Customer Reviews

Conclave

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4 star:		(1)
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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.

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.

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

I agree with what the earlier reviewer said. But the book also contains a lot of factual information about how a Conclave is conducted, which readers may find of interest at the present time, when a Conclave is about to meet.