Review by New York Times Review
LATE-LIFE LOVE: A Memoir, by Susan Gubar. (Norton, $25.95.) The influential literary critic blends tales of her marriage, her cancer treatments and her husband's age-related infirmities with discussions of works whose meaning has changed for her over time; her rereadings confirm her talents as a teacher. MORTAL REPUBLIC: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny, by Edward J. Watts. (Basic, $32.) By the second century B.C., the proud Roman Republic had been brought low by inequity, corruption and populist politicians. Since America's founders modeled it on the Roman example, Watts, a historian, warns that it behooves us to understand what went wrong over 2,000 years ago. MUHAMMAD: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, by Juan Cole. (Nation, $28.) Cole offers an ambitiously revisionist picture of the father of Islam, replacing the idea of a militant leader with one of a peacemaker who wanted only to preach his monotheism freely and even sought "multicultural" harmony. INSURRECTO, by Gina Apostol. (Soho, $26.) Set in the Philippines, this novel raises provocative questions about history and hypocrisy as it follows two women with dueling modern-day film scripts about a colonial-era massacre. MY BROTHER'S HUSBAND: Volume 2, by Gengoroh Tagamé. Translated by Anne Ishii. (Pantheon, $25.95.) A sweet satire of Japan's taboo against gay marriage, this manga-style graphic novel is a sophisticated investigation into the nature of love, marriage, divorce, bereavement and nontraditional child-rearing. IN OUR MAD AND FURIOUS CITY, by Guy Gunaratne. (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $16.) Gunaratne's striking, Bookerlonglisted debut unfolds over a few restless days in a workingclass Northwest London suburb. Despite the rush of drama indicated by its title, the book should be read for its quieter details - Gunaratne, with a gift for characterization, presents the kinds of Londoners not often seen in contemporary fiction. THE DAY THE SUN DIED, by Yan Lianke. Translated by Carlos Rojas. (Grove, $26.) This brutal satirical novel takes place on a single night, when a plague of somnambulism unleashes a host of suppressed emotions among the inhabitants of a Chinese village. The ensuing chaos is promptly struck from the official record. TELL THEM OF BATTLES, KINGS, AND ELEPHANTS, by Mathias Énard. Translated by Charlotte Mandel. (New Directions, paper, $19.95.) In this intoxicating novel, set in 1506, Michelangelo sets up shop in Constantinople to design a bridge connecting Europe and Asia. SLEEP OF MEMORY, by Patrick Modiano. Translated by Mark Polizzotti. (Yale, $24.) The Nobel laureate's dreamlike novels summon elusive, half-forgotten episodes. Here, that means Paris in the '60s, love affairs, a flirtation with the occult and a shocking crime. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 31, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Énard is known for his monolithic novels Zone and Compass (winner of the Prix Goncourt), making his latest translation into English, a slim and studious volume, a surprising and exciting break from form. Set in 1506, it is the story of Michelangelo Buonarotti, still in his early 30s and not yet at the height of his renown, smarting from his perceived crude treatment at the hands of the Pope and eager to outdo his rivals, Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael. The proud artist leaves Rome to accept a commission from the Sultan Ali Pasha of Constantinople to design the bridge that will connect the great city with the greater Holy Roman Empire. But in Constantinople, Michelangelo finds himself beguiled by the company he keeps: Manuel the translator, Mesihi the poet, and the page Falachi, with whom Michelangelo is something more than friends. Michelangelo spends his days in Constantinople arduously designing the bridge, and his nights in almost psychedelic debauchery. The flavors of the East will prove transformative to the Florentine, as Renaissance sensibility collides with the flourishing Muslim world, leaving him to conclude that "we all ape God in His absence." a historical novel of exquisite beauty. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Continuing his explorations of the meeting of East and West, French novelist nard (Compass, 2017) imagines a lost episode in the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti.History tells us that the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, having rejected a design by Leonardo da Vinci to join Europe to Asia by a bridge over the Golden Horn, approached Michelangelo with the same project. History adds that Michelangelo said no. But what if the answer, nard posits, had been yes, as newly discovered documents suggest? Michelangelo, after all, had been having endless troubles getting paid by Julius II, "the warlike, authoritarian pope who has treated him so poorly." The temptation to slip across the border of the Papal States into Florence and thence to Venice and Constantinople would have been great, especially because the sultan knew just how to appeal to him by contrasting him to Leonardo: "You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal." That, and he'd quintuple his salary. Intrigue immediately ensues, for there are spiesof the pope, of Venice, of the sultaneverywhere, and where there are spies, there are lures and temptations. And then there's Mesihi, the Kosovar Muslim who guides Michelangelo between two worlds and becomes more than a Virgil in the bargain, first taking Michelangelo to the former cathedral and now mosque of the Hagia Sophia, now devoted, as Michelangelo thinks, to "the one Dante sends to the fifth circle of Hell." In his way, Mesihi is as great an artist as the master, a man who "loved men and women, women and men, sang the praises of his patron and the delights of spring, both sweet and full of despair at the same time." Naturally, cultures and personalities come into collision, and all does not end well for Michelangelo, "afraid of love just as he's afraid of Hell," or, for that matter, for anyone in Michelangelo's orbit.An elegant meditation on what might have been. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
