Review: mini-reviews of Gutenberg's Apprentice, The Glamour, and My Bookstore

Gutenberg's Apprentice is a fine historical novel following the life of Peter Schoeffer as he helps the man called Gutenberg print the book he would become most famous for, The Gutenberg Bible.  The story is compelling and the writing sharp and competent.  The choice of Peter as the main character is a smart one considering Gutenberg is one of Europe's renowned historical figures.  It's also an interesting choice because the novel claims that while Gutenberg created the ideas and techniques of the printing press, it was actually the young apprentice who physically produced the famous book itself. This is a pretty good novel for fans of books and historical fiction.

Rating: 8/10.

The Glamour is a novel about invisible people.  One of the main characters is a respected cameraman for news organizations who is the victim of a car bombing.  When he recovers he finds out he has amnesia and that he was involved in a torrid romance with a woman who was also involved in a complicated, often coercive relationship with another man, a woman who claims she and her previous boyfriend can become invisible.

Priest's gimmick in this book is one of perception: of being seen or unseen, noticed or not noticed.  Whether such invisibility is figurative, with all it's attending societal metaphors, or literal is the open question since Priest always plays around with unreliable narrators.  In this one, he also plays with the inherent unreliability of memory and how the mind can play tricks on you.  And as always with Priest, there is the complexity of personalities and human relationships.  The relationship bit was the hardest part for me because I've always had a difficult time understanding why people would let themselves be entangled in coercive, even abusive, relationships.

Rating: 8/10.

My Bookstore is a non-fiction collection of essays by writers about their favorite independent bookstores.  This is a very subjective book relying on your connection to the writers exhortations, because I suppose you can only say so much about each bookstore's uniqueness.  It will either work for you or it won't.  You really don't even need to read the whole thing, or at least, not all at once. 

Rating: 7/10.

The Inverted World

Christopher Priest is one of the most underrated authors I know of, perhaps only matched by Paul Kearney. Priest writes some of the best work I’ve ever read yet his books can be extremely hard to find. So when I saw that New York Review Books was reprinting one of his earliest novels, The Inverted World, I of course jumped at the chance to get my hands on it. 

Because of the way the book is written, it’s difficult to give a summary without going too heavily into spoiler details. The book’s main character, Helward Mann, grows up unaware of the details of the City’s existence and circumstances. He is then inducted into one of the guilds that govern the city’s administration and slowly learns the details of the city’s situation. The City is winched along on tracks through a harsh, unyielding land full of hostile peoples. Rails must be laid ahead of the city and removed in its wake. Terrain such as rivers and mountains present extreme challenges for the city’s engineers, but if the city fails to move, it falls further behind the “optimum”. To fall behind means the destruction of the city and all its inhabitants. Or does it? This is the mystery behind The Inverted World. 

One of Priests hallmarks is the vividness and reality of the characters he creates. The Inverted World has all the indications of this trait, although being an earlier work it stands to reason that Priest’s technique is not as developed as in later novels. Because most of the plot is revealed through Helward’s experiences as they happen, there is just as much emphasis on setting as on the character. So solving the mystery of the book’s premise takes up a large portion of the story. The physics behind it is sometimes hard to grasp but I like how the reader only understands as much of it as Helward himself does. As with all Priest books, perception of reality plays a role in the novel and an important part of the climax. And then I was surprised at how quickly the ending was resolved. 

The Inverted World is not as strong as some of Priest’s later work, but even his weaker stuff is heads above other books out there. Highly recommended. 

Rating: 8/10.

The Separation

An author is researching a minor mystery of the European War, a history in which England signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany in 1941. He comes across an intriguing journal by a former pilot; however, the journal contains a history different than the one that occurred. In 1936, twin brothers return from competing at the Olympic Games with a Jewish girl stowed away in their van. This first separation of many shapes the paths the two brothers follow, one as a bomber pilot and the other as a conscientious objector, and the brother that will determine which history will be achieved.
Like Priest’s earlier work The Prestige, The Separation is written mostly in the form of journals and other historical documents. This style of writing makes for a far more fascinating story than the conventional linear plot. Because the point of view is after the fact, the narration relies on memories and what the narrator chooses to tell us, both of which can be unreliable. The trick is to follow the story and the clues and see what happens.
Of course, it helps if the characters are extremely well written and this is perhaps Priest’s greatest strength: his characters. The characters are incredibly real. They seem to come alive off the page and feel like they might truly have existed during the period. Priest also succeeded in capturing the spirit, thoughts, and technology of the times, in making the reader feel like they were really immersed in the Second World War.
This alternative history novel was a joy to read and is highly recommended.
Rating: 9/10.