The Pope's Rhinoceros [Paperback]

Lawrence Norfolk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2003

The Pope's Rhinoceros is a vivid, antic, and picaresque novel spun around one of history's most bizarre chapters: the sixteenth-century attempt to procure a rhinoceros as a bribe for Pope Leo X. In February 1516, a Portuguese ship sank off the coast of Italy. The Nostra Senora de Ajuda had sailed fourteen thousand miles from the Indian kingdom of Gujarat. Her mission: to bribe the "pleasure-loving Pope" into favoring expansionist Portugal over her rival Spain with the most exotic and least likely of gifts -- a living rhinoceros. Moving from the herring colonies of the Baltic Sea to the West African rain forest, with a cast of characters including an order of reclusive monks and Rome's corrupt cardinals, courtesans, ambassadors, and nobles, The Pope's Rhinoceros is at once a fantastic adventure tale and a portrait of an age rushing headlong to its crisis.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Umberto Eco, Lawrence Norfolk has created a dizzyingly dense and impressively erudite fantasy of a novel, a vast edifice based around a single, actual historical event: the sinking off the coast of Italy of a Portugese ship bound on a bizarre mission, to deliver an African rhino to Pope Leo X. Norfolk takes his readers on a world tour of the 16th century, from the flophouses of Rome to the rain forest of West Africa, and along the way he piles historical esoterica upon philosophical rumination upon myriad subplots and minor characters. The chains of event and coincidence and the encyclopedic references will exhaust some readers long before the mad quest for the rhino meets its watery end, but Norfolk's baroque talent remains inexhaustible. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Set in the 16th century, Norfolk's epic second novel takes its premise from an actual event: an unsuccessful Portuguese attempt to bring a rhinoceros to Rome by ship, in order to curry political favor with Pope Leo X. But historical fact is no more than a springboard for Norfolk's extremely (perhaps excessively) elaborate and occasionally mythic fictional construction. At the novel's center is Salvestro, a somewhat reluctant soldier of fortune who becomes a steadfast companion to Bernardo, a dim-witted hulk with fearsome physical strength. After they have been used as pawns in a maze of machinations and deceptions within the Italian military, the pair escape back to Salvestro's Baltic home town; but soon afterward, they return to Italy as guides for a group of beleaguered monks. In Rome, Salvestro and Bernardo become mixed up in the attempt to procure the exotic rhinoceros, undertaking a perilous sea voyage that deposits them on an equally perilous African coast. While some may enjoy Norfolk's whirligig of deceptions and double crosses, less patient readers will find the narrative frustrating. Norfolk indulges a penchant for withholding information, and his vaguely delineated, staggeringly complex plot twists involve a huge cast of characters. As he proved in the intellectually heavyweight Lempriere's Dictionary, he's clearly a virtuoso stylist. But in the end, this novel, more a tour de force of technical mastery than a compelling narrative, impresses more than it entertains.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802139884
• ISBN-13: 978-0802139887
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,718,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Pope's Rhinoceros..., July 19, 2004

By 

M. Tehrani (Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pope's Rhinoceros (Paperback)

I started reading Lawrence Norfolk's second Novel on a flight from London to Houston in early April 2004. I finished it on July 18. The last book that took me as long to read was Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses". Both books are fascinating, but at times immensely tedious. I intend to read both again after I retire!
I found the style of the book descriptive in the extreme. This worked in some instances, like the description of the rainforest somewhere in Goa?/Africa?, but often was at the expense of good story telling and a cohesive narative. The reader is very likely to lose sense of times, places, events and characters as some of the naration is actually a parade of memories taking place inside some character's mind. As a result, the reader might read a whole chapter without having any sense of time, place, event, etc.
As has been said by others, the ending was rushed and was in no way in proportion to the less improtant but extremely verbose descriptions given elsewhere.
Some of the likeable characters were treated unsympathetically. For example, can someone tell me what happened to Bernardo whose fortunes we followed in detail most of the way, but who suddenly disappeared without any fuss.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolute Brilliance!, April 3, 2001

By 

Eric Fick (Holland, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pope's Rhinoceros (Paperback)

Lawrence Norfolk is one of the only modern masters of language and storytelling we have, and I believe that we should not only appreciate it but praise it as well. As with his first novel "Lepmpriere's Dictionary", which was a story of strange twisting plots and a great reservoir for historical mystery, "The Pope's Rhinoceros" is only the best book to follow. It of course has its strange tangents that we, as an audience, are learning to be the style of the great author, and minor plots that boggle the mind even after the last page has been read. There are things too reminiscent of Lempriere's such as the character of Septimus whom we are so intrigued by but so uninformed about, we get a new view on this angelic character and only find that we are closer to understanding without even a new hint as to what it means. His, Norfolk's, ability to write so detailed on certain things as the way of life of a fish in the sea, a colony of rats, or the history of a river or strange occurrences on remote islands, is impeccable. To achieve through writing alone, an enchantment that will devour your reader, without even the elements of a story is not an easy task and yet Norfolk produces it in the blink of an eye, and makes it appear all too natural. I think anyone would terribly enjoy this book, and those who would not are just those who become aggrivated when a piece of work forces them to think a little. The only negative of the book that I can even fathom is that he has so few books under his belt that when you finish Lempriere's and the Pope's who will be left waiting impatienly, clawing at and climbing the walls, for his next work to be published.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A challenging book that's not for everyone, March 27, 1998

By 

SCOTT X. NELSON - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pope's Rhinoceros (Paperback)

I'm a sucker for the time period in which this book is set (the so-called age of enlightenment). And the author captures it perfectly, from many many points of view. You get pieces of the story as perceived by fish in the sea, insects in a forest, the rats of Rome, and of course the fascinating people populating this epic tale. The problem is that I am very often disappointed by endings, and this book was no exception. When all is said and done...and suffice it to say that a lot IS said and done during the course of this novel, the entire scope of the story just doesn't amount to much. Its real strength is in the telling of the story. Great vignettes, language, imagery, and a magical mix of fantasy, reality and sorcery.