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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A biographer's thrilling novel., Jan 3 2006
A reader's attitude to this finely-crafted and extremely well-written little novel will, in part, be determined by his attitude to the question of using real, historic characters as central figures in works of fiction. This book, written by a celebrated and highly accomplished biographer, resembles "The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte," by James Tully, for example, except that it is even more intense and chilling, more brilliant, and more difficult to stop reading.Nicholas Hawksmoor was a leading English architect 300 years ago, in an age of great English architects. Very little is known of him (and this seems to have been how he liked it), except through his work. He was trained by Sir Christopher Wren, builder of St Paul's Cathedral, and much more of London, following the Great Fire, and became his assistant, and eventually a master builder in his own right. But now for the fiction, as the historical Hawksmoor becomes Dyer. To me the fascination of the book is the portrayal of Dyer as an odd character, who becomes completely and totally insane--in fact, a negative and filthy-mouthed murderer, and, apparently, Satanist, who pays to have his back beaten raw by women of no great reputation, who smell like old goats. He watches Wren as he talks to him, sees him shift in his chair, and can't resist telling us of the unpleasant smell that ensues. Dyer regards his mentor as an ill-mannered and self-important buffoon; and he sees Sir John Vanbrugh, the third great English architect of the age, as a fop, a gossip, a serpent, and little more than an idiot. Dyer looks at the gentlemen of the Royal Society, as they listen to a lecture by Wren, and believes they are bored, longing to leave, and are dreaming about revisiting unwholesome women. All unfair to the historical Hawksmoor? Almost certainly--but Dyer remains a haunting, riveting and magnetic character, who will long stay with the reader. If you don't mind real people from history being mangled and remade, and if you enjoy the possession-reincarnation genre, and if you wonder just how bad and evil bad and evil can be, then this is a book you shouldn't miss. It was a thrilling reading experience by an outstanding writer and scholar. Most memorable for me were the visits to Stonehenge, and to the Bedlam lunatic asylum in London--the latter truly chilling and horrifying.
KG
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