A Mapmaker's Dream : The Meditations of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice

Rating:
Summary: Merely clever, not engaging, because inauthentic vehicle
Review: Cowan is a talented wordsmith and has fascinating trivia to explore. Having chosen a Renaissance monk as his voice, however, he should have made some effort to identify, authenticate, justify that personality and worldview. The reader needn't be an antiquarian nor a theologian to be irritated by this supposedly dedicated Christian scholar being so entirely self-referencing and self-absorbed. So much Asian mysticism and 20th century psychobabble are anachronistic. This author needs a good editor and a better thread or theme on which to exercise his talent.

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the reading
Review: I beg to differ with several who have reviewed this book before me. The premise of the book - a monk trying to draw a perfect map of the world - frames the story in a worldview very different than our own. Understanding the prefect map to require knowledge of the flora, fauna and culture of the place is far from our concern with projections and satellite accuracy.

Once one has understood the fundamental world view of the monk, the story becomes an interesting unfolding of stories from a variety of travelers - some true, some fanciful - that slowly brings Fra Mauro to question the presuppositions of his world view.

As such, the book helps us to understand something of the strain on European culture as it opened out to the rest of the world in the age of exploration.

Rating:
Summary: This is an excellent book
Review: This novel, the story of a Renaissance monk, Fra Mauro, who was acartographer living in Venice, was delightful. I was hooked from theintroduction on. The way the introduction was written it sounded like Fra Mauro really existed, but that could be part of the story. The story is about this monk, living in a monestary in Venice, who's dream is to create a perfect world map. He does this in spite of the fact that he has never traveled. He is visited by sea captains and travelers of all sorts who tell him what they have seen. The real story is in what the travelers tell him and how he makes those tales his own. This book was a pleasure to read. I have recommended it to several friends and will continue to do so. This is not a difficult book to read. It can be read on many different levels. I hope you enjoy it.