Eclipse

‘We cannot help looking, at every opportunity, for signs of a miracle in our daily lives.’

This was such a fascinating and unusual read. A young Dominican monk goes on a scholarly quest, only to get caught up in a strange, hermitical alchemists work, culminating in a bizarre sequence of events, both natural, and perhaps, supernatural.
This story was definitely not what I expected it to be. It wasn’t an easy read, as the novel is dense with philosophical theory, questions and monologues about the meaning of life and religion’s place in society. Despite this, the story still flowed well, and I found myself always wanting to know what would happen next. This novel was both intriguing and enjoyable to read.

I don't suppose there are many people who would expect a novel about pre-Renaissance religious thought in Europe to be a particularly entertaining read but "Eclipse" is a fascinating and ,it could be said literally ,enlightening book. Equally,if you haven't read it,it is surprising that a book on this subject should be a massive seller,an award winner and considered a classic in Japan.

The somewhat spare plot involves a young Dominican scholar interested in the links between Pagan and Christian teachings as written about by Thomas Aquinas and others. On a journey to Florence in search of a pre-Christian manuscript recommended to him by his mentor he's directed to a small village along the way and told that a local Alchemist has knowledge that will help him in a different kind of journey.

That brief description doesn't even touch the sides of what an amazing book this is, I rarely read books twice but along with The Prophet it's one I'll read again and again. There's so much insight here,so much to think about and learn. I'm no scholar but author Keiichiro Hirano's skill in making some quite complex theological ideas and principles not only accessible but fascinating is the work of a master. At times I struggled as something totally new to me was related but the device of the young Dominican struggling himself with these ideas and his thought processes giving both himself and the reader an explanation for the layman is genius. This is a lot more than a novel,in a small number of pages there's philosophy,theology ,history and a wide range of spiritual and esoteric lore.

The effort made to bring this book to an English-speaking audience also deserves mention, A large team of academics were involved and impressively author Hirano was also involved in the translation making sure that the English language version of his work was as he'd want it to be.
The first time I read this book it was Google to hand to decipher some of the more archaic words and read about some of the early teachers mentioned which broke the narrative at times. I'll definitely be reading it again at least once so that's a one off issue ,and of course I learned something new along the way which is never time wasted.

Quite and amazing book that I'm confident will been seen very quickly as a classic work in the English-speaking world as well as in it's native Japan.