Classic story-telling
John Boyne’s latest novel, A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom, is story-telling at its best with classic characters and story lines, dramatic action and cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter.
How can you not read on with a first line like this: ‘On the night that I was born, my father, Marinus, left our home while my mother was in labour and, over the eight hours that followed, slaughtered a dozen infant boys, the sons of our neighbours and friends, each one under the age of two years.’
The first chapter, set in Palestine in AD 1, begins the universal story of a boy with artistic talent growing up with an aggressive older brother, a loving mother and a father who wishes his son were more like him, strong and warlike.
The location and time of the story change with every chapter. In Chapter 2, for instance, the boy’s story continues but in Turkey in AD 41. He has a different name but a similar family and situation. Over progressive time periods and in a range of places, the boy becomes a man, uses his artistic skills, faces many dangers, marries and has children, is betrayed, suffers losses, seeks revenge and achieves resolution. The novel ends with a chapter set in 2080 in an imaginative new location.
The novel’s clever structure provides reading pleasure in a number of ways: interest in the hero’s journey, historical and cultural details for each time and setting, and a growing recognition that the same kind of human behaviour, events and motifs occur across cultures and across time.
For me, a chief delight of A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom was its story-telling. That said, the pace of the main story is slowed a little by the introduction in each chapter of a new time, culture and set of characters, and by the sheer number of chapters the story must fill. Within each chapter, however, the pace of events is fast with multiple challenges introduced to test the main character’s wits and agility. This novel is a work of great imagination and the product of extensive research. I will certainly be reading more of John Boyle.
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| Title: A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom Author: John Boyne Publisher: Penguin Random House UK Year: 2020 ISBN: 978-0-8575-2620-5 Pages: 431 |