The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan PotockiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've never been a particularly fast reader and this book was consumed in the smallest of sips until I was stuck in hospital for a week and swallowed the last 300 pages in one gulp.
Jan Potocki sounds like a character that Jan Potocki would invent: nobleman (count to be exact), warrior, diplomat, poet, lover, etc., etc. According to legend he killed himself with a decorative strawberry from the top of his silver sugar canister. Each day he filed away at it for a few strokes and when he it was through he settled his bills with said silver berry.
Of course, this tale isn't part of the novel, but it might as well be. The whole story cycle is wrapped in various layer of narrative: a French officer who discovers the eponymous manuscript; Alfons von Worden, the young Flemish nobleman on whom the story centres; and the various other protagonists whose stories we are party to.
Initially the book delivers well on creepiness and ghoulish goings-on, but as it advances it becomes increasingly earthbound, or rather earth-scouring, because we are dragged from the mountains of Andalusia to Madrid, to the New World, North Africa, Sicily and Spain, the Hapsburg empire, Egypt, Palestine and beyond.
All the while what we hear are stories of the "I was born the first son of a grandee in the largest town in Murcia" kind. They are on some level formulaic, but also charming the lightness (or complete absence) of characterisation. Here action is all.
I don't know if the above qualify as reservations, but I would certainly not recommend this book to everyone. It packs a massive amount of stories into a relatively small space, has a density that might not be everyone's cup of tea, and follows a relentless course through metaphysics, cabala, islam, picaresque and adventure novel. It's also a fascinating meditation on romanticism and anti-modernity that only reveals its true colours very late in the game.
If that doesn't put you off, by all means give it a go. You could be pleasantly surprised.
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