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Rating: On 7/7 of the year 777, in the abbey of Vectis, a seventh son of a seventh son is born, and can we guess what his name is? Sett...
No, his name is Octavus. And the Iron Maiden have nothing to do with it, I swear. This boy, born under grim omens and, moreover, mentally delayed, spends his life writing an infinity of names with their respective birth and death dates on thousands of books, creating—with the help of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—the infamous Library of the Dead, or an immense register of the births and deaths of all earthlings of all eras. The prolific scribes will finish their work when they reach the date February 9, 2027, the so-called "horizon line," which is not exactly the end of the world, because not everyone seems destined to kick the bucket on that date. But this was the narrative device of the Library of the Dead, which began as a thriller with the Doomsday case: original, undoubtedly, evocative, although then Americanized with inevitable dealings with the CIA, the usual brash and somewhat stereotypical FBI detective, and the galloping all-action Hollywood-style finale.
The Book of Souls is the second novel by Glenn Cooper, linked to the first in this way:
- those who haven’t read The Library of the Dead, cannot read The Book of Souls;
- those who have read The Library of the Dead, can perfectly well choose not to read The Book of Souls.
Yes, because far from being its sequel, to borrow a term from cinematography, the Book of Souls is its less fortunate clone: a pure commercial operation aiming to ride the wave of Cooper's success. Unfortunately, there is nothing new compared to the first chapter, the events described faithfully echo what has already been recounted, and the impression during and after reading is the same: what new thing is the eclectic Cooper telling us? Nothing. The characters (the same ones) revolve around the discovery of a phantom missing volume (the Book of Souls, precisely), and the novel is a long treasure hunt involving the usual brash and somewhat stereotypical FBI detective and long flashbacks on the history of the volume itself, a story that intertwines nothing less than the lives of Shakespeare, Calvin, and Nostradamus. Moreover, it intertwines them poorly, very superficially, and quite unbelievably. And then, let's face it: the treasure hunt is a narrative device that after The Da Vinci Code no longer holds any literary credibility.
So, amidst the usual getaways from the CIA in Gestapo mode and theories of predestination explained to the masses (or housewives), the novel concludes—quite briefly, all things considered—without giving anything: already the Library of the Dead seemed rushed to publication, with unforgivable errors for a publishing house (the protagonists' names swapped, especially in crucial scenes), this volume also seems written essentially to meet contract deadlines.
It seems that Italian translators have made their contribution to make the form even more poor: I haven't read the original version, but if this is the breakthrough author of the last two years, we're not in good shape.
If Glenn Cooper had been Ken Follett, that is, one of the few modern authors who can weave seemingly incredible stories, this might have been an engaging novel, and probably not less than 1500 pages. Instead, Cooper wrote it, and it's a work devoid of quality, preferring the easy twist over the intelligent solution, the scoop over cultural revelation. And to think, as a continuation of the Library of the Dead, a little more imagination would have been enough to make it a (truly) new and good novel.
Strongly discouraged.
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