Subject: Review: THE MEMORY CATHEDRAL by Jack Dann

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 23:22:11 GMT

THE MEMORY CATHEDRAL by Jack Dann
           Bantam, ISBN 0-553-09637-0, 1995, 486pp, US$22.95
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This seems to have been the "Year of da Vinci," with not one but two
alternate history novels about the artist and inventor.  One of these is
Paul J. McAuley's PASQUALE'S ANGEL, the other is Jack Dann's MEMORY
CATHEDRAL.

     I call them alternate histories, but Dann's at least is written more as
a secret history--not what might have happened but didn't, but what might
have happened that we didn't hear about.  In this case, it's about what
might have happened during Leonardo's trip east.  Frankly, I am of the
opinion that it would be unlikely that the events described here happened
without any record, but that is a dispute over classification, not over the
book itself.

     And the book itself is very good.  Dann has done the research, and the
life and politics of 15th Century Florence and the eastern Mediterranean
come to life in his telling.  He does take a few liberties (changing
Machiavelli's age, and introducing Christopher Columbus into the scene), but
these are minor changes which serve the literary purpose without being false
to the SENSE of historical truth.  (George MacDonald Fraser explains this
idea at greater length in his book THE HOLLYWOOD HISTORY OF THE WORLD.)

     Even with all his research, though, at least one error has crept in.
On page 342, Dann describes a camel as getting up by raising first its front
part, then its back.  Having ridden a camel, I can assure you that camels
raise their back part first.  (The first thing they tell you is to lean BACK
when the camel gets up, or you'll fall off.)

     But considering the level of detail that Dann has created, this is a
truly minor point.  Dann does a good job of describing the jockeying for
power in the eastern Mediterranean as well as giving the reader a window
into Leonardo mind through the use of "the memory cathedral" he has built.
This book was not marketed as science fiction, so you will probably have to
seek it out in the mainstream fiction section of your bookstore.  Do so, by
all means--it's well worth the search.

%T      The Memory Cathedral
%A      Jack Dann
%C      New York
%D      December 1995
%I      Bantam
%O      hardback, US$22.95
%G      ISBN 0-553-09637-0
%P      486pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked] <==NOTE NEW ADDRESS
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