Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk: A Novel (Mortalis)
by Boris Akunin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Boris AkuninTranslator: Andrew Bromfield
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2008-05-13
ISBN: 0812975146
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk: A Novel (Mortalis)
Book Review: Move Over Umberto Eco and Make Room for Boris Akunin
Summary: 5 Stars
Boris Akunin first made a name for himself in the West with his Erast Fandorin series of detective novels set in 19th century Russia. He has shelved Fandorin for Sister Pelagia, a young nun stationed in a provincial Russia capital who serves the Bishop Mitrofanii.
The Black Monk picks up, literally, where Akunin's first Sister Pelagia book ended. Thus, first things first, no one should read this book without having read Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog: A Mystery.
A frightened monk roars into town proclaiming that Saint Basilisk has returned to a provincial religious retreat and is haunting the town. The religious retreat consists of two islands: on the smaller island is St. Basilisk's Hermitage now inhabited only by three hermits; on the larger island, an ambitious abbot (archimandrite) has turned the monastery into a thriving spiritual tourist attraction. Mitrofanii dispatches one investigator after another, but each meets with some ill turn or another. Inevitably, Pelagia goes to the island in her disguise as a Muscovite lady.
With The Black Monk, Akunin has moved beyond the realm of genre or pulp fiction and into literature on a plane with Umberto Eco (one of his influences). But don't worry! Akunin still sets us a good mystery - or two or three - and combines that with compelling psychological studies of his characters' motivations and compulsions and a clash of mysticism with science - not to mention some funny if implicit commentary on commercialism in modern Russia.
Akunin works under the spell of Dostoevsky and Chekov to name only two. Indeed, the book's title comes from a Chekov short story of the same name (See Chekhov, The Selected Stories of). One of Akunin's characters is reading Dostoevsky's The Possessed (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) (also known as The Devils) and lends it another character, an actor who fully absorbs himself into his roles and who also happens to be an inmate at the open air psychiatric clinic on the island! What could possibly go wrong?
Highest recommendation.
Summary of Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk: A Novel (Mortalis)
In the middle of the night, a disheveled and badly frightened monk arrives at the doorstep of Bishop Mitrofanii of Zavolzhsk, crying: “Something’s wrong at the Hermitage!” The Hermitage is the centuries-old island monastery of New Ararat, known for its tradition of severely penitent monks, isolated environs, and a mental institution founded by a millionaire in self-imposed exile. Hearing the monk’s eerie message, Mitrofanii’s befuddled but sharp-witted ward Sister Pelagia begs to visit New Ararat and uncover the mystery. Traditions prevail–no women are allowed–and the bishop sends other wards to test their fates against the Black Monk that haunts the once serene locale. But as the Black Monk claims more victims–including Mitrofanii’s envoys–Pelagia goes undercover to see exactly what person, or what spirit, is at the bottom of it all.Fans of Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, the first book in Akunin’s Pelagia trilogy, will be instantly mesmerized–and frightened–by this latest foray into Zavolzhsk’s spiritual underworld.
Praise:
“For all his status as a globe-circling bestseller, Akunin keeps faith in his sleekly engineered and allusive whodunnits with the classical virtues of Russian prose. . . . That polish lends his books a peculiar charm.”
–The Independent (London)
“Readers can hear echoes of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Anton Chekov in whodunits that, because of their literary overtones, can be guiltlessly consumed as entertainment.”
–Los Angeles Times
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