The Magician and the Fool

Surreal sliding through Minneapolis and Rome:
Jeremiah Rosemont is a far-fallen academic star, an art historian with specialized knowledge of--and uncanny experience with--tarot decks. Having exiled himself from the United States, he finds his wanderings through Nicaragua interrupted one night by the mysterious delivery of a plane ticket to Rome. There, he stumbles into a maelstrom of occult forces and figures gathering around a deck of uncertain origin and powers. Another figure with links to the deck is the Boy King, a vagrant in Minneapolis with strange and formidable talents. The chapters alternate between Rome and Minneapolis, while the story meanders through time and space, until the lives of Rosemont and the Boy King finally dovetail with surprising consequences. This is Mr. Anderson's second novel, and in it he displays prodigious gifts, seamlessly blending items such as transcripts of interviews, faxes, and redacted government letters with amazingly vivid descriptions of surreal events, such as this scene from a festival in Rome: "A crowd of men in gas masks were playing sanders, drills, and one man with a whining electric saw was pressing it against an iron slab, sending up rooster tails of sparks over the crowd, all of which turned upon multifold Moroccan rhythms and the singer's reverent, warbling voice." (p. 197) (The use of mirrors in Rosemont's first key romantic liaison and the conclusion is also noteworthy.) On the other hand, he refuses to spoon-feed the reader with "what's really happening" behind the viewpoint character's immediate thoughts and perceptions--leaving enigmas such as the identities of minor characters unresolved--and the result is a post-modern fever dream that feels longer than its 290 pages and should captivate a reader who lets him/herself succumb to it, but that is unlikely to enlighten or educate (with the exception of tarot lore, but even there, one struggles to separate fact from myth from fiction). Overall, this should be a fascinating library loan for mature fans of modern or literary fantasy (but to this reviewer, it was much lighter and less rewarding than Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, for example). Its card is ... the Three of Stars.

I Am the Fool for Paying for this Book:
There is a pretentiousness suffused throughout this book that continued to baffle and annoy me as I read. I had this constant awareness of an author behind the scenes, pulling strings, setting up this elaborate structure to tell a story that didn't need to be told that way. There was too much artifice involved and too little art, in the end, to look at and appreciate. The story is about tarot. Would I recognize depictions typically found in a standard tarot deck if I saw one tomorrow? Maybe I'd recognize three or four cards, but that's it. The book gives you a rather foggy history of tarot - and that comes in little puffs only - and does an even worse job at what should have been the easiest: "showing" the reader the cards, letting us get to know the tarot basics a little better, like "well, what do they look like?"... but no! That is because of the artifice employed by the author. He wants us in so close to his protagonists that we're supposed to take for granted exactly what they're taking for granted. We're supposed to already know (or stop reading and go look up) what those characters already know. And, at multiple points, when a protagonist is in a perfect position to ask other characters for information - to orient both himself and the reader - the author lets the moment slide by, choosing to avoid any kind of exposition at all costs. And, on top of that, I'd argue that both of his protagonists can squarely fall into the category of "unreliable" narrators (as you look out from their close-third points of view), so even when you think you might actually have something figured out... well... later on you find out that you really probably didn't. There is no "sage/guide" character in this story, that's for sure! This author gives you no help at all. In fact, as I read this story, I was regularly jarred with the annoying realization that the author simply wanted to raise questions, make things mysterious, and leave things hanging, unanswered, and unresolved - at almost every possible turn. Hope you like to feel regularly frustrated while you read. Suffice it to say that this story, when I finished it, left me with the distinct impression - no, the absolute belief - that the purpose of the whole thing was to simply present "the mystery" that is/might be tarot. Not to put too fine a point on it, spoiler-wise, but you had better be plenty interested in star-crossed homosexual romance to get any sort of satisfaction out of this book. Otherwise, you'll need to be (or get) somewhat educated on tarot, the Iliad, the Aeneid, ancient Roman founding history, Sumerian/Babylonian mythology, Atlantean/Lemurian speculative history, and ancient Egyptian religion to "get" a lot of what's not being explained in the story. Rest assured, though, that there will still be plenty of unanswered questions left over, even if you've done your homework! The saddest thing is that there truly is a rich, bold story to be told here in this book... yet the author only allows us to see tiny glimpses of it. (Ever look through the wrong end of binoculars? Perhaps you begin to understand my point.) I finished this book with an overwhelming sense of disgust - mainly at myself for wasting my money and time. I should have read several pages in the store, like I usually do. Thus I type now out of a self-inflicted pain, which I do deserve. Congratulations, Bantam Dell book cover copy writer: yours was a job well done!

A rushed out early work by Anderson?:
I couldn't help but feel while reading this book that it was an early work by Anderson that was rushed out by his publisher to take advantage of the well-deserved acclaim for Patron Saint of Plagues, which is a far superior piece of storytelling. The plot is summed up in the other reviews, so basically all I'll say is halfway through the book I felt like the plot was just getting started, another quarter of the way through and it felt like nothing big had really happened yet, then he quickly rushes through to the end with a sloppy climax that ties together the two story threads in pretty much the most obvious deus-ex-machina-way possible. MAGIC DID IT! A HUGE disappointment for a HUGE fan of his previous book. Hopefully this is indeed just an early work they picked up after the success of PSOP and his future books will be up to the standard of his first.

I'm Stumped:
Over the last couple of years, I've had bad luck with literary fiction. I'm going to call it bad luck, in spite of the lingering suspicion that maybe I just don't like literary fiction. I'd hate to have a whole genre that I don't care for. Anyway. As is usual in the literary fiction I've been reading, "The Magician and the Fool" has a strong opening and quality prose. These are not inconsiderable things. But I suppose -- is it too much to expect a coherent story, too? Perhaps there is a story here that I just couldn't follow. Or maybe I'm just too stubborn to try to follow it? To be fair, it is one of the stories that tells you right off that there is no ending to be had. That reality is what the author tells you it is. Is it wrong to expect more? The PW review above suggests (but does not state) that the story didn't really make sense to the reviewer. I'm going to say it right out. I'm stumped. I just don't get it.

Foolish, not a bit magical:
Barth Anderson may be a skilled writer, but he is a terrible storyteller. This book is a mash of confused plotlines the reader has no chance at figuring out - unless they're experts in the history of Rome, ancient Egyptian gods and the development of the tarot deck. Certainly the author felt no compulsion to explain anything. The two main characters, Boy King and Rosemont, are both damaged amnesiacs. They can't remember the events of their own pasts although the refer to them tantalizingly through the book. Rosemont used to be a professor until he was beaten half to death for reading tarot cards by a mysterious cult. There's another cult that two women belong to: Priscilla and Marnie. One of them may have raised Rosemont after his mother died but his mother may not be dead and could, in fact, be living in Poland. I only read this book all the way through because I was stunned that anything this bad would actually be published. Oh, and it turns out both Boy King and Rosemont are both insane or possibly victim of dark magical forces so you can't trust anything they tell you. If you're a fan of soap operas channeled through schizophrenics on acid this book is for you.