The Magician and the Fool
by Barth Anderson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barth AndersonEdition: Paperback
Published: 2008-03-25
ISBN: 0553383590
Number of pages: 290
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of The Magician and the Fool
Book Review: I Am the Fool for Paying for this Book
Summary: 1 Stars
There is a pretentiousness suffused throughout this book that continued to baffle and annoy me as I read. I had this constant awareness of an author behind the scenes, pulling strings, setting up this elaborate structure to tell a story that didn't need to be told that way. There was too much artifice involved and too little art, in the end, to look at and appreciate.
The story is about tarot. Would I recognize depictions typically found in a standard tarot deck if I saw one tomorrow? Maybe I'd recognize three or four cards, but that's it. The book gives you a rather foggy history of tarot - and that comes in little puffs only - and does an even worse job at what should have been the easiest: "showing" the reader the cards, letting us get to know the tarot basics a little better, like "well, what do they look like?"... but no!
That is because of the artifice employed by the author. He wants us in so close to his protagonists that we're supposed to take for granted exactly what they're taking for granted. We're supposed to already know (or stop reading and go look up) what those characters already know. And, at multiple points, when a protagonist is in a perfect position to ask other characters for information - to orient both himself and the reader - the author lets the moment slide by, choosing to avoid any kind of exposition at all costs.
And, on top of that, I'd argue that both of his protagonists can squarely fall into the category of "unreliable" narrators (as you look out from their close-third points of view), so even when you think you might actually have something figured out... well... later on you find out that you really probably didn't.
There is no "sage/guide" character in this story, that's for sure! This author gives you no help at all. In fact, as I read this story, I was regularly jarred with the annoying realization that the author simply wanted to raise questions, make things mysterious, and leave things hanging, unanswered, and unresolved - at almost every possible turn.
Hope you like to feel regularly frustrated while you read.
Suffice it to say that this story, when I finished it, left me with the distinct impression - no, the absolute belief - that the purpose of the whole thing was to simply present "the mystery" that is/might be tarot. Not to put too fine a point on it, spoiler-wise, but you had better be plenty interested in star-crossed homosexual romance to get any sort of satisfaction out of this book.
Otherwise, you'll need to be (or get) somewhat educated on tarot, the Iliad, the Aeneid, ancient Roman founding history, Sumerian/Babylonian mythology, Atlantean/Lemurian speculative history, and ancient Egyptian religion to "get" a lot of what's not being explained in the story. Rest assured, though, that there will still be plenty of unanswered questions left over, even if you've done your homework!
The saddest thing is that there truly is a rich, bold story to be told here in this book... yet the author only allows us to see tiny glimpses of it. (Ever look through the wrong end of binoculars? Perhaps you begin to understand my point.)
I finished this book with an overwhelming sense of disgust - mainly at myself for wasting my money and time. I should have read several pages in the store, like I usually do. Thus I type now out of a self-inflicted pain, which I do deserve. Congratulations, Bantam Dell book cover copy writer: yours was a job well done!
Summary of The Magician and the Fool
For hundreds of years, men have sought their hidden futures in the legendary images of the tarot—but what secrets of the past are harbored by the priestess, the magician, the hanged man…and the fool? The author of the explosive The Patron Saint of Plagues returns with a richly textured mystical mystery exploring the dark heart of one of our oldest traditions.Years ago, fallen scholar Jeremiah Rosemont left the bitter rivalries of academia behind and now lives a simple nomadic existence in South America, far from the arguments that once defined his life. But he can’t outrun his past…or the dangerous truth that lurks beneath his abandoned studies. Following an enigmatic summons to Rome, Rosemont finds himself at the center of a mystery that dates back to the fall of Troy, the pursuit of a mystical treasure many are willing to sacrifice fortunes and lives for: the earliest known tarot deck.
As Rosemont delves deeper and deeper into the tarot’s unsettling secret origins, his own fate is inexorably intertwined with that of the Boy King, a homeless man with an unspeakable gift…and a mysterious past of his own. For these two men—and the demons, dupes, and power seekers drawn to them—the cards will reveal everything, even the shattering, unseen truths of human life itself.…
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