UID:
kobvindex_ZLB34661392
ISBN:
9781609456245
Content:
" A thoroughly immersive read and a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral tells a sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire in gripping prose. It deftly combines historical fiction and a tale of adventure and intrigue.At the center of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the Rhineland town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town's Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg's Cathedral, which in no way enforces morality or charity. Around this narrative center, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise. Fans of Umberto Eco, Hilary Mantel, and Ken Follett will delight at the atmosphere, the beautiful prose, and the vivid characters of Ben Hopkins's Cathedral. "
Content:
Biographisches: " Ben Hopkins is a screenwriter, film-maker and novelist. He has lived in London and Istanbul and now lives in Berlin. His films include features and shorts, fiction and documentary, and have won awards at festivals such as Berlin, Locarno, Antalya and Toronto Hot Docs. " Rezension(2): "〈a href=http://www.kirkusreviews.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/kirkus_logo.png alt=Kirkus border=0 /〉〈/a〉: June 1, 2020 This first novel by screenwriter Hopkins imagines a paean to the glory of God arising from the unholy muck of the Middle Ages. By the year 1229, a lofty Cathedral--a bishop's vanity project, always capitalized--is already in the works in Hagenburg, Germany. The Bishop's treasurer is not enamored of the idea, opining that a constant river of silver and gold flows into that damned hole, providing the wages of the idle, and paying quarrymen, foresters and glaziers for their so-called labour. The bishop has just passed into Glory, the Lord Treasurer is abroad, the pope is dead, infidel hordes besiege Jerusalem, and all is in turmoil and flux. No wonder the Cathedral takes so long to build. Meanwhile, young Rettich Sch�ffer is an apprentice stonecutter working on the Cathedral, wanting to buy his freedom from the bishop, so he borrows from a Jewish moneylender. The stories of Christians and Jews intertwine over the decades, with piety and decency largely absent from center stage. Surrounding the rising edifice in Hagenburg are degradations of every kind--the siren calls of Temptation, Debauchery and Vice and the Magical World of the Goyyim. Sodom without cataclysm. Hypocrisy abounds, as when Father Arnold chants over the bodies of dead bandits, because God listens to what he saysThe priest gets an extra sixpence for every Last Rite he gives. He was probably praying for a massacre. Jews like Yudl ben Yitzhak Rosheimer privately regard the Cathedral as the Abomination. To him it is just a pile of stones and vain idols, an excrescence of the sinful earth. Well, it's either that or the finest Cathedral in the German Lands. Across the decades, no one character dominates this story of ambition, vanity, and power. In the midst of a plague, a mother and child find cold comfort within the completed empty church as the Witch of Winter rode the wind. A thoroughly engrossing, beautifully told look at human frailty. COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. " Rezension(3): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from November 30, 2020 British filmmaker Hopkins’s ambitious and satisfying debut uses a big story—the century-plus cathedral building project in Hagenburg in the Holy Roman Empire (now Lower Saxony)—to tell an even bigger story—the rise of merchants and the corresponding decline of the church through the 13th century. Characters play roles in the never-ending skirmishes among nobles, burghers, Jews, and the church, but they read like real people. Prominent among them are three siblings: Rettich, who buys his freedom and gets a job helping to build the cathedral,his brother, Emmle, who becomes a Jewish merchant’s gentile right hand,and sister Grete, the ambitious wife of a city trader. Also crucial: Von Rabern, the Bishop’s cranky but honest treasurer,Yudl, a Jewish boy torn between being a scholar or a merchant,and several nobles. What links them all is money, which is loaned, borrowed, stolen, and withheld, as goods, services, and secrets are bought and sold while the cathedral rises or stalls. Six hundred pages sounds long, but this deeply human take on a medieval city and its commerce and aspirations, its violent battles and small intimacies, never feels that way. This sweeping work is as impressive as the cathedral at its center."
Language:
English
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