Subject: Mary Gentle: The Architecture of Desire

From: [email-masked] (Gareth Rees)
Date: 29 Jan 94 20:57:43 GMT

The Architecture of Desire by Mary Gentle
			 A book review by Gareth Rees
			  Copyright 1993 Gareth Rees

     This is not quite a sequel to "Rats and Gargoyles", but it does concern
two characters who appeared in that novel and in the story collection "Soldiers
and Scholars": Valentine Roseveare, master-physician of the Invisible College
of soldier-scholars (and yes - for once the cover is an accurate portrayal of
her dress), and Balthazar Casaubon, corpulent Rabelasian master-architect
likewise.  Together they make one of the oddest couples ever seen in the
fantasy genre.

     The plot is unconnected with that of "Rats and Gargoyles" - indeed there
are few hints that we are in the same universe as that of the magical,
crumbling 'city at the heart of the world' ruled by demons and rats, that was
depicted in that novel.  Instead we are in a cross-dressing seventeenth-century
England, where Queen Carola and the Protector-General Olivia vie for power on
the brink of civil war.

     Seventeenth-century London is, under Gentle's eye, as lushly described as
the nameless city of "Rats and Gargoyles": here, the heads on poles along
London bridge mutter a recitation of their crimes; weathervanes croak weather
forcasts and offer directions; the Queen cures disease with her touch; and
Isaac Newton discovers that, contrary to popular opinion, the sun goes around
the earth.

     There are, however, basic problems with the writing.  The manic
page-by-page scene-switching that made "Rats and Gargoyles" hard to read has
calmed, but Gentle is still reluctant to call her characters by name: Valentine
is referred to variously as 'White Crow', 'Roseveare', 'master-physician',
'soldier-scholar', 'the cinnamon-haired woman' and by other epithets.  This is
especially disconcerting as Valentine is, for much of the novel, the viewpoint
character.  Pages of unattributed dialogue are followed by a sentence like "She
looked at the woman", and the reader must look back frantically to find out
exactly who looked at whom.  This kind of thing would be so easy to correct,
and would do wonders for Gentle's readability - let's hope her editor is
reading this.

     The plot?  Valentine and Casaubon are seemingly far removed from turmoil
at their country estate.  But trouble comes in the form of a summons for
Casaubon to London where plans to build a puritan temple to the sun are being
ruined by supernatural influence.  Valentine meets the Protector-General's
messenger, Desire-of-the-Lord Guillaime, fails to save her from rape and then
gets the hots for her, with tragic consequences.  Valentine is embroiled in
machinations between Olivia and Carola.  Casaubon discovers that the temple
cannot be built.  The rapist is sentenced to hang.  Valentine and Casaubon fall
out over Desire-of-the-Lord, and the ending is provocatively inconclusive.

%T The Architecture of Desire
%A Mary Gentle
%I Bantam Press
%D 1991