Conclave [Paperback]

Roberto Pazzi (Author), Oonagh Stransky (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Steerforth Italia Series | Publication Date: March 10, 2003

THE CONCLAVE, the gathering of the world’s Roman Catholic cardinals at the Vatican in complete isolation and secrecy after the death of the pope in order to elect a new spiritual leader, is the setting for Roberto Pazzi’s latest novel, a magical fable rooted in the realities of today. A week, a month, four months go by and still the cardinals cannot come to a decision. The world outside grows impatient, but time inside the Vatican has another quality: oneiric, suspended, symbolic. The cardinals conspire in secret meetings to advance their absurd political struggles with Kafkaesque determination. Who shall rise to don the vestments and wield the authority of the Holy See? A political activist from Latin America? A black cardinal from sub-Saharan Africa, the Church’s leading growth market? A prominent Palestinian whose election would shake up geopolitics? Or has the time come for an Italian to once again wear the pope’s miter? A series of fantastic events intrudes to upset the conclavists’ opulent comfort, steal their dignity, and undermine their faith. The end result is a work of fabulist fiction of the highest order.

“. . . clearly acknowledges Italo Calvino and others who have made fantasy a vital force in contemporary Italian fiction. None-theless Pazzi is his own writer and a marvelous one, too.”-- The Chicago Tribune
“A dazzling reinvention of history that has all the narrative delights of a fine novella, combined with the hard luminous glow of epic verse.”-- The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A rodent infestation of biblical proportions overcomes the Vatican City at the start of this hilarious, sophisticated new novel by renowned Italian poet and novelist Pazzi (Adrift in Time, etc.), just as cardinals from around the world are assembled in an isolated conclave at the Vatican to choose a new pope. While different factions plot to elect their own favorite or political ally, a limousine with Vatican diplomatic plates cruises Rome's seedy alleyways searching out the solution to the rat problem-the Eternal City's notorious feral cats. But what will happen when they can no longer be controlled? Pazzi deftly straddles the genres of fantasy and verismo, laying a meticulously researched foundation for a plot with twists and turns as serpentine as those of any Roman catacomb. As the bizarre, almost chimerical events of the conclave stretch from weeks into months, the elderly clergy begin plotting their escape from the bitter isolation required by papal law. The novel's main character is Malvezzi, the endearing cardinal of Turin, who begins to feel his grip on reality slipping. "Maybe this is how insanity comes on: like an odd habit that you can't find time to address, always waiting for a more opportune moment, until finally it becomes tolerable, almost insignificant." Composed in prose so rich and finely tuned-and seamlessly translated by Stransky-that readers can smell the incense, the novel ends when Pazzi's assembled cardinals at last elect a most unlikely candidate. As clever as Calvino, and funnier, Pazzi deserves a larger readership in this country.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Zoland Books (March 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586420666
• ISBN-13: 978-1586420666
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,007,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stay to the end, the ridiculous turns sublime, August 5, 2003

By 

rthermit (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conclave (Paperback)

Conclave is a perfect story. The prose moves fluidly: I read it in about half a day (kudos to the translator). It is also wonderfully original, without being self-consciously experimental. It is full of magical realism, and entertaining enough to make it worth reading even superficially; but for readers who reflect at all, Pazzi's irreverent antics become a kind of sacred clowning, illuminating some of the most profound theological questions.

Following the death of a long-serving, popular and influential pope, 172 cardinals are cloistered together in the Vatican with the difficult mission of electing a worthy successor. While some of them give lip service to waiting for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and some actually mean to, the truth is that politicking, strategizing, and self-promotion are as rampant in this conclave as in any other throughout history. All are beyond middle age, accustomed to power and prestige, and looking forward to making quick work of the election.

The inspiration of the Holy Spirit doesn't come. Not only does God seem to be staying away, the Devil seems to be firmly in charge. The Vatican is infested by successive plagues of rats, scorpions, and bats, whose supernatural quality is made evident by the selectivity of their destruction of artworks - including the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - always sparing the images of Christ and His Mother. The cloister cannot be broken by calling in an exterminator, so animal predators are brought in: cats for the rats, hens for the scorpions, owls for the bats. To this horrifying menagerie are added a couple of incidents of inadvertent witchcraft, in one case causing all the old men to leave their beds and dance all night long in their pajamas through the halls and stairs of the Vatican.

The cardinals are desperate to get out, and a couple of Americans even attempt an escape, but the twice-daily voting never brings them close to a majority for any candidate. An old Estonian monk suggests that erecting a Turkish bath would give their old bones comfort and help them to accept the cloistered experience. The bath is duly built and enjoyed, but tragically, it turns out to be more than one proud and repressed cardinal can handle. For others, it has the salutary effect of (literally) stripping away the trappings that make them Princes of the Church and reducing them to humbler men.

It is not until the very end of the book, when the ridiculous has completely overwhelmed the sublime, that the depth and beauty of Pazzi's vision becomes apparent. His is the God of Job, Master of both Good and Evil. Out of the crucible that is this conclave comes not only a worthy Pope, but a golden College of Cardinals.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metaphysical satire., April 9, 2005

By 

Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conclave (Paperback)

Cardinal Malvezzi, an undescript italian prelate, has no hopes nor fears for himself.His vague inquietudes, as a new day comes on Rome for yet anoter inconclusive scrutiny, open this mastepiece of a novel. This Conclave will be long and difficult, it will not be easy to find a worthy successor for a Pope so great as the one recently gone to the embrace of Jesus. The Holy Ghost seems to have gone on vacation, whilst a series of grotesque incidents, invasions of rats, scorpions,bats, fought over by cats, chickens and owls movimentate the startled assembly, that only finds peace in a turkish bath built on the Vatican premises made on suggestion of the Estonian delegate, to make the prelates enjoy "the delights of clausure". Two American delegates aren't so keen of these pleasures and try to escape, whilst hallucinations and the daze of tribal dancing convinces the delegates that the Devil has come, obscuring all the saints on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. A stern defensor of ortodoxy meets a quite embarrassing end shortly after have received, literrally, the egg in his face; a mysterious disappearance of an African Exorcist cardinal, and his startling return will be the events that sall bring the exausted cardinals to their final choice.
At times hysterically funny (one has in mind the humour of Mark Twain mixed to the sense of the absurd of Sterne)and posing serious questions on the nature of Faith and Religion, this novel is quite satisfactory. I recommend it to the readers of all persuasions in the matter of religion. It'll make them laugh and think. A not so common combination.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, July 16, 2010

By 

M. Lilah - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conclave (Paperback)

a philosophical and surreal novel. I enjoyed this satire on the Vatican and look into the spiritual world of the catholic church. Highly recommended