The Long Silence of Mario Salviati: A Novel [Hardcover]

Etienne van Heerden (Author), Catherine Knox (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2003

"This is what's always kept us together," said Jonty quietly. "It's the dream and the possibility that give meaning to Yearsonend. . . . For years now it hasn't been about gold . . . it's been about much more than that. . . . Take Mario Salviati, for instance: once the gold is found, the general will let him go. We'd be able to leave the past where it belongs. . . ."

Secrets abound in the South African Karoo -- a remote landscape of mountains and desert, where legend weaves its way into daily life. A fabulous merman sculpture miraculously appears one morning in the yard of eccentric artist Jonty Jack, and Ingi Friedlander, a young art curator for the National Gallery at Cape Town, comes to Yearsonend to buy the masterpiece. When Jonty refuses her offer, Ingi resolves to stay and win him over.

Intrigued by hints of the town's unusual history, Ingi persistently questions its inhabitants, who reveal that a mythical trove of gold is buried nearby. For several centuries gold fever has gripped the town and sent ripples of suspicion through those who live there. Tracing the roots of Yearsonend's violent and magical history of feuding families, troubled love, and corrosive greed, the narrative shuttles between the past and the present, linking two patriarchs with shadowy pasts, an earthy angel, a woman without a face, a ragtag band of soldiers, and a host of other colorful characters. As Ingi delves deeper into the mysteries of Yearsonend, she is inexplicably drawn to Mario Salviati, a deaf, dumb, and blind Italian stonecutter who holds the key to many of the town's secrets.

A spectacular climax sheds light on many unanswered questions, and Ingi and the Yearsonenders learn that they are searching not only for their past, but also for the promise of the future. With extraordinary imagination and lyricism, Etienne van Heerden captures the essence of a land steeped in myth, and of a culturally diverse people, for whom storytelling and history are inextricably linked. In the rich magic-realism tradition of One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Long Silence of Mario Salviati is an unforgettable journey toward understanding and inspiration.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Van Heerden applies the palette of magic realism to a remote South African village in the Great Karoo, where a beautiful South African art curator undertakes a quest to procure a mystical statue. Ingi Friedlander makes the journey from Cape Town to the tiny town of Yearsonend, intent on purchasing the huge, controversial wooden monolith dubbed the Staggering Merman by local sculptor Jonty Jack Bergh, who discovered it one morning outside his cottage. As she sounds him out on the possibility of a deal, Ingi becomes infatuated by Jonty, and she also becomes immersed in the local folklore as their relationship begins to blossom. A colorful cast of secondary characters helps bring the village to life, as its residents focus on a muddled but ardent ongoing effort to find a cache of gold that was hidden during the Boer War by Jonty's grandfather, Meerlust Bergh. This subplot revolves around the hidden knowledge of a silent, elderly stonecutter named Mario Salviati, who refuses to reveal the location of the treasure he discovered while helping Jonty's father build a channel for the local dam. Van Heerden's intensely lyrical prose and lighthearted, whimsical storytelling keep the labyrinthine plot from bogging down, and the juxtaposition of art and avarice is a spicy combination. The bloom may be off the rose with regard to magic realism as a genre, but Van Heerden proves that there's plenty of life in the form.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In the town of Yearsonend, a statue has risen from the earth to appear in the yard of Jonty Jack, a struggling sculptor. Jonty has named it the Staggering Merman and refuses to sell it to any of the art museums vying for it. Ingi Friedlander, from Cape Town's National Gallery, is determined to have it, and so she travels to Yearsonend to seek out Jonty. Interwoven with Ingi's quest is the story of Jonty's father, Big Karel, who came up with the novel idea to run a channel over Mount Improbable to bring water to Yearsonend. Ingi becomes increasingly curious about Mario Salviati, a deaf, dumb, and blind Italian man who helped Karel in his quest. Ingi is drawn to Mario and his untold story, even as Jonty is both repelled and attracted by her. "How can you ever comprehend a community like Yearsonend if you only look at dates and forced removals and statues and facts?" Jonty wonders. A rich, vibrant novel that muses on the place of art and legend in the modern world. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Regan Books/HarperCollins; First edition. edition (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060529733
• ISBN-13: 978-0060529734
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,970,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Imaginative and different, February 13, 2003

By 

Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Long Silence of Mario Salviati: A Novel (Hardcover)

A book like "The Long Silence of Mario Salviati" suggests that there must be a number of very interesting novelists writing in Afrikaans. Etienne van Heerden has woven touches of magic realism into the appealing history of the town of Yearsonend, a dusty little nowhere town on the stony plains of the Karoo, making us realize that magic realism has not run out of steam, and that in the hands of some writers it still has the power to amaze and amuse.

Word of an astonishing sculpture appearing the yard of a local eccentric brings art administrator Ingi Friedlander from Cape Town with the aim of acquiring the piece for South Africa's new parliament houses. She is surprised when its discoverer, an impish fellow named Jonty Jack Burgh, not only refuses to sell it, he won't even show it to her. Not one to give up easily, Ingi sticks around and becomes entranced by the strange tales swirling around the tiny town which involve, among other things, gold, a man entombed in a cave with four horses and a carriage, the decorative feather industry, and a deaf, mute, and blind former Italian prisoner of war named Mario Salviati.

Ingi's poking around has the whole town on edge, including the local angel--a beaky fellow who spends most of his days picking at fleas on his wing feathers. The Yearsonenders see themselves as a closed-mouthed crew but in fact they are not, and Ingi collects a great deal of information. Might she be just be the person who has to release Yearsonend from its guilty trance? Or should she just run like hell and risk returning to Cape Town without the sculpture?

We don't get to read much non-topical literature from South Africa, and this novel is an interesting slice of pre-and-post Apartheid 20th century. "Mario Salviati" is a charming, touching book , nicely written, well-translated, and different.