Let's Talk of Graves, of Worms and Epitaphs (Black Dagger Crimes (Hardcover))

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading in conjunction with Hadrian VII
Review: In the mid-nineteenth century, Barnabas Barbellion wants to be Pope. But he is not a Catholic. He's an Anglican rector, with a wife, three children (one illegitimate) and a mistress. This peculiar book is partly a murder mystery story, but most interesting for its similarities to the extraordinary 'Hadrian the VII' by the so-called Baron Corvo. Both feature clerics of overweening ambition who achieve the papacy under bizarre and unlikely circumstances. In both cases the central character is unloveable to the point of repellence: cold, hard and slightly mad men. In 'Graves' the prose is distant and the action hard to engage with. There is an Edwardian feel to the writing, although its author, a noted architecture academic, penned the book in 1975. I thought the basic murder mystery plot was a distraction to the book's description of how the devious Barbellion eventually achieves the pontificate, and disappointed that there is virtually nothing about his reign as Paschal IV. However, the sheer audacity of Barbellion's machinations holds your attention.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading in conjunction with Hadrian VII
Review: In the mid-nineteenth century, Barnabas Barbellion wants to be Pope. But he is not a Catholic. He's an Anglican rector, with a wife, three children (one illegitimate) and a mistress. This peculiar book is partly a murder mystery story, but most interesting for its similarities to the extraordinary 'Hadrian the VII' by the so-called Baron Corvo. Both feature clerics of overweening ambition who achieve the papacy under bizarre and unlikely circumstances. In both cases the central character is unloveable to the point of repellence: cold, hard and slightly mad men. In 'Graves' the prose is distant and the action hard to engage with. There is an Edwardian feel to the writing, although its author, a noted architecture academic, penned the book in 1975. I thought the basic murder mystery plot was a distraction to the book's description of how the devious Barbellion eventually achieves the pontificate, and disappointed that there is virtually nothing about his reign as Paschal IV. However, the sheer audacity of Barbellion's machinations holds your attention.