false 15888 27 <I>An Instance of the Fingerpost</I> is that rarest of all possible literary beasts--a mystery powered as much by ideas as by suspects, autopsies, and smoking guns. Hefty, intricately plotted, and intellectually ambitious, <I>Fingerpost</I> has drawn the inevitable comparisons to Umberto Eco's <I>The Name of the Rose</I> and, for once, the comparison is apt. <P> The year is 1663, and the setting is Oxford, England, during the height of Restoration political intrigue. When Dr. Robert Grove is found dead in his Oxford room, hands clenched and face frozen in a rictus of pain, all the signs point to poison. Rashomon-like, the narrative circles around Grove's murder as four different characters give their version of events: Marco da Cola, a visiting Italian physician--or so he would like the reader to believe; Jack Prestcott, the son of a traitor who fled the country to avoid execution; Dr. John Wallis, a mathematician and cryptographer with a predilection for conspiracy theories; and Anthony Wood, a mild-mannered Oxford antiquarian whose tale proves to be the book's "instance of the fingerpost." (The quote comes from the philosopher Bacon, who, while asserting that all evidence is ultimately fallible, allows for "one instance of a fingerpost that points in one direction only, and allows of no other possibility.") <P> Like <I>The Name of the Rose</I>, this is one whodunit in which the principal mystery is the nature of truth itself. Along the way, Pears displays a keen eye for period details as diverse as the early days of medicine, the convoluted politics of the English Civil War, and the newfangled fashion for wigs. Yet Pears never loses sight of his characters, who manage to be both utterly authentic denizens of the 17th century and utterly authentic human beings. As a mystery, <I>An Instance of the Fingerpost</I> is entertainment of the most intelligent sort; as a novel of ideas, it proves equally satisfying. 950198 book 1997 An Instance of the Fingerpost: A Novel total:1579|5:544|4:548|3:328|2:119|1:40| 1579 6174 2440 271 4 4 false false Mon Jul 30 07:44:36 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 30 07:48:13 -0700 2007 5 3 false false Mon Apr 30 07:54:55 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 30 07:59:25 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 2 true false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 27 10:06:14 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 00:37:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Tue Jun 12 11:43:36 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 11:43:43 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 2 true false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 30 18:18:48 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 05 09:41:44 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 2 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 15 11:04:19 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 15 11:29:52 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 2 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 09 14:47:58 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 09 14:51:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue May 15 08:50:01 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 07 08:57:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 4 false false Sun Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Tue Aug 21 08:50:36 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 21 08:59:28 -0700 2007 4 1 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 05:03:28 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 07:35:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Sat May 30 07:11:16 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 30 14:05:54 -0700 2008 Sat May 30 07:11:16 -0700 2009 0 2 false true Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Feb 12 17:39:01 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 12 17:40:41 -0800 2008
For the first hundred pages, the book was so dull that I trudged along, hoping it would get better. It didn't, and by then I was trapped.

After that, it stopped being boring and became shockingly offensive instead. The writer kil...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Aug 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 06 19:15:09 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 19:17:32 -0800 2009 5 1 false false Sun May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Fri Feb 15 12:10:36 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 15 12:25:33 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Tue Nov 18 06:05:06 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 11 09:38:25 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 19 03:03:59 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 19 03:04:08 -0700 2007
Next up, by the way is Mafouz’s Cairo Trilogy. I started it l...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Nov 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 18 09:03:19 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 28 02:49:41 -0800 2008
]]> 4 1 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jan 16 13:53:17 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 13:58:45 -0800 2008 In essance, the story is 4 pa...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 20 08:40:00 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 20 09:55:59 -0700 2007
This mystery is told from multiple perspectives. Pears does a fascinating job of telling a story with characters who tell skewed stories and half-tru...more...]]> 1 3 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jun 15 11:15:11 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 11:17:17 -0700 2008 sort of read.

I mean, I read as damn much as I could. which was roughly 1/3. it was going nowhere, and honestly, I didn't find it compelling enough to move much further. there's a sort of mystery I couldn't really get into, and there's regular (and, at the end of the b...more...]]>