Customer Reviews

The Abyss (Black Swan)

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The Abyss is one of the two books that haunted Marguerite Yourcenar during her whole life, the other one being the famous "Memoirs of Hadrian".
Zenon, the Hero of the Abyss, is much closer to the author as he shares with her the passion for the unknown countries of the soul and the spirit. Like always, Marguerite Youcenar delivers an analytical vision of the universality of human condition without turning her book into a boring dogma. She has the unique talent and intelligence to be habited by her characters and delivers here a chef d'oeuvre in many regards. The accuracy of the description of the torments of Zenon emphasized by the precise knowledge of major events of this part of this history transforms almost this book into a mystical experience. The chapter named "The abyss" is a piece of literature that can be read many times while still discovering a teaching or a new element of poetry.
It would be VERY unfair not to mention here, Grace Frick, Marguerite's life companion, who was maybe the best French translator of her generation and delivers here a maginificient English text.
Du grand art!

After reading her Memoires of Hadrian, I was delighted to find that Yourcenar had written another historical novel. This book is so dense with detail and emotion that I was astounded and fascinated on almost every page. It is simply brilliant, successfully bringing to life a dark and alien period of history.

WHile this book, at least in French, is touted as being about a man "between the Medieval Ages and Renaissance," it is best at chronicling the personal consequences of the religious wars on everyday lives. Zenon is an alchemist, but above all a tolerant and humanistic physician in an age of religious intolerance. His caring and vision, after a neglected childhood in a merchants' household, are indeed deeply moving.

Zenon is a great original in historical fiction, an intellectual rather than a king or empire builder. You follow him as he wanders about Europe, learning, teaching, healing, and occasionally loving. The tenderness and empathy that he feels for those around him reveal the tenor of the times in exacting detail.

Warmly recommended.

Reading a book by M. Yourcenar, a prose writer of great skill, is invariably a delight. The scope of her novels is epic, the composition is as intricate and carefully crafted as a Beethoven symphony. Here in The Abyss, the main theme of the book - the clash between the impetus of momentous historical forces and the destiny of a single human being - is introduced in the very first sentence of the book. It accompanies the reader throughout the book as an insistent motto theme. Yourcenar's prose is carefully polished and aristocratic and reflects her admirable erudition. It is a language with the colour, texture and depth of a precious fabric or an excellent wine. The pace of the book is naturally rather slow, particularly in its second part where the alchemist and doctor Zenon has settled down again in Bruges and is given to long bouts of introspection. But the noble pacing is fully in accord with the gravity of the subject matter and the stakes involved. I think the book has lost nothing of its relevance today, a time in which civil rights are being widely curtailed in the name of abstract principles. As such it warrants closer study by those wanting to resist these pressures and to stick to honest and authentic choices.

The Abyss is a remarkable study of two men in early sixteenth century Europe. One is looking for worldly pleasures, the other for something more serious. It's the latter man, Zeno, who becomes one of the most unusual heroes in modern novels. Yourcenar traces the man's intellectual growth against the background of a Europe whose collective mind was also growing, and shows how a powerful intellect can triumph over bias, superstition, and intolerance. The writing is wonderful, with long sentences that meander over pages the way Zeno wanders through the continent; the characters met along the way are memorable; the philosophical discourses are fascinating. It's not an easy read, but perhaps as worthwhile as any other book published in the last half century.

I read this book several years ago and although I no longer remember many details I still think of it as one of my favorite books. It recreates around the life of the main character all the main issues of the historical period concerned: The crumbling of the medieval political order and the slow rise of the Nation-States, the Reformation and the Religion wars and, in general, all the chaos generated by the decline of Medieval thought and the emergence of a myriad of new alternative conceptions about mankind, nature and society. What makes this book so marvellous is that it masterly combines all these issues into a literary work elegantly and coherently written.

The book speaks for itself and I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in historical novels. However, I can tell that it is much more enjoyable with some knowledge of the politics and ideas of the time, because that is when you find out all the work that the author had to do in order to present this incredible novel.

Although I do not consider it as a demerit of the work, the only thing I dislike of the book were the final reflexions of Zenon, because they have certain twenty-century sartrian flavor, which -although valid- cause frictions with the so lively historical atmosphere created by the author.

An absolutely beautiful study of the world of a sixteenth-century Flemish achemist and the tribulations he eventually suffers. It's pretty scholarly and there are no shenanigans involving the making of gold etc., the usual tropes. It takes its milieu very seriously and though it's very scholarly it in no way fails to involve the reader with the main character's quest for enlightenment. Things do come to a head, plotwise, in that Zeno is eventually persecuted on trumped-up charges of a heretical nature, admittedly, so there is a bit of the conspiracy element but it's not really the focus. Anyway, this is as good as John Banville's best historical novels such as 'Dr Copernicus' and 'Kepler'. The little essay at the back of the U.K. Black Swan edition is a fascinating document of the 60-year on-off piecing-together of what was originally a fragment and an excellent elucidation of how she researched it, what she took from where etc. 'The Abyss' was first published in 1968 and translated by Grace Frick with the author.

The main character in this novel, Zeno, is a physician, alchemist and philosopher who lives in the 16th century in Europe. This century is marked by extreme religious fanaticism (extermination of the Anabaptists in Münster), natural disasters (the plague) and the advent of many new ideas (Paracelsus, Copernicus), also in sexual matters (more freedom).

Zeno is the prototype of the anti-establishment protester who doubts, but who everywhere and openly expresses his views on the existing world order. Because of his outspokenness he is seen as a real danger by the existing politico-religious rulers.
His discussions with the masters of the world are crystal clear. Personally, they criticize heavily the existing world order. They see perfectly the huge dichotomy between their worldview and the real world, between the precepts of their religion and the real actions taken by their reigning politico-religious colleagues. But, there is no question of challenging the powers that be; they are in fact the first to profit from them.
After a wandering life in Europe, Zeno returns to Bruges, where he is attacked for his assistance to Protestants, his political tracts and a sex scandal in a cloister causing the death of a newborn.

Pessimism
While the 'Memoirs of Hadrian' are an expression of the author's serious hope in a political leader (a just and sincere emperor) who is capable to save the world, 'The Abyss' is a fundamentally pessimistic book which paints a world of pure ferocity.
This ferocity is a deeply ingrained human instinct, which expresses itself not only in religious dogmatism and fanaticism, but also in political tyranny and war.

This book is a long meditation on the sense of life, seeing the true nature of mankind, rampant selfishness and the cowardice of the masters of the world.
It is one of the greatest masterpieces of French and world literature.
A must read.

Marguerite Yourcenar is one of the towering novelists of the twentieth century, the first woman to be inducted into the French Academy. The Abyss is an essential for any serious library.

I regret - somewhat - that I shall be the first reviewer here to bequeath this meticulously-researched, erudite novel less than five stars. But I have become increasingly sparing in doling such unreserved accolades out, and have determined that only life-changing masterworks deserve them, such as Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, to which I gave five stars without hesitation. It certainly bests any of Amazon's "Top novels of the year" which I received in an e-mail today. Of course, such novels are for the hoi polloi in any event, and I would be unlikely to give more than two stars to any of them. Also, I couldn't help but notice that all the reviewers here save one are from continental Europe and seem to me to reek not a little of Yourcenar acolyteship, which is all good and well. It's merely that I approach the book from a, shall we say, less devotional perspective.

So, first of all, for the unwary member of aforementioned hoi polloi who might stumble across this review, the book is not for you. It's for contemplative, philosophic readers who know how to construe Zeno's iterative phrasings in Mediaeval Latin, which I admit I enjoyed doing immensely. It's for people who can relate intensely to the character Zeno, who feel their alienation from the masses quite sharply and deeply, who disdain the barbarism of the rabble, and who reflect upon the world and their life continuously...and, above all: It is for those who despair.

For all the talk of the book's resembling a painting, a Bosch or Brueghel vision of the Lowlands, I found Yourcenar's descriptions rather bland and plodding. Landscapes are simply not her strong suit. They evoke no deep emotions in the characters or in the reader. Also, the narrative is quite disjointed, something Yourcenar goes to great pains to explain in her lengthy Afterword, but which I found unconvincing.

The greater part of the book takes part in Zeno's head. As Zeno himself puts it:

"But the notion of ascension or descent was wrong, for stars burn below as on high; he was neither at the bottom of the gulf nor at its center. The abyss was both beyond the celestial sphere and within the human skull."

The final chapter - I must say - is magnificent. Here Yourcenar rises to the brilliant poetic heights for which she strives - but never quite attains - in the preceding pages. Never has felo-de-se been described with such grandeur, anguish and humanity.

So pronounced is its effect that it made a part of me want to do exactly as Zeno. It incited a very strong urge in me to end what is, after all, a pointless existence, sub specie aeternitas.

But, for the time being, I decided to pen this review instead.

This is a story of a human being trying to escape the horrors of humanity. Yourcenar's writing style is simple and sensual but epic in it's description on an individual discovering inner self-love within a very dark outer medieval time. This is a tender but haunting book, likely to last a long time in the reader's memory.