Chymical Wedding, The

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable
Review: A wonderful book: a thrilling intellectual romance and a serious meditation on the nature of love. Far and away the best of the strange spate of parallel-lives historical romances of the past several years. Readers of Fowles, Eco, Morrison, and even Bradbury and Arthur Clarke will enjoy "The Chymical Wedding" immensely. Profoundly moving, quite unforgettable.

Rating:
Summary: If you can get a copy, read it!
Review: I am so grateful to have a friend that passed this book on to me when she found a copy in a used bookstore. It is among the best works I have read. Lindsay Clarke has crafted a tightly woven bewitching story that draws the reader in from the start. The characters are engaging for both their strengths and their foibles, making them both real and complete. And their respective evolving quests, both within themselves and with the world around them, are so common to us all that the reader will probably see something of him/herself in all of the characters. I know little of alchemy but came away from the book wanting to read more on the topic, as well as embarking on a search for more of Mr. Clarke's novels. Never in my experience has a work of fiction prompted such simple but transformative revelations of consciousness - shifts in thought and perspective that come from the spell of the tale itself, not the preachings of either the author or one of the characters. By all means, read it!

Rating:
Summary: Enchanting, bewitching, heady brew; highest recommendation
Review: It was a brief comment (surprisingly, a review of a different book) that caused me to seek Lindsay Clarke's *The Chymical Wedding;* so, during a recent trip to England, I haunted the bookstores. My wife grew frustrated ("This is a vacation!") and I grew frustrated ("Where is this danged book?!") but frustration became success, and then pleasure.

Based solely on the (English edition's) cover art and blurbs, I thought this novel would include some measure of the fantastic, of magic. There is magic, but it is in author Lindsay Clarke's prose - limpid, lambent, poetic - and in his wonderful, bewitching tale.

Clarke's conflation of poetry, magic, alchemy, relationships (strong and closely bound; failed and lacking the ties that bind), and time (as expressed via the parallel stories, and the demi-bridge between them that aging and reclusive Edward Nesbit manifests) simply fascinates the reader. Protagonist Alex Darken (clever name!) intrigues: the success he enjoys as poet is insufficient to overcome his failings as teacher, as husband, as person. His maladroit handling of his life leads him to 'take a retreat,' the better to reassess the shambles. Once ensconced in Pigthle (the name of the rented cottage), he goes out for a walk and espies Edward and Laura, and then meets the town locals; there went his planned retreat from life...

I dare you to click on the link above and read the sample pages; I dare you to stop reading. I clicked the link, and found myself once again enchanted, bewitched, and down from the shelf came the novel to savor once again its heady brew. Highest recommendation.