Play Book Tag discussion
This topic is about
An Instance of the Fingerpost
July 2020: Other Books
>
An Instance of the Fingerpost; 4 Stars
date
newest »
newest »
This sounds interesting. I always like Rashoman type stories with different eye witness reports/perspectives. What does fingerpost mean?
NancyJ wrote: "This sounds interesting. I always like Rashoman type stories with different eye witness reports/perspectives. What does fingerpost mean?"A fingerpost is a road sign at an intersection with arrows showing several directions. It is also a term used in England in the 1660s that mean a priest. In this book, the term has both meanings, in that each of the 4 narrators has a different perspective (direction) of the murder, and a cleric is a character of the plot.
Anyone who liked Wolf Hall would probably enjoy this.
When a professor at Oxford University if found dead under rather unusual circumstances, a young peasant woman is accused of the murder. She comes from a rather dubious background, so is a convenient suspect.
The novel is divided into 4 parts, each told in first person from 4 different perspectives. Each of the narrators has reason to twist the truth. Furthermore, their accounts of the events surrounding the murder are ostensibly written years after the event, thus memory fades actual events. Each narrator describes the events based on their own personal biases, which provides the reader with many plot twists.
Many of the characters in the novel are actual historical figures, including Robert Boyle and John Locke. Because this novel revolves around a murder, the reader is also introduced to the nascent field of forensic science and medical science. Religious beliefs forbad the autopsying of bodies, however, clever scientist were able to find a loophole to procure bodies.
This is a very long novel, but it is just jam-packed with history, science and religion of England in the mid-1600s. I found it it be a fascinating novel and I learned a lot in the process.
4 Stars