The blurb says that “Enoch’s Device is a fast-paced medieval adventure
steeped in history, mythology, and mysteries from a dark and magical
past” and the only part I’d argue with is ‘fast-paced’. I found it
rather a slow book overall, and although it’s not without plenty of
action, there’s also a heavy dollop of the above-mentioned history and
mythology. Long and detailed explanations, it has to be said, don’t
exactly help the plot to skim along. The setting is Ireland, France and
Moorish Spain in the year 997, with the threat of the coming apocalypse
when the millennium ends, and a race to prevent disaster for Irish monks
Ciarán and Dónall and French aristocrat Alais.
This is
historical fantasy at its best - so deeply rooted in its period that to
my inexpert eyes it seemed entirely authentic. The weaving together of
historical data with biblical references, religious and pseudo-religious
details (druids and the zodiac), mythological elements like the Fae and
outright fantasy (demons and just a hint of dragons!) is masterfully
done, with a wealth of detail, and I had very little idea which aspects
were solid fact, which were inference or speculation, and which were
invented wholesale. Whether it’s an Irish monastery, the streets of
Paris, the rich farmlands of rural France or the Moorish city of
Córdoba, the author paints a nuanced and believable picture. Sometimes I
felt there was a little too much detail for the needs of the story, as
if the author had to squeeze in every colourful bit of his research, but
that’s a matter of personal preference.
Where the story really
sagged, for me, was the vast amount of backstory that had to be
revealed. Sometimes it seemed as if most of the interesting action had
happened years before, and was told in flashback. My heart sank every
time I came across a paragraph beginning: ‘It seemed as if it were only
yesterday when...’ or similar. Despite the drama of these events, it’s
still the past and therefore less interesting than the actual story (the
journey of Ciarán and Dónall), which seemed very slow by comparison.
Worse still, much of the backstory was told in a very dry, text-book
style which I struggled to get through. For example:
“She had
been born a child of Aquitaine, the richest province in Gaul. Her
grandfather was the third William, called Towhead for the pale flaxen
color of his hair. He was both count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine,
and her grandmother was the daughter of Rollo, then duke of Normandy.
Her father, Odo, was cousin to the fourth William, called Iron Arm, who
had ruled Aquitaine for nearly thirty years. William Iron Arm had
strengthened his alliances by marrying his sister to Hugh Capet, the
late king of France and father of the current king, Robert, and by
arranging his own marriage to Emma, daughter of the count of Blois, who
was lord of neighboring Touraine. Alais’ mother, Adelais, too, had been
bound in a political marriage— a gift from her father, the count of
Toulouse, who was currying favor with the house of Poitiers.”
I’m
sure this sort of stuff is endlessly fascinating to some readers, but I
was (mentally) tapping my feet and muttering, ‘Yes, yes, but are these
people important? Does the colour of his hair matter? And if not, can we
get on with the story, please?’.
The characters are
well-delineated and mostly believable, the only exception being Alais,
the token female, whose role is merely to be rescued periodically, to
act as plot device and to inspire and motivate Ciarán as the object of
his desire. I wonder how many captivatingly beautiful women have to be
captured/almost raped/burnt at the stake before this particular seam of
fantasy clichés is finally worked out. Alais spends the book gasping in
horror, clinging to Ciarán's hand, or standing frozen with terror as
various sharp implements are hurled at her, so that the nearest man has
to leap in front of her or drag her out of danger. And finally, the one
useful role she seems destined to play is snatched away from her at the
last minute. Bleargh. I hate these useless hand-wringing females.
There’s a slightly unpleasant tone to the writing sometimes: one
character was described as being fond of his wife ‘despite the fact that
she had borne him no children’. I get that this is an era when women
were subservient by law and custom (the nuns are required to be silent
in church, for instance), but there’s no need for that attitude to spill
over into authorial voice. As for the bad guys, they are out and out
evil, which is par for the course if not particularly interesting.
Fortunately,
the plot is nicely convoluted, and once the bulk of the backstory is
got out of the way things go along swimmingly. There are puzzles for our
heroes to solve, clues to follow, crypic utterances to interpret and
symbols to speculate about. There's also a prophecied apocalypse to
avoid, and a mysterious device (the 'Enoch's device' of the title) to be
discovered, understood and (perhaps) deployed. It’s all hugely detailed
and impressively academic-sounding. For example:
“There is a
text, the Sefer Yetzirah— the Book of Creation— that tells how Abraham
received a divine testimony of mystic lore. He lived long before Moses
received the Torah, so he must have received something different.
Abraham was the father of Jewish mysticism, much of which focuses on the
origins of the many names of God, and the various combinations of
sacred letters that make up those names, all in the quest to realize the
one great name of God. That is the knowledge that many believe Abraham
received. If this knowledge was embodied in a physical object, one
theory is that it was a gemstone.”
There’s a lot of this sort of
stuff, and it may all be complete tosh, but if so, it’s impressive
sounding tosh and I found it quite easy to let it all slide by, mostly
way over my head. Sometimes, it has to be said, the interpretations of
all these not very obvious puzzles seems a bit glib (if it were that
easy, how come no one else has worked it out?) but it still made a nice
story as piece after piece fell into place, and our heroes are driven
from place to place in their quest. As with the backstory, the
interludes when the characters sit around interpreting and speculating
and saying ‘Gosh, it must be...!’ (paraphrasing ever so slightly here)
slow the pace down to glacial levels, but as the action gets more
frantic and intense towards the end, the pauses are a welcome respite
from the drama.
There were moments when the theological debate
got quite interesting. Our Irish friends were very confident of the
truth of their interpretations, which the more conventional priests saw
as simple heresy. There is a moment when one of the priests makes a
pronouncement about the apocalypse, and Ciarán immediately says 'How do
you know that?' It's a good question, but the priest deflects it with an
outraged 'How dare you presume to question me!' The voice of absolute
authority putting down the ordinary person who has the temerity to say
'Yes but...'. I'm not sure whether the author is making a general point
about organised religion, or illustrating the religious dogma of the
day, or simply painting the character as a bad guy, but it struck a
chord with me. In this particular case, the Irish interpretation of
events is presumed to be the correct one purely because they are the
protagonists in this particular story, but more than once I was
wondering how exactly they could know particular facts. Some chains of
logic seemed rather tenuous to me.
This is a long, intricate
book, literate and full of convincing historical detail, with demons,
magic swords, a prophecy, mad monks and a whole host of great fantasy
elements to spice up the well-realised setting. It's a pity there's so
much sitting around analysing texts between the battles and so much dry
exposition, and for my taste the battles got a bit over the top towards
the end. But hey, this is the apocalypse, after all, so it's allowed to
be epic in scale. For those who are riveted by the tiny details of
medieval life or enjoy puzzling over the hidden meanings in religious
texts and zodiacal symbols, I highly recommend this book. Anyone who is
prepared to put up with the explanations to get to the juicy battles
with demons, it's still a great read. For anyone who, like me, would
willingly sacrifice historical accuracy for a more evenly paced story,
it doesn’t work quite so well. The action scenes are terrific, the long
sections of exposition less so, and I would have liked a less insipid
female lead character. Three stars.
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