Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès

Where does one begin? The sweeping scale of Where Tigers Are At Home is crushing to behold. But wait, I don't want to lose my focus. The experience was mine, why this was a victory for me, jon faith. I haven't felt this geyser of love for a book in a while. It wasn't a keen appreciation or anything sophisticated or technical. It simply was a joy, the way that Mason and Dixon and Three Trapped Tigers glowed in my 20s. I've noticed that I am drawn to the reviews of books which I love or harbor a certain desire towards. Within this tangle of the personal, there is an amazing novel. One which unfortunately pulls up lame as it ignores its three "contemporary" plotlines in deference to the nominal biography of 17th Century polymath Athanasius Kircher. J.M. Blas De Robles handles the situation with verve, keeping a deep control for the tone of his time period, much as John Banville accomplishes in his Kepler and Doktor Copernicus. Yet somehow the novel suffers. Too much of the other narrative arcs are left unresolved. The plot devices employed are themselves unsatisfactory, but alas. I was adrift in bliss for 500 pages.

P.S. But what does it all mean? No, for once I'm not waxing existential, I'm referring to the novel. For starters, Brazil is a vast nation, populated by immense numbers of the poor. Its interior is also a primordial wilderness where tribes may wander, yet contmainated by our decadence. Officials are often brutal and corrupt. Drugs can be transportive. Or they can just fuck up your life. Oh and Queen Christina of Sweden did some wonky things 350 years ago.… (more)