It is fairly meaningless to say that David Flusfeder’s latest novel represents a “departure”, as he is a writer whose work is characterised by its protean subject matter. But in this latest book – a delight – he plunges much further back in time than previously, to the 1260s. The setting is around 60 years earlier than Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and has at its heart the Franciscan monk and scholar Roger Bacon, who also inspired Eco’s protagonist. Bacon, confined to his monastery quarters because of his dangerous scientific knowledge, sends his young lay pupil, John, across Europe to deliver the magnum opus he has written to Pope Clement IV. As religious wars tear Europe apart, the pope is not in Rome but holed up in Viterbo in central Italy. John’s journey there, in the company of two young friars, Brothers Andrew and Bernard, is terrifying, a true pilgrim’s progress, but it is, above all, a wonderful exploration of freedom. More about the emotional experience of journeying than the destinations, this is a marvellous feat of imagination and (lightly worn) scholarship.
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