In 1987 he became a Getty Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Yale University. His well-known novel series features Jonathan Argyll, art historian, though international fame first arrived with his best selling book An Instance of the Fingerpost (1998), which was translated into several languages. Pears currently lives with his wife and children in Oxford.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

”When in a Search of any Nature the Understanding stands suspended, then Instances of the Fingerpost shew the true and inviolable Way in which the Question is to be decided. These Instances afford great Light, so that the Course of the Investigation will sometimes be terminated by them. Sometimes, indeed, these Instances are found amongst that Evidence already set down.” --Francis Bacon, Novum Organum Scientarum, Section XXXVI, Aphorism XXI


Oliver Cromwell, not really relevant to this book except for the destabilized government he left after his death.

It is the 1660s and England is still in turmoil after the death of Oliver Cromwell. He unnaturally died of natural causes though he was later dug up, hung in chains, and ceremoniously beheaded. Torturing a corpse seems like an odd thing to do. It is as if they believed they could torment the departed soul with what they do with the empty shell. Regardless, Cromwell’s death left a power vacuum that was proving difficult to fill. It is easy to confuse Oliver Cromwell with Thomas Cromwell as both did rise to great heights of power. Oliver is a descendant of Thomas’s older sister. Thomas worked for Henry the VIII and did lose his head not unusual for anyone who worked closely with the colossally paranoid King.

Charles II has been allowed to return to the throne taken from his father (Charles I was beheaded, while alive, not another bit of corpse desecration) in 1649. Charles Junior was technically back in charge, but his powers had been severely curtailed. He wasn’t that worried about the extent of his power as he was more concerned about fornicating, gambling, and having the best possible time that English peasant taxes could buy.


Given what happened to his father and the life he had on the run, fearing assassination, maybe it makes sense that Charles II devoted his life to the pursuit of pleasure.

But that is all on the periphery of our story, merely serving as a backdrop for a good old fashioned English murder mystery. The book is split into four parts each section told by a different narrator each with their own unique view of events. Don’t worry these are not rehashing of the same information over and over again. New, critical information is released with each changing perspective.

The victim is Dr. Robert Grove, an amateur astrologer of New College, Oxford. Like many men, then and now, he liked a glass of alcoholic liquor at the end of the day to calm his frazzled nerves and hopefully give him a gentle push off into the land of Morpheus. Unfortunately with the brandy was a tincture of arsenic that seized his heart and left him a cooling, yet still flatulent, corpse with a host of suspects.

Our first narrator is Marco da Cola, a rather flamboyantly dressed young man from Venice who is in London on business for his father. He is having pecuniary difficulties and needs sources of ready cash. He turns his hand to being a physician, untrained, but it seems that in this time period men with a degree in most anything would occasionally turn their hand to doctoring. The descriptions of the superstitions that were still dictating prescribed treatment by a physician of this time period made it very clear that one had to be very desperate to seek care at all. Da Cola meets Sarah Blundy when he offers to help heal her mother’s broken leg. He needs a client even if it is unlikely that Sarah can pay his fee with hard coin. There is something, though, not quite right about Marco da Cola.

”He was playing a game with us all, and was confident of his success, and he was now underestimating his audience as I had underestimated him. He did not realize that I saw, that instant, into his soul and perceived the devilish intent that lay hidden there, coiled and waiting to unleashed when all around had been lulled into thinking him a fool.” John Wallis


John Wallis, a very serious man who has trained himself to discover conspiracies.

What is it with da Cola being do damned friendly as well! Wallis, Professor of Geometry at Oxford and the greatest English mathematician before Newton was also a cryptographer for parliament. Because he was so immersed in the intrigues of court he caught some of the paranoia that was part and parcel of a king and his handlers that felt anything but in control. He sees grand conspiracies where maybe the odd behavior of some people has to do with something altogether different than plotting the downfall of the government. He is our third narrator. I’m taking him out of order simply because he had such a juicy assessment of da Cola. He is a Christian man and invests his money accordingly.

”I had placed to advantage some small part of my surplus funds in the East Indies, and also with a gentleman who captured Africans for the Americas. This latter was by far the finest investment I ever made, the more so because (the captain of the vessel assured me) the slaves were instructed vigorously in the virtues of Christianity on their voyage across the ocean and thus had their souls saved at the same time as they produced valuable labor for others.”

Well he was against slavery, but if the crusty bastard who captains the vessel is willing to hold prayer meetings with them all across the ocean than he was in. It is so nice to turn a healthy profit and save souls at the same time. We are supposed to believe this investment is about souls and not about gold.

Wallis is an expert in cyphers, certainly one of the best minds for puzzles living in this time period. In fact, he periodically receives offers to work for other governments, but he is as fervently patriotic for England as he is about saving the souls of black slaves. For instance, he knows more about the downfall of Jack Prestcott’s father than what he is willing to share. Because of the intersection of characters Prestcott’s obsession with discovering the truth about his father gets wrapped up in the investigations of Grove’s murderer.

”Tully says true, a dux quidem immortalibusquae potest homini major esse poena furore atque dementia, what greater punishment can the gods inflict upon a man that madness?

Jack is the second narrator. He is convinced that Sarah Blundy is a witch. After he raped her, he did have to rough her up as the silly bitch wouldn’t just lay there and take it like the wanton slut he assumed her to be, he was convinced she put a curse on him.

”You may have been born a gentleman; that is your misfortune. But your actions are those of one far lower than any man I have ever known. You violated me, although I gave you no cause to do so. You then spread foul and malicious rumors about me, so I am dismissed from my place, and jeered at in the streets, and called whore. You have taken my good name, and all you offer in return is your apology, said with no meaning and less sincerity. If you felt it in your soul, I could accept easily, but you do not.”

“How do you know?”

“I see your soul,” She said, her voice suddenly dropping to a whisper which chilled my blood. “I know what it is and what is its shape. I can feel it hiss in the night and taste its coldness in the day. I hear it burning, and I touch its hate.”

As much as I wish that Sarah had been capable of putting a curse on Jack it simply wasn’t the case. His own mind put a curse on him. He was sure she was his enemy, why wouldn’t he? He certainly gave her just cause. He turns out to be much more than a rapist, but also a liar and a manufacturer of evidence.

Sarah, because she had worked for Dr. Grove, and was known as a willful woman, meaning she was likely to defend herself verbally if assaulted verbally, is the most convenient number one suspect in the poisoning of the Dr. Grove.

The fourth narrator is Anthony Wood, an antiquary and historian, best known for his diaries that were published long after his death. He gets Sarah a job with his parents and also recommended her for the job at Grove’s. He carries a torch for Sarah. Despite the risks, he has a night of passion with her that goes beyond lust and reaches the first hills and dales of love.

”I sinned against the law, against God’s word reported, I abused my family and exposed them even more to risk of public shame, I again risked permanent exclusion from those rooms and books which were my delight and my whole occupation; yet in all the years that have passed since I have regretted only one thing: that it was but a passing moment, never repeated, for I have never been closer to God, nor felt his love and goodness more.”


An engraving of Anthony Wood.

You will like Anthony Wood. He is probably the only man in this novel lacking in guile. A man who gives loyalty and understands the true responsibility of the word, not just when it is convenient, but from the first breath as he gives it to the last breath as he expires.


Iain Pears

Iain Pears has built this four layered cake of a novel, each layer is sprinkled with truth, but lies and half truths are hidden in the batter and the frosting. The reader is forced to pay attention to each bite, each paragraph, each lick, each word as the twists and turns of this plot are patiently revealed. Most of what the narrators reveal to us they believe to be true, but they are all guilty of their own suppositions colored by their own prejudices. The reader feels like an investigator, barraged with different views, conflicting stories, and it is only in the final moments of the book that most of us will discover that we were wrong. Highly Recommended!

”I have been spared riches and fame and power and position, just as His goodness has saved me from poverty and great illness.” Anthony Wood

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still one of the best books I've ever read, this has something for everyone. It's a mystery, it's history, it's science, it's drama, it's amazing. It's really long too, but that just makes it better- by the time you finish it you'll be sorry it wasn't longer.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a murder and there is a dispossessed heir. Frankly, I couldn’t give a stuff if some shouldabeen rich young sprog got hornswoggled in the 17th century, I mean, the goodly realm of Great Britain had just been through 20 years of civil war and there was an awful lot of horns swoggled, of that you can be sure. I’d say more horns were swoggled than not swoggled. Vast estates yanked from under the noses of their rightful heirs and all of that. Who cares.

Alas, the whole plot of this very long novel (almost as long as the 17th century itself) is can this unpleasant young man get his inheritance back and who murdered this unpleasant middle aged guy in Oxford who was mixed up in it somewhere and this young woman is accused of the crime but she prolly didn’t do it and she’s a witch no she’s not yes she is she looked at me funny once.

So this book was really trying my patience with its procession of rancid Oxford dons and sniffy cryptographers and the standard government-issue unreliable narrators all calling each other bad names.

The first of the four long narratives we have here is actually pretty good stuff, a perky Italian geezer getting involved with blood transfusions and the said murder in 1662 when King Charles has just been restored to the throne and the air was thick with a great many cloaks and accompanying daggers. The second of the four long narratives is just about bearable but the boredom begins to set in like a fine drenching cold rain. How were we supposed to care about this young poltroon’s fortunes when he’s already told us that he reached a fat and sassy late middle age because God grinned down upon him from the highest heaven and gave him the Celestial Wink? It kinda robs the whole thing of any suspense.

Then long narrative three finally kills off all remaining will-to-finish because we now have a second unpleasant old fart to listen to for hundreds of pages. And I checked and saw that the fourth long narrative is a third farty old fart, who no doubt will probably contradict the other three and reveal their narratives to be (shocketty shock) a tissue of deliberate fabrication and self-deception.

Oh also, people did not write stuff like this in the 17th century, not even slightly. This is a wildly unrealistic smoothed down scrubbed and washed version of something no 17th century person would ever have written.

So to sum up, no.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A "novel" novel (please pardon the attempted humor), where unreliable narrators outnumber purported reliability by a long shot. Once again my happiness at not living in the 17th century is validated as I read of the physical squalor, the political and religious unrest and distrust in England after the restoration of Charles II, the relative worthlessness of the average person's life. Amidst that there is the glimmer of new knowledge and education at Oxford the seat of "Instance".

Along with the new areas of philosophy, which includes the budding knowledge of medicine, alchemy and belief in witchcraft still exist. It's a veritable stew of contrary beliefs and mistrust. Add to that a death that may or may not have been suspicious, apparent witnesses who may or may not have seen anything, and multiple reporters on the event who give us their views on what happened.

An historical fiction lovers delight. Someday I will likely read this again to try to trace how Pears did this slight of hand.


One quote from the book I'll add as a socio-political aside, acknowledging this is a book written in modern times to reflect 17th century attitudes.


"We put up in an inn, where we rested ourselves
until the execution the next morning. ...the girl...
made a wretched speech and quite lost the sympathy
of the crowd. It had been a complicated case and
the town was by no means convinced of her guilt.
She had killed a man whom she said had raped her,
but the jury judged this a lie because she had
fallen pregnant, which cannot occur without the
woman taking pleasure in the act. Normally her
condition would have spared her the gallows, but
she had lost the child and also any defense against
the hangman. An unfortunate outcome, which those
who believed in her guilt considered divine Providence."


Seems to me I recall a 21st century politician espousing this same belief about rape, sadly. (Just couldn't leave this out)

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the few books that I felt compelled to start immediately again, from page one, after reaching the end -- even though it has close to 700 pages.

The story of this thriller is retold, in succession, by four different people. One of them lies and not until the very end does the reader know who is falsifying the story. And that is why I wanted to read it again: to pay attention to the structure and to how the story is woven by different points of view, and see where the liar has fabricated or left holes.

I am writing this review years after having read the book. A lot of the particulars are therefore no longer easily retrievable from my brain.

I also loved the language. I hope to read it at least a third time.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

What sticks in my mind about this book is being consumed with fury for 1/4th of it--and then having the following conclusion be the greatest revenge. A really excellent novel with some very unreliable narrators and detailed characterization. I was amazed at how everything fit together by the end.

[Maciek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iain Pears is a Coventry-born and Oxford-educated art historian and author of historical mysteries, and An Instance of the Fingerpost is his most famous novel. Good historians are not necessarily good authors and good authors are not necessarily good historians, but in Fingerpost Pears manages to strike a comfortable balance between both professions.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is a long but involving book, which pays great attention to its historical setting and theme, but at the same time manages to weave in a compelling, involving mystery, full of smoking guns and false trails, and one which will not reveal itself to the reader until the very end to the book.

The book is set in Oxford in 1633, after the end of the English Civil War, just after the monarchy of King Charles II has been restored. Although the war is over, Oliver Cromwell is dead, and the monarch is officially in power, the early Restoration years were a tumultuous period - England was still very much divided politically between Royalist supporters and opposing Parliamentarians. Even places such as Oxford - the intellectual center of the country, and the place of great intellectual debates - are not safe for political dissent, and just a few overheard words can grant one a great deal of trouble. And despite great scientific advancement and discoveries of the age, religion is present in all entitlements of society - from one's personal beliefs and superstitions to academic work and scientific research, contrasing the newly developed scientific method with ancient, medieval beliefs. The events of the novel are set in motion by the death of Robert Grove, an fellow of the New College. Although the exact circumstances of his death are unclear, all signs point to poison; soon a young woman named Sarah Blundy is accused of his murder.

The novel is narrated by four different narrators, each of which tells his version of the story: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic physician who has just arrived in England; Jack Prescott, son of a Royalist traitor who is bound on clearing his father's name; John Wallis, a genius mathematician and cryptographer who served both Cromwell and Charles II, who has a fondness for conspiracies; and lastly Anthony Wood, an Oxford antiquarian. Each of these characters maneuvers through the web of Oxford rivalries and plots, and has his own version of the story to tell.

Although the book's mystery begins as a classic whodunnit surrounding the death of an Oxford Don, it soon becomes apparent that the real mystery surrounds the nature of discovery, investigation, understanding and ultimately truth itself. The title is a quotation borrowed from the 17th century philosopher Francis Bacon, who in his Novum Organum wrote about the nature of reasoning and the fallibility of evidence, but accounted for instances of the fingerpost - crucial instances which pointed in only one direction, sure and indissoluble, allowing for no other possibility. Such is the case with the book - although I felt a little disappointed by the ending: I felt that the introduction of a supernatural theme was unnecessary - it looked like Pears wrote himself into a corner, and had to resort to the supernatural to solve the plot and tie all its ends. Although to his credit we have to take into account that even the supernatural event is narrated by one of the characters, who has his own bias and perhaps is telling us what he wished had happened instead of what has actually taken place.

But do not let my complaint stop you from trying the book - Pears has a keen eye and a sharp pen, and has written a novel where the setting is also a character, and Oxford University - the sheltered intellectual vacuum - is a miniature of 17th century England, which truly comes to life with all the ways of the time, along with its sights and smells. The writing is excellent, the storyline very compelling and Pears switches effortlessly between the cast of intriguing characters, real and fictional - I particularly enjoyed Marco de Cola's perspective on England and English ways - and the mystery unravels new twists and contradictions with every page. This is an ideal novel to get lost in during these colder, winter days - if you don't think that a long, historical mystery of England in the 17th century cannot be absorbing, I'd recommend trying An Instance of the Fingerpost.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my second Pears after The Portrait and I have to conclude I'm not a match with his books. This, again, is impressive in lots of ways but I found it laborious to read and the pay-off simply wasn't worth it after 700 pages.

More positively, there has clearly been a huge amount of work done on dove-tailing the complicated plot involving four narrators with various degrees of unreliability. Also, it feels like a lot of research has gone into this: on early Enlightenment science (natural philosophy), nascent medical discoveries - both of which jostle alongside superstition and 'old' knowledge such as astrology -, on the politics of the post Civil War/Restoration period and the evening of scores as well as religious ferment. Famous names abound: John Locke, Antony Wood, Robert Boyle, and there are some nice, if rather caricature-like portrait of Oxford scholars.

But, for me, there are endless scenes and developments that are actually dead-ends. We start off thinking we're in one kind of book then the narrative quick-switches and we're in another. Which could have worked in a clever-clever way, but somehow didn't for me. Maybe if this had been half the length it might have been tighter and just more exciting and engaging? I just got lost amidst all the minutiae.

[Bubu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit Jan 2018: Added the right version of the audio book

One murder.

One young woman, Sarah Blundy, suspected to be the murderer and already found guilty by almost everyone before her trial starts.

Four men of different backgrounds who recount the events that led to the murder and beyond.

One of them is lying.

Up until now, I’ve always considered The Name of the Rose as the best historical fiction I ever read. I’m omitting the word ‘mystery’ on purpose here, as - though definitely a murder/mystery - it only serves as a kick-start, the first layer of a multi-layered story that immersed me as much on the third or fourth re-read as it had done the very first time. As long as one is willing to grind through the first 150 pages, of course.

Dare I say it?

The Name of the Rose will now have to share that position with An Instance of the Fingerpost . This book is a master piece of storytelling. I was glued to it from the first – or rather, I had my earphones glued to my ears, as I listened to the audio version.

The reader is taken back to the time shortly after the collapse of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the restoration of Charles II. Both figures play only a peripheral role in the plot. The more important element here is what Cromwell’s ‘reign’ and the Restoration meant to the four men and all the other characters involved; how they were shaped by these events and what position they’d find themselves in.

It is also the time where science takes its first big leaps. We’re only two and a half decades away from Newton’s Laws. But science is still considered as an instrument to prove God’s wonders on earth. The scientists are deeply religious and superstitious. Unicorns do exist, after all. I’m not joking here, by the way, and it’s very important to the story that these men are deeply religious.

Because what are witness accounts if not subjective interpretations of the truth?

Marco da Cola, the Venetian son of a merchant, on business in London who ends up in Oxford, is the first to tell his version of the people he meets, the murder he doesn’t witness (none of them actually sees how the victim is murdered), Sarah Blundy’s trial and death and the aftermath. But worry not. All four men don’t simply repeat what happens. They give an insight into their own lives, their motivations and priorities. And along the way, we have some parts overlapping. But it’s the interpretations of the events which made the book such a wonderful experience. Each account is distinctive and extremely interesting.

None of them is reliable in their recounting of the events. These men aren’t Adson von Melk or Matthew Shardlake.

Well, maybe one man is more reliable than the other, and maybe I already knew after Marco da Cola’s version that there was more to everything he had said. But not because I thought he had been lying. It was more a feeling that there was more behind it all. Maybe I guessed, at the very least, one part correctly. But that didn’t diminish my enjoyment one bit. On the contrary, it was ingenious. This is what superb storytelling is about. Taking one part, which - seemingly - is at the heart of the story, but going ahead and showing the complexity of human nature, which ultimately always ends in one question: What drives us?

The author definitely achieved that. And more. Knowing I couldn’t rely on their versions, I had to listen carefully to the clues. And quite honestly, I’ll be the first to admit that I missed a lot of them, and I won’t blame the fact that I was listening to the audio version whilst being busy with something else instead of reading, which obviously always requires my whole attention. But I’m not sure I would have seen the clues even if I had read it first. Question is, of course, did the author leave any clues? Maybe, maybe not. I am reading the Kindle version at the moment. But I will never know now as I know the whole story already.

But whether I missed the clues, or the author simply didn’t leave any clues, doesn’t matter. An Instance of the Fingerpost is simply mesmerising; fascinating in its ability to show what life was like shortly after Charles II. was restored; how science was a subordinate part of religious beliefs; how political ambitions could elevate or destroy a person’s life.

I was actually about to say something about the ending but I won’t. I would have considered it a spoiler, however vague it would have been. But I kept in mind who these men were, so I was more than satisfied with it.

Two things I’d like to add.

One is a trigger warning, which I rarely ever do. There’s a rape scene. It’s not descriptive and over very quickly. That being said, it was from the rapist’s point of view, and that was difficult to stomach.

Secondly, the audio version listed here, isn’t the one I listened to. I’m not a GR librarian and had to add the audio version to the various editions. However, I was unable to add the unabridged version I listened to. Somebody else added the abridged version. The one I listened to, has four narrators and the narration itself was incredible, and a cool 29 hours long! I'm not mentioning this only because it's filed under the abridged version. The narrators give each of the other characters their own voices; the way the four men perceived the people they are talking about. While Da Cola lets Sarah Blundy's mother talk almost like an angel, Jack Prescott, the second person to tell his version, makes the mother sound like a witch. Perfectly done!

Last but not least, a big thanks to Georgie and her review. I’m not sure I would have gone for it, had it not been for her review.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely engaging historical novel set in 1660s Oxford, with a side trip to London. Told from four viewpoints of varying reliability, this murder mystery gets gradually revealed as the story unfolds. The murder itself is consequential only in that it serves as a device to tie the main characters together.

Mystery fans may wish to know if the novel sets out clues leading to whodunnit - but I can't help here as I did not try to solve it.

This novel wears very well upon re-reading - and may be a desert-island book for me (at least top-100) because it so richly sets up 17th Century England: the overthrow and reinstallation of The Monarchy, the conflict between "radical" protestants and the Church of England, the tension between forward-looking nascent science (then called Natural Philosophy) and backward-looking classical medicine.

We closely observe a "witch" (and her craft), a physician who badly wishes to complete the first modern book on anatomy, the second-greatest mathemetician in England (behind Newton), and get glimpses of other luiminaries such as Robert Boyle of the famous gas law and Thurloe of political intrigue forgotten by all but scholars of the time.

Readers will get a feel for the practice of medicine, justice, science, alchemy, and the difficulty of life for those not fortunate to be well born.

Highest Recommendation - say six to seven stars.

UPDATE

The (4) narrators in order of narration:

1) Marco DiCola from Italy (Venice?). He has been sent by is father because his English partner is cheating him. He holds a letter of introduction to an Oxford Luminary, thus his reason to frequent Oxford inns and pubs. He runs around with the anatomist - Richard Lower - a historical figure. He comments extensively on English culture (including a Shakepeare play), food (it's bad), and manners (barbaric). He has training in medicine and treats the "witches" elderly mother. He also goes on rounds with Lower - travelling from town to town. He witnesses several trials including one which swirls around the central mystery - all the jurors are property owners (no women of course).

2) Jack Prestcott, whose father was disgraced as a Loyalist when Cromwell won - and who wishes to restore his estate and father's good name.

3) Wallis - the cryptographer - who has had dealings with Thurloe (as does young Prestcott). His paranoia causes him to see conspiracies - much as Prestcott does.

4) Anthony Wood - a historian who witnesses that which he ought not - and who is besotted (if not "bewitched") with the "witch" who cleans for Wood's mother.

The "witch" is Sarah Blundy whose father was a Cromwell intriguer and who has fallen on hard times since his death.

*********************************

ADDENDUM - 2017NOV

6-star, desert-island books are sufficiently worthy enough to get repeated notice - to that end, I offer links below to professional reviews that offer a little more landscape and historical context.

But first a few teasers in the grand Hollywood tradition:

(Fingerpost is) utterly mesmerizing, (an) intellectual thriller

Oliver Cromwell is dead; the Levellers, Diggers and other such factions -- with their wild dreams of an egalitarian society -- have been destroyed or dispersed; peace, finally, has returned to a ravaged land . . . or has it?

with perfect mastery Pears gradually takes us from an unexplained death in a small college town to a revelation that could shake the foundations of England and the world.

Dr. Robert Grove (is found dead) suddenly poisoned in his chambers. Who did it? And, more important, why?

And some more sober nuggets:

One of the pleasures of reading (Fingerpost) is the opportunity it affords to become a kind of amateur expert on daily life in Restoration England.

intelligent and well written ... for the reader who likes to be teased, who likes his plots as baroque and ingenious as possible, (Fingerpost) will not disappoint.



http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/22...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

http://www.avclub.com/review/iain-pea...

http://bookpage.com/reviews/970-iain-...

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1...


I would like to note that none of these reviewers expect to "like" the 17th century characters that play in the novel. Judged by 2017 sensibilities, few (perhaps none) of them would be thought suitable as "polite company", so ridden are they with bias, superstition, and (ladies note) misogyny. There is plenty of characterization to be had in Fingerpost - just don't expect "good character".

For instance, the jurors mentioned above, would all be disqualified by the judge in an American 2017 rape trial. He need only ask whether they believe that pregnancy can result from rape.

(check superstition box)

The 3rd narrator reveals that he has invested well - in the New World slave trade.

(check bias box, with a racist pen)

Not only was this remunerative, but the Africans, so enslaved, were "saved" by the ship's Captain who had revealed God's grace to them.

(Thanks to the Washington Post's Michael Dirda and fellow GoodReader, Jeffery Keeten, who resurrected this nugget)

I thank author Pears for enhancing my poor education. He recounts and alludes to the English Civil War and the uprising of religious sects (counter to the Chuch of England) which undoubtedly informed American Founders with their own nation-building in the next Century.

I leave you with one last quote (thanks again to Michael Dirda):

Iain Pears has written an impressively original and audaciously imaginative intellectual thriller. Don't miss it.

[Велислав Върбанов · Rating 4 out of 5]

Много добър исторически роман! Иън Пиърс е създал сложна криминална история, чрез която ни пренася в любопитната атмосферата на Англия от 17-ти век, по време на управлението на Чарлс II. Централно място в сюжета заема загадката около убийство в Оксфорд, която е разказана от 4 различни гледни точки, но същевременно се усеща духът на епохата, както и има философски размисли. Отделните персонажи, представящи своята версия за събитията, са все интересни личности, като на моменти си противоречат един на друг, което прави „Пръстът, който те сочи“ доста вълнуващо четиво. Книгата не успя да ме заплени чак колкото страхотната „Аркадия“ на Пиърс, но определено ми направи добро впечатление!





„Той притежаваше такъв талант да превръща оскърблението в похвала, че напълно ме обезоръжи. Ние, венецианците, се славим с изисканост както по отношение на учтивостта, така и на оскърбленията си, но границите са определени съвсем точно и дори най-завоалираните думи не могат да бъдат изтълкувани превратно. Лоуър и въобще англичаните като цяло притежават почти варварска непредсказуемост; гениалността им не подлежи на обуздаване, също както и маниерите им и те могат да бъдат едновременно смятани за велики и нищожни.“

[emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

well, I guess it's sort of read.

I mean, I read as damn much as I could. which was roughly 1/3. it was going nowhere, and honestly, I didn't find it compelling enough to move much further. there's a sort of mystery I couldn't really get into, and there's regular (and, at the end of the book, carefully cited) appearances by british scientists and philosophers of the period, but there was nothing that actually made me want to pay attention. I didn't care about the characters or their progress.

[Jared · Rating 1 out of 5]

Uses multiple narrators to tell the story, each one revealing a bit more of the truth, which is intriguing. The only problem is the book is tedious and the payoff is not worth the ride.

[Antigone · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year was 1663. An English king had freshly mounted the throne; civil war hardly a memory behind him. Political intrigue and religious strife swept across the land, sending a rogue but heady breeze through the university town of Oxford. Four men are called upon to recollect the events of those days - a gentleman of Venice, a student, a cryptographer and an archivist. Each account builds upon the one that went before, challenging the truth and ever-complicating the circumstances surrounding the death of a low-born woman with a treasonous past.

This is a thick book designed for a comfortable chair and about a week's worth of inclement weather. Should you find yourself graced with such a turn of luck, here is a story to fit the fortune...filled with intellectual attractions and not a single literary regret.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

For ages, everyone told me that ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’ is Iain Pears’ best novel. Partly because of this I sort of ‘saved it up’ and held off on reading it for a while. (The other factor in this decision was that this book, even in paperback, weighs about 10 pounds. It’s enough to make me want a Kindle!) But, because of this expectation-of-awesomeness (and maybe a tiny smidgin because of sore wrists?) I was a little bit disappointed. This is definitely Iain Pears’ most ambitious novel – but I didn’t like it the best.

I also wish I’d known in advance that the whole concept of the novel is that you’re going to hear the whole story, repeatedly, from different perspectives. It’s always disappointing when you think (due to the number of pages on the right) that there are many more events to come – and there aren’t. Certainly, seeing the events through a different perspective, there are further revelations… but the ‘that’s it?’ realization was a bit of a let-down.

‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’ is a 17th-century British mystery-drama. I’d never heard the term ‘fingerpost,’ but it’s the British term (perhaps quite obviously) for one of those signposts that look like a hand pointing the way to a location. Here, each narrator’s tale seems to point in a somewhat different direction. (And all the narrators are probably-historically-authentic but quite-utterly-despicable people. Get ready to feel icky about spending time in their self-justifying, nasty company.) The first is Marco de Cola, an Italian dandy ostensibly in London to look after his father’s financial interests, but seemingly more interested in pursuing medical experimentation and intellectual pursuits. Second, Jack Prestcott; obsessed with rehabilitating his father’s reputation and overcoming his reputation as the son of a traitor to the realm. Third, John Wallis – a mathematician and cryptographer, and also a religious fanatic. Fourth – Anthony Wood – a socially pathetic man with somewhat-hidden intellectual abilities and an historian. None of them are reliable. Some may be intentionally deceitful. Some may be insane.

The events center around the tale of Sarah Blundy; a poverty-stricken young woman accused of murder; but encompass a host of political machinations and conspiracies, going up to the highest level. Keeping track of all the characters (most of whom are historical figures), their motivations, and the elements that agree and conflict in each of their stories is intellectually stimulating. However, I wasn’t as emotionally drawn in to many of the events as I would’ve liked to be.

However, I’d challenge any reader to fail to feel for Sarah Blundy, caught as she is in a trap not of her own making. More than most books, this vividly brings to light the unenviable situation of simply being a woman without means in this time and place.

This was a very good novel – but as I said, my (very) high expectations led me to feel a little let down by it. I’d still recommend it to anyone who likes complex mysteries and a 17th-century historical setting.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story told in four sections, each told in the first person by a different character, and set in England during the Reformation, this is a gripping tale and intriguing mystery. What you think the story is about after reading the first section mutates and evolves to a quite surprising ending. If you like mystery, beautiful prose, and fascinating characters, pick this up. You won't easily be able to put it down.

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical fiction tends to gather around the Tudors and Victorians but often skirts the Stuarts. They had an awful lot of messy Civil Wars and their personalities were not what one would call attractive. Unlike writers attempting valiantly to fashion together something new from the fall of Anne Boleyn or similar, An Instance of the Fingerpost offers fresh material even for the hardened historical fiction fiend such as myself. However, even without the refreshing setting and context, Pears' novel marks itself as head and shoulders above the average.



This is no fluffy period drama, but rather a grubby and uncertain tale where the truth is only ever glimpsed fleetingly. This is one of those exceptionally rare historical novels that actually do seem to blend in with their intended time period. Full of the suspicions, superstitions, traditions and beliefs of the seventeenth century, the reader is plunged into a dark and murky world of plots, whispers and secrets where it is almost impossible to tell the false coin from the genuine. Pears takes his title from Francis Bacon's Novum Organum and indeed each of the four sections of the novel are preceded by epigraphs from that book, but really what it signifies is that the fingerpost, like a signpost, points the way. It points to where the answers are. Yet by the very term 'an instance', Francis Bacon (and Iain Pears) underline just how rare such a thing might be. The novel tells us the same story four times from four utterly contradictory perspectives, so the reader only gradually realises in the closing pages what has been going on right under our very noses.


Merton Street
I read Stone's Fall earlier this year, so was familiar with Pears' dense and often demanding prose - this is no light read to be dipped in and out of, An Instance of the Fingerpost is a book to dive in to and savour. The squalor and grime of seventeenth century society seems to ooze from the page and we have a real sense of Restoration Oxford. Oddly enough, this is where I work and it was quite peculiar to read the various street names having just walked along their twenty-first century counterparts. To be honest, vast screeds of Oxford have not changed. Certainly Merton Street has not (aside from the yellow lines). It is one of those cities which keeps one foot proudly in the past. Given that the majority of historical fiction concentrates on fashion choices or possibly military manoeuvres, Fingerpost is far more subtle. Pears borrows a large number of real-life historical figures and luckily a helpful Who's Who in the back helped to put the names into context, but still Pears is the not the kind of writer who stops to waste time with lengthy exposition. The reader is assumed to have some awareness of the political context and of academic politics and so the plot moves on.

However, it is not just academic politics under examination here, each narrator writes their own experience of the murder of Dr Grove, an academic at New College. His former servant Sarah Blundy comes under suspicion of having poisoned him and no one can quite seem to agree about her true nature. The first testimony comes from Marco de Cola and indeed the discovery of his papers is what prompts the other three narrators to write their accounts in the first place. There is the brash and arrogant young James Prescott, obsessed with clearing his father's name of treachery, then the cold and manipulative Dr Wallis, also consumed with his own quest for revenge. Then there is the historian Wood, held in contempt by the other narrators but there is a chance, just a chance that he can see more clearly than the rest. Other than Gillespie and I, I can't remember another novel which pulled off the notion of the unreliable narrator quite so masterfully, and Gillespie and I was only working with one lead.

Marco de Cola explains that back in 1663 he had been an Italian merchant's son who was trying to resolve his father's business affairs in London only to find himself betrayed and left in dire financial straits. He moved on to Oxford in an effort to improve his situation and fell in with some of the notable scientific minds of the day. He also met young Sarah Blundy and tasked himself with trying to heal her mother's broken leg, free of charge, but also exploring some of his own ideas about the transfusion of blood. Yet when Dr Grove is found dead, Cola is readily convinced of Sarah's guilt. On the face of it, de Cola has nothing to hide, no axe to grind. Yet as each of the others take their turn, we begin to question his version of events. Why did he behave so charitably towards Anne Blundy? Why did he even come to Oxford in the first place? Did he really speak all of the wise wise words he claimed to have, or was he a tongue-tied foreigner? Are we to believe him when he says that blood transfusion was his idea rather than those of the Oxford scientists?


There are so many moments that I loved in this novel. We learn to mistrust de Cola's judgement by his scorn and disgust for so many of the English ways. We smirk silently as he reacts in horror to piece of theatre he has been taken to; we can recognise by description that he is criticising King Lear. Yet there are other ideas which are most disturbing; one woman who has complained of rape is discovered to be lying as she has fallen pregnant by her supposed attacker and everyone knows that this only happens if the woman experienced an orgasm during the act. Yet still, by contrast there is a sense of exciting surrounding the scientific research Cola describes, the possibilities and yet the depths which man is prepared to stoop to in order to find new knowledge and new understanding. This is a world standing on the brink, not yet quite ready to let go of the old beliefs and superstitions yet beginning to question.

I think what has always put me off about the Restoration was the cynicism of it all - the King was not invited back out of some great love of Charles II himself but because Cromwell had died and the government seems to have felt lost without a leader. James Prescott might moon around old battlefields and consider the past but the average common man knew that the war had been miserable and repeats were to be avoided. Unlike previous regime changes such as the fall of Richard II or III (or even the calamities around Henry VI), most senior officials did hold on to their jobs. There were negotiations. People were pragmatic about what had to be done. It is not surprising that the grudges cherished by those who had felt hard done by festered. Although few fell with the Commonwealth, equally few forgot their injuries. The suspicion of Catholics remained like the modern threat of Islamic extremism and always the worry of how close they were to the King. Religion inspires a different kind of fear now but it is almost impossible to imagine a society governed by religious ritual. There is a question mark over each character in Fingerpost, what are their politics? For the King or late Cromwell sympathiser? What is their religion? Catholic? Protestant? Baptist, Anabaptist, Anglican, Quaker? Witch? Truly from these seeds was sectarianism sown.

As with Stone's Fall, there is more than a pinch of the supernatural sprinkled through An Instance of the Fingerpost yet somehow it blended in far more so than in the former. Ironically enough, the novel's conclusion did not feel as much of a deus ex machina - as Wood's final words come to an end, we feel as though we have been told a delicious and wonderful secret, a secret to be held close as we are assured that all of evidence of it has been destroyed. Wood has given us the truth such as it is, he will tell nobody else. This was one of those books that made me ache slightly when it got to the end, which is no mean feat given that it stretches to nearly seven hundred pages. At its heart it is a thriller, full of twists and turns and dark alleys full of danger yet it is the reader who gets to play detective, to judge each of the witnesses and reach their own conclusions. An Instance of the Fingerpost is a novel to savour and consider and rabbit about at length to friends - it is a true tour de force.

For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo...

[Hux · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't remember where I heard about this one but it seemed like a fun historical, murder mystery romp that would distract me with an enjoyable escapist yarn. Sadly, I very quickly lost interest in the thing (around the first third). I can't say it's badly written or anything, but it's very formulaic, the kind of book that you might find at an airport masquerading as literary fiction (everything else does so why not this?). Despite being reasonably easy to read, it just didn't hold my attention at all. Again, not badly written for this kind of genre and, for those who enjoy such things, probably a satisfactory and competent example of it. But it wasn't my cup of tea.

The book takes place in 1663 and is narrated by several people, all of whom are giving details of the same event from different perspectives (the death of Robert Groves and the arrest of Sarah Blundy as chief suspect). It begins with Marco de Cola, an Italian whose father has business interests in England where he travels. He finds himself in Oxford and, as an amateur physician, is greatly interested in the role of blood within the human body. He theorises that transfusion of a young person's blood to an old person will invigorate the older person. He meets Richard Lower and Robert Boyle (there are real people from history incorporated into the story) and with Lower he explains his theories and together they convince a young woman named Sarah Blundy (whose mother is ill) to give her blood to her mother as treatment. Not long after this a man named Groves dies and foul play is suspected (poison) and the chief suspect appears to be Sarah. I mostly enjoyed this first section of the book but was slightly baffled by the abrupt ending (it concludes with Cola leaving for Italy) only to realise that his section (at least his narration of events) were entirely over. 

Then comes the next instalment, this time we get the perspective of the disgraced Jack Prescott, son of a civil war traitor, his version of events evidently different from de Cola's in various ways, and this is where I was essentially done with the book (which is a shame because there was still a long way to go... the book is way too long!). After this we get another version of events (this time from John Wallis) which was the least satisfying part because he basically portrays de Cola as a scoundrel and a liar, re-imagining him into an entirely different person. I understand that these manuscripts all offer differing perspectives on purpose (it's part of the mosaic that ends with a twist) but given that de Cola was the only character I actually liked, it was not very enjoyable to see him suddenly turned into a villain, this portrayal jarring with what the opening section had provided. Again, I suppose it's the point, but my interest in the murder mystery aspect was already thin to begin with. After this, we get the events as told by Anthony Wood (probably the most revealing... if you still care at this point), but I was skim reading and ready to call it a day. You get a twist at the end (because of course you do) but the problem is it's entirely dependent upon you caring about the previous interpretations of events rather than the facts provided and the people encountered. The trouble I had is that I didn't care about those aspects. And if the narrator's are all highly unreliable (or at the least very conveniently leaving out vital aspects of the story) then the whole thing feels a little dishonest and requires that you invest in a story that is always changing. By this point, like I said, I simply didn't care who did the murder. It could have been Oliver Cromwell and I wouldn't have cared. Fundamentally, I think you have to enjoy this kind of genre to get the most out of it.  

Again, I can't say the book is bad. Of this particular genre, it's probably a pretty good standard, but it's not something I generally like to read (especially when it fails to grab me). I only read it because I occasionally want something light and formulaic, some escapist nonsense that might be fun to read. The murder mystery meant nothing to me so I was left judging it by the characters and writing and I found neither especially compelling. The book is a standard genre piece with concise and rather prosaic prose, a style of writing that does not challenge or elevate, and characters that are purely there in service of pushing the plot along. This one just didn't pull me in (or more precisely didn't keep me pulled in) and I wasn't remotely invested (beyond my enjoyment of de Cola at the start and his ideas regarding blood transfusion).

It's fine. Just not for me

[To-The-Point Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever I'm horny, I smile at my girlfriend, wink suggestively, and say: 'Would madam like an instance of the fingerpost?' It never fails.

Anyway, this is a standard historical murder mystery told from the points of view of several characters. It was... meh, fine, whatever.

[Merna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will now stand alongside Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris as the best book set in the 17th century that I have read.

When I read historical fiction, I expect one thing above all: that the book convincingly transports me to the era it portrays. If a historical novel fails to achieve this, it completely misses the mark, even if the plot or writing is good.

"An Instance of the Fingerpost" excels in capturing the 17th-century atmosphere so vividly that it feels like you are personally encountering Robert Boyle, John Locke, and other notable figures of that period.

Not only that, but the mystery is intricately woven. I'm not even a big fan of mysteries, yet this book turned me into one. It did everything perfectly—the historical fiction and the mystery.

I've read that this novel is already considered one of the greatest historical fictions ever written, and I will not dispute it.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I like my historical fiction like a balm of gentle story and escapism and sometimes I like my historical fiction to make me think and ponder.
This novel certain falls into the latter category. A story full of mystery, intrigue and plots upon plots. I like the theme that one persons point of view is hardly ever is enough to fully explain a situation and that there is no such thing as an "objective" narrator, we are all by default unreliable. I am not sure if Pears did it deliberately, but for me this book also worked as a reminder how we only see women's life through the eyes of men throughout history, how rare it is for women to tell their story and in this book we end up knowing quite a bit about the main woman in the narrative but we never get her point of view.

[Georgie-who-is-Sarah-Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a lovely bit in the musical film "Call Me Madam", when a lyrical ballad is succeeded by a contrasting upbeat number - both good - then, miraculously they are sung at the same time, working brilliantly together (watch it here - if you're interested, but ignore Ethel Merman's over-acting). And, in AIotF, Pears carries off the same trick. Four stories - each well told, but with completely different personalities and atmospheres. And then - this is the technical tour de force - they are overlaid, wound together, and prove to be complementary threads in an even more complex and interesting tale, leading to an explosive & moving climax.

If that were all, I'd admire the book, but perhaps not rate it so highly. What I enjoy is that each part of the whole doesn't read as part of an academic exercise; each story is perfectly rounded, beautifully told, and peopled with fully realised characters. Along the way, Pears brings in many of the key issues of the time - witchcraft, the delight of new scientific discoveries, the complex politics following the Restoration, the uneasy position of Catholicism, and much more. But reading the book, it's the vital perplexing people Pears creates - young Italian Marco di Cola bewildered by English customs, bitter Jack Prescott, the shadowy figure of Sarah Blundy - who capture my imagination.

It's long, true, but I've read this twice, and each time I couldn't put it down.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

short review on 3rd read in 2015:

- after Arcadia which the author hyped as a complex novel needing an app and which to me seemed actually a simpler novel than his earlier 3 superb complex multi-layered novels (Instance of the Fingerpost, Dreams of Scipio, Stone's Fall), I decided to reread this one - as the one of the three I last read a while ago (some 10 years ago easily, maybe more) - to see if I maybe remember it wrong after all and Arcadia was indeed more sophisticated;

and it turned out that my recollection was right and An Instance of the Fingerpost which I remembered quite accurately and completely, even remembering actual dialogue and text as I turned the pages , is indeed a complex book that needs going carefully through all narratives to appreciate its subtlety and depth; seemingly telling a story in Oxford 1663 about the recent (1660) Restoration and a larger plot surrounding it, a (possible) murder for which an innocent is hanged, a disgraced nobleman and the reverberations of events from a few years ago, the book actually unpacks itself with each narrative (the Venetian, the nobleman's son, the cryptographer and the historian) artfully concealing as much as revealing until the superb ending that ties it all up, while leaving us wondering too

Still awesome on 3read and still highly, highly recommended

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most well-crafted, meticulously written, daring, busy, fun, and intriguing books I've ever read. It combines shifting points of view, murder, early experiments with blood transfusion, international intrigue, hidden identities, the Restoration and Catholic/Protestant politics, and insanity into a rollicking, erudite, challenging, and delightful read. You'll be amazed at the audacity of the author as he begins his high-wire act, and you'll be even more amazed and gratified when he pulls it off. Very satisfying, this book is an intellectual feast.

[Sam toer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iain Pears’ intelligent and intricately plotted novel is an exploration of the period known as the Enlightenment. It is Set largely in the 1660s in Oxford, England, the intellectual seat of the country, a place of great scientific, religious, and political ferment. It has been more than 20 years of civil and religious upheaval. The Protector Oliver Cromwell is dead; the Levelers, Diggers and other factions -- with their dreams of an egalitarian society-- have been destroyed or dispersed; peace, finally, has returned to a ravaged land . . . or has it? So begins Iain Pears' crafty, utterly mesmerizing intellectual thriller, An Instance of the Fingerpost. As haunting as The Name of the Rose, it is a novel about deception and self-deception, about the scientific method and Jesuitical chicanery, above all, about political expedience and religious transcendence. Every sentence in the book is as treacherous as quicksand. In this long narrative we are lost in a wilderness of mirrors, doubting testimony, evidence and even confession, ultimately unsure of who is using or betraying whom. But with perfect mastery Pears gradually takes us from an unexplained death in a small college town to a revelation that could shake the foundations of England and the world.

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in Oxford 1660. A senior member of the new college is murderd and this book has four parts, each following different people and each time getting closer to tge answer. This was a long book and a huge snooze fest. Did not find the mystery either interesting or exciting. Not a good book

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Instance of the Fingerpost had been on my radar for quite some time before I actually picked it up. It's a critically acclaimed murder mystery that takes place in England right after Cromwell's death and the king's return to the throne (as is the current book I'm reading - I'm not too sure how that happened!). The book is divided into four parts, each part narrated by a different character. The premise is that different people can all see one event and take completely different things from it. Although each narrator covers the exact same event (the murder of Jeremy Grove and subsequent arrest and execution of Sarah Blundy), their perceptions are radically different enough that you never feel like you're reading the same story over and over.

I was worried that this was going to be yet another one of those "It's up to you to decide what the truth is" deals (see: Sarah Dunant's Mapping the Edge), but the fourth narrator gives a sense of finality to the entire book. It's also possible to suss out some of what is and isn't true when considering A) inconsistencies in the four stories, B) information that one narrator has that the others don't, and C) the biases and personality of each narrator. One narrator has the tendency to react rashly and foolishly; another is prone to obsession. Most often, books are written so that the narrator's prose is meant to be taken as a reliable truth; this is definitely not the case here.

I read Fingerpost in two sittings, with about a month passing between. If I had to do it all over, I wouldn't let that large amount of time go by before finishing it; the book is far more interesting when all the details are fresh in your mind and you can make the tiny connections between each narrator's story. I also think the book is more rewarding upon finishing it and reflecting on it as a whole; I felt only moderately warm about it until I reached the end of the final narration, at which point I felt considerably awestruck (Sarah Waters' Affinity had the same effect, although I felt only less-than-lukewarm about the novel up until the end). One of the bigger surprises for me would probably not surprise a history buff very much, but it's still presented in a neat way that should interest someone who saw it coming.

I enjoyed Fingerpost far more than my first Iain Pears novel, A Dream of Scipio (which also bills itself as a murder mystery on its back cover, but is most definitely not). It's given me enough faith in him to check out his others books, which are in a series of "art history mysteries." Pears is an art historian himself, and I'm looking forward to reading something he has considerable knowledge about.

[cypt · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nenušaunamų siužetų" rekomendacija!

Ilga ilga ir tikrai wild kelionė po 17 amžiaus Oksfordą / Londoną. Pradėdama skaityti truputį spjaudžiausi, nes maniau, kad nemėgstu istorinių detektyvų, bet pasirodo, kad nemėgstu tik skandinaviškų (laba diena, Undinėle ir 1793). O gal tiesiog Pearso detektyvas - labai geras. Ir dar įsuktas į tiek sluoksnių, kad detektyviškumas lieka kaip malonus prieskonis.

Knygą sudaro 4 dalys, kiekvieną pasakoja vis kitas pasakotojas. Iš pradžių - kilmingas venecijietis, gydytojas, besidomintis visokiais medicinos eksperimentais, paskui - agresyvus jaunas britas, netekęs palikimo ir renkantis įrodymus, kaip sugrąžinti tėvui-valstybės išdavikui gerą vardą, toliau - pagyvenęs protestantų dvasininkas, matematikas ir šifruotojas, dirbantis visokius slaptus reikalus valstybei (Karūnai), galiausiai - nupiepęs istorikas, iš kurio visi ankstesni tyčiojosi.


Patiko (daug kas):

1. Medicinos eksperimentai, kraujo perpylimai, teorijos apie optimistinius elementus kraujyje ir pan, visa tai, kaip buvo suvokiamas kūnas ir sveikata. Aišku, daugelį to galima rasti tokiose knygose kaip Medieval Bodies, bet argi ten įdomiau, nei kai ginčijasi studentai ir čia pat atlikinėja eksperimentus su nelegaliai nusipirktais lavonais? Noooo.

2. Visas istorinis Anglijos kontekstas. Galvojau, man tai bus sunkiausia dalis, o buvo vos ne maloniausia, vis geriau sulig kiekvienu pasakotoju atsiskleidžianti. Cromwellio valdymo pabaiga, karaliaus sugrįžimas, bandymai išsaugoti monarchiją ir pilkieji kardinolai, kurie už viso to timpčioja virvutes - labai įdomu. Dabar reikia skaityt Hilary Mantel, jaučiu, kad didelė išsilavinimo spraga.

3. Knygoje labai daug siužeto posūkių, kiekvienoje dalyje po belekiek. Bet jų funkcija - ne tiek sukrėsti ir priversti viską permąstyti (kaip trileriuose, pvz pas Flynn), kiek atskleisti vis didesnius planus ir paveikslus, į kuriuos įsipainioję veikėjai. Labai sąmokslo-teoriška, bet ir labai faina.

4. Kad vis kitose dalyse sutinkame tuos pačius personažus ir jie atsiskleidžia vis kitu aspektu, vis su kitais ar papildomais bruožais. Ir tai nėra simple atskleidinėjimas, kai pasirodo, jog mus apgaudinėjo kurio nors veikėjo perspektyva (kaip Fates and Furies), bet natūralus, žmogiškas daugiabriauniškumas. Galiausiai jautiesi prie tų personažų labiau priartėjusi (net prie nemaloniųjų), o ne jais pasibaisėjusi.

5. Kad tai iš esmės knyga apie religijų kovą - kaip protestantai persekioja katalikus ir skleidžia apie juos visokias zaraznas pasakas. Kad žydai valgo vaikus, tai seniai žinom, bet vat pasirodo ir popiežininkai!

6. Kad šita knyga kažkuriuo lygmeniu iš esmės atkartoja Kristaus istoriją, pasakojamą 4 evangelistų. Netgi venecijiečio vardas - Markas (Morkus)... Ir kad tai padaro istorinis detektyvas, pasakojantis apie religijų kovą (ir neteikiantis joms aiškių preferencijų), na ir žinoma apie žmogžudystę, - labai įspūdinga ir gražu. Toks pasakojimas apie stebuklą ten, kur to stebuklo nei yra, nei turėtų būti, nei kas nors lauktų. Čia biški prisiminiau Tokie smulkūs dalykai - ten stebuklas galbūt labiau tikėtinas (visgi Kalėdų metas), bet irgi siužetiškai panašiai antrame plane, fone skleidžiasi. Labai gražus tas daugiasluoksniškumas, o dar kai viename iš tų sluoksnių - stebuklas, kažkaip atrodo labai reikalinga ir svarbu (šiandien).

7. Praeities slėpiniai ir kad autorius irgi jais linksminosi: svarbiam šifrui reikalinga konkretaus leidimo knyga, bet niekas (net galėdami ieškot užsienyje) nesugeba jos gauti, po ilgų tyrimų pavyksta išsiaiškinti vieną žmogų, tą knygą turėjusį, bet.... jau miręs ;(

8. Praeities slėpiniai 2: kilmingiems jaunuoliams nereikėdavo lankyt paskaitų ir diplomą jie gaudavo šiaip, o vat jei esi nuskurdęs arba prasčiau gyveni, tai sėdėk paskaitose ir studijuok :D

9. Kaip praeities detektyvai naudojasi retorika, kad išsiaiškintų, kas įvyko: iškelia hipotezę, susirenka ją palaikančius argumentus, surūšiuoja, rūšiuoja ją silpninančius argumentus, žiūri, kurių faktų hipotezė nepaaiškina, klasifikuoja faktus ir žiūri, kuri tada hipotezė nepaaiškina mažiau faktų arba nesvarbių faktų... turbūt viskas, ką mes kasdien galvodamos ir galvodami darom. Bet labai faina matyti viską taip surikiuota, toks Holmso vėjelis dvelkteli.

10. Žiauriai storas Anglijos lordas kancleris, testuojantis atėjusius pasišnekėti klausimu: kaip jums atrodo, pone, ar aš storas?

11. Labai gražiai paskutinėj daly išsiskleidžia pavadinimas: likimo pirštas, kaip rašo Baconas (visi keturi dalių epigrafai - iš Bacono Naujojo organono, pasigailėjau kad visiškai šito konteksto neišmanau), - tai tas ženklas, "pirštas", kuris rodo tik viena kryptim, ir kai iškyla labai daug pasakojimų, įtikinamų argumentų, kai viskas atrodo vienodai teisinga - tik likimo pirštas gali parodyti, kas yra ta būtinoji tiesa. Kitose dalyse valstybės vyrai panašiai šnekasi, kad jei netikėtum Dievu (grynai teorinė spekuliacija :D ), tai visos nuomonės būtų lygiai reikšmingos, visos klasės ir žmonės būtų lygiai vertingi, neįmanoma gyventi... Graži ta būtinybės idėja, holmsiška, bet sykiu pamatai, kad gyvenime, atrodo, kažkurie kiti dėsniai veikia.


Nepatiko (nedaug kas):

1. Jei kokiam istoriniam laikotarpyje yra laisva ir konvencijoms nepaklūstanti moteris, tai ji būtinai turi užsiiminėt laisvu (free-given) seksu ir dar būti LABAI graži, kad jos iškart visi nuodėmingieji užsigeistų :D

2. Viršelis, wtf????


Ištraukėlė, kur tuometiniai moxlininkai atlieka cheminius eksperimentus su nuodingais milteliais, Marie Curie vibes:

Štalis patenkintas krenštelėjo, tada paėmė po žiupsnelį kiekvienų miltelių ir dviem judesiais užmetė ant įkaitintos geležies. Stebėjome, kaip milteliai sušnypštė, kaip pakilo tiršti baltų dūmų debesys. Štalis pauostė dūmus ir dar kartą krenkštelėjo.
- Abiem atvejais ugnies nebuvo. Šiek tiek atsiduoda - kaip jums atrodo? - ar ne česnakais?
Jis užliejo geležį vandeniu ją vėsindamas ir nerūpestingai išmetė luitą pro langą, kad šis mūsų nebenuodytų. (p. 145)

[Whiskey Tango · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Oxford Don's murder coincides with the return of the monarchy to power after the collapse of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate in 1663. Pear's complex intermingling of fictional and historical characters captures the byzantine structure of political life during the English Restoration while his use of multiple narrators reveals the subjective nature of personal testimony and the difficulty in ascertaining the objective truth.

Rashomon-style, four narrators relate the events surrounding Robert Grove’s poisoning and Sarah Blundy's involvement. Sarah, a nonconformist, falls under suspicion. The first account is from Marco da Cola, a Venetian physician who is treating Sarah's mother and experimenting with blood transfusions. Much of the evidence against Sarah is provided in the second account, that of Jack Prestcott, a highly-strung young man determined to clear his father’s name of treason charges. The third narrator, mathematician John Wallis, believes Sarah to be instrumental in anti-government plots, while Anthony Wood, a historian, and the book’s fourth narrator, loves her.

Each accretion of new information/misinformation throws previous testimony into doubt. Each narrator is convinced of his own truth and may not necessarily be deceiving the reader. By paying close attention to the assumptions of the characters, we observe how our biases and prejudices work to squeeze the "truth" into our preconceptions and then we buttress entrenched opinions with mere confirmation-bias masquerading as corroborating evidence.

The title of the novel, and of its final section, is a phrase from Francis Bacon's “Novum Organum” (A new logic to replace the syllogisms of Aristotle). "An Instance of the Fingerpost" (evidence which points in one direction) refers to a category of evidence that can be absolutely trusted. But how do we ascertain the truth with the problems inherent in trusting any individual account of events, especially those lacking personal knowledge or only partially witnessed. “What is truth? asked jesting Pilate, but would not stay for an answer.” Pears draws on the writings of Francis Bacon for his chapter introductions, highlighting a different way in which a seeker might be misled. Each section title offers the reader a hint as to the nature of the deception. But in the book’s best and final section, the story takes on an unknowable spiritual dimension (or it perhaps logically explains how messianic legends get started). The reader must take the enigmatic conclusion on faith-- or not.

I agree with the obligatory comparison of this book to Umberto Eco’s erudite mystery, “The Name of the Rose,” one of my Top 100 books. Eco also examines the metaphysical collision of religion, Aristotle, and Roger Bacon’s philosophy (not to be confused with Francis Bacon who is quoted in Instance), and Eco also centers this collision around a mystery.

Verisimilitude! I cannot stress enough the vivid re-creation for me of the 17C. Many years ago, a preferred class at university was full, so I settled for a course entitled "Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry," which sounded dreadful until I became absorbed in eloquent metaphysical thought even as the ascendant scientific method was being forced into hopeless reconciliation with the Bible, which was then being translated into the vernacular, published widely, and interpreted literally (in their minds, scientifically). Pears channels the strident voices and entrenched beliefs of the era, and I recognized phrases that I had once encountered in the words of Robert Burton, John Donne, Francis Bacon, and Robert Browne, etc. Pears captures not only the physical details of 17C life but also the ideas and attitudes of the period as well—while using language accessible to moderns.

Though written in 1998, the book's theme has a renewed relevance considering how the current White House administration, social media, and cable news have contributed to the decimation of objective truth. We are witnessing a transformational age where conspiracy theories and discredited ideologies are resurgent, proven science is up for debate, and propaganda floods our screens, and only a devoted minority labor to apply logic, reason, and expertise. Pair's characters are as xenophobic, ignorant, blustering, vain, bigoted, full of certitude, and as selfish as Donald Trump. Because the United States, like Restoration England, is so divided over facts and the nature of truth, I cannot exclude as too fanciful the possibility of a Cromwellian theocrat or a Divine-Right-Demagogue who might make us actually miss the good old days of Trump--just as Trump makes us miss George W. Bush. Facing that risk, I will try to accurately observe my world and describe it as faithfully and bravely as I can—while allowing myself personal Restoration with ingenious storytelling like this--the only "fiction" I will accept.

*********
Long Plot Summary for my own Reference A garrulous Oxford Fellow, Robert Grove, is murdered during the tumultuous period known as the Restoration. After years of bloody civil war, the beheading of Charles I, and the strife-ridden Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II saw a flourishing of art, science, and philosophy. The strains of discord within English society ran deep; however, and long-held religious enmity continued to shape political policy. It is in this climate of change, unrest, and religious intolerance that Pears has set his story, and its conflicts and complexities provide the book with its dramatic substance.

At the center of Pears’s story is the death by poisoning of Robert Grove. The person suspected of the crime is Sarah Blundy, a servant girl Grove had recently dismissed after rumors of intimacy between the two began to circulate within the university. Grove had also refused to assist Sarah’s badly injured mother, Anne, who is herself a religious reformer and the wife of a political radical. As information about Grove’s final hours becomes known, a web of gossip and possible evidence begins to ensnare Sarah, and she is imprisoned. The young girl emerges as a touchstone for many sensitive political and religious issues of the time.

In a technique used perhaps most famously by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa in his 1950 film Rashomon, Pears makes use of multiple narrators to tell his story. The book is divided into four sections, each of which relates the events surrounding Grove’s murder from a different point of view. As each section unfolds, a new layer of information—and at times misinformation—is added, often throwing what has gone before into doubt.

Who do you say that she is? Is Sarah Blundy a whore, a rebel, a nonconformist, a feminist, or a prophet? Who poisoned garrulous Oxford Don Robert Grove? Murder, manslaughter, death by misadventure? Is Truth knowable? Is truth that which corresponds with reality?

1. QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE--MARCO DA COLA
The first section, entitled “A Question of Precedence,” introduces the Venetian scholar Marco da Cola, who informs the reader that in 1663 he traveled to England to investigate problems threatening his merchant father’s business interests. It is through the outsider da Cola’s eyes that readers first encounter the world of 17C England and meet the individuals who will play a role in the novel. Written many years after the events he is describing, da Cola’s manuscript catalyzes the sections that follow, as three of the story’s principal characters read his accounting and respond with versions of their own.

Da Cola is thrust into the center of the events in Oxford when he offers to treat Sarah Blundy’s injured mother. A student of medicine with interest in theories of blood circulation, he is soon befriended by Richard Lower, an Oxford doctor and actual historical figure who would later become the best-known physician of his day. Through Lower, da Cola also meets philosopher John Locke, architect Christopher Wren, and chemist Robert Boyle, three men whose ideas and discoveries helped shape the age in which they lived. In Lower’s company, da Cola attends a performance of William Shakespeare’s King Lear—which he dislikes—and takes part in several medical and scientific experiments, often performed on live animals, that seem barbaric by modern standards. His most notable experiment, however, is performed on Anne Blundy when he and Lower attempt to cure her with a transfusion of her daughter’s blood.

Pears captures not only the physical details of 17C life but also the ideas and attitudes of the period as well. Through da Cola’s discussions with Lower and his friends, the reader receives a picture of the rudimentary medical knowledge in 1663— As the men speak with assurance of the dangerous vapors that fresh air will bring to a sickroom or the vital spirits that blood transports to the mind, the reader is presented with a portrait of another time that feels accurate in far more than merely its surface details.

Da Cola’s manuscript also introduces the book’s other narrators: Jack Prescott, an Oxford student and the son of a lord disgraced by accusations of treason; John Wallis, a skilled mathematician and cryptographer who worked for both Cromwell and Charles II and who sees political conspiracies in everyday events; and Anthony Wood, a scholar and historian. Like Lower and his friends, both Wallis and Wood are historical figures, while Prescott is a fictional character based loosely on fact.

THE GREAT TRUST--JACK PRESCOTT
In Prescott’s section, “The Great Trust,” the reader learns of Jack’s passionate belief in his father’s innocence, and how this conviction and his efforts to clear his father’s name led him to actions that will influence Sarah Blundy’s fate. While da Cola believes Sarah to be immoral and lacking in proper respect for her social betters, Prescott believes her to be a witch bent on his destruction, only one of several factors pointing to the workings of an increasingly unbalanced mind. Jack’s casual brutality to Sarah and the utter lack of a moral center that his actions and comments unwittingly reveal make his narrative perhaps the novel’s most disturbing section.

CHARACTER OF COMPLIANCE--JOHN WALLIS
In John Wallis’s account of events, entitled “The Character of Compliance,” the reader begins to gain a fuller picture of the political intrigue that drives much of the story’s action. Wallis casts doubt on da Cola’s manuscript, insisting that the Catholic Venetian’s visit to England was part of a dangerous political plot against the newly restored Protestant monarchy. Sarah Blundy, he believes, also played a role in the plot, and the question of the girl’s actual guilt or innocence in the matter of Grove’s murder is of little interest to Wallis; it is her removal as a political threat that drives his actions. As Wallis’s story adds yet another layer to the book’s intricate plot, Jack Prescott’s tale is placed in perspective, and inexplicable omissions in da Cola’s account come to light. Yet Wallis himself is so consumed by conspiracy theories that his own version of “the truth” becomes suspect even as he is relating it. It is in Wallis’s section that Pears makes clear to the reader that all of his narrators thus far are to be regarded with varying degrees of suspicion.

INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST--ANTHONY WOOD
The title of the novel, and of its final section, is a phrase that refers to evidence that can be trusted absolutely; in Anthony Wood, Pears presents the reader with as trustworthy a narrator as he has on offer. Wood’s account is the testimony of a man for whom historical accuracy is of overriding importance, and any misrepresentations in his version of events are the result of vagaries of personal perception rather than deliberate deception. A quiet scholar and antiquary whom the other characters often dismiss, Wood possesses critical pieces of information on which the solution to the mystery of Grove’s death rests. Through his eyes, the reader comes to see the flaws at the heart of Wallis’s conspiracy theories as well as the true nature of the intrigue unfolding at the highest levels of political power.

Wood’s view of Sarah Blundy is also radically different from that of the first three narrators. Prior to her implication in Grove’s murder, Sarah had worked for Wood and his mother, and Wood had fallen in love with her. His perception of her undergoes a startling change, however, when he witnesses her spiritual revelations before a secret congregation of worshippers and comes to believe she is a modern-day messiah. Sarah’s eventual fate brings together the themes of science and religion that have dominated the book, as Pears presents his readers with the very rare literary device of a female Christ figure. Wood’s belief in Sarah’s divinity is clear; the reader, however, is allowed to draw his or her own conclusions.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is still the gold standard of all historical fiction for me. I've tried to find its equal and haven't come up with it. The four contemporary accountings of the same events, the disagreement between the various witnesses, the lofty intellectual language, the extensive historical accuracy of the period and location... this is just what great historical fiction is supposed to be. I've read several of this author's other works now and they're all good, but this is simply that much better. Fascinating period, great characters, and a very clever, engrossing story told through the various people who were witness to it. A great recipe that few authors have the talent to follow.