Salamander [Paperback]

Thomas Wharton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2002

Nicholas Flood, an unassuming eighteenth-century London printer, specializes in novelty books -- books that nestle into one another, books comprised of one spare sentence, books that emit the sounds of crashing waves. When his work captures the attention of an eccentric Slovakian count, Flood is summoned to a faraway castle -- a moving labyrinth that embodies the count's obsession with puzzles -- where he is commissioned to create the infinite book, the ultimate never-ending story. Probing the nature of books, the human thirst for knowledge, and the pursuit of immortality, Salamander careens through myth and metaphor as Flood travels the globe in search of materials for the elusive book without end.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Montreal Gazette Witty, elliptical and provoking...Delightful.

Edmonton Journal This novel cannot help but connect deeply with its readers...[It is] a sprawling, lush fable that is equal parts adventure, romance, treatise, and history...[Wharton] strikes off across an exotic terrain already brilliantly traversed by such figures as Umberto Eco, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino.

Quill & Quire A vigorous, imaginative novel about the power of reading and invention.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Salamander leaves an exotic flavour in the mouth, and will reward its readers with the sense that they have been taken on a strange journey.

From the Inside Flap

Spellbinding, original, Salamander careens through a world of ideas and stories in which the transforming power of books, the thirst for knowledge, and the pursuit of immortality become erotic. It is also a universal story of love and obsession. Set in the eighteenth century, the narrative revolves around a world-spanning quest for the infinite book. Along the way the novel gathers stories that range from a Chinese tale of jealousy and lost love to the remarkable history of Alexandria?s other great library and to epoch-making moments on the battlefields of colonial America. At the centre of the novel?s unforgettable cast of characters is the London printer Nicholas Flood, a dedicated craftsman who is unprepared for all that awaits him when he accepts an unusual commission. Intricate, humane, infused with humour and pathos, Salamander is an exhilarating, elegantly crafted novel. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press; Original edition (August 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743444159
• ISBN-13: 978-0743444156
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #589,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enough imagination for a much bigger book, July 1, 2003

By 

T. Adshead - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salamander (Paperback)

The book opens during the siege of Quebec in 1759, just before the town is about to be taken by the British. A French count meets a beautiful girl in a bombed out bookshop, and she tells him the story of one of the books in the shop...

The rest of the book is the story of Nicholas Flood, who is brought from London to the Balkans by an eccentric Count, who wants him to create books that will fit in with his castle. The castle is designed so that all of the rooms are in perpetual motion, moving like a giant clockwork toy. Flood's first commission is to make a book without end. However, he falls in love with the Count's daughter, and when they are discovered, Flood is imprisoned, and the daughter is banished.

Giving away more would spoil the surprises in the plot, which not surprisingly, is driven by Flood's desire to find the Count's daughter once more, despite the obstacles that are put in his way. In the process of doing this, he creates another magical book.

This is a historical novel that will appeal to you if you liked "Perfume", "The Name of the Rose" "An Instance of the Fingerpost" or the Thomas Pargeter novels, or "A Case of Curiosities". The only thing that stops it getting five stars is that I felt it pulled its punches a bit - there are enough materials in here for a much bigger novel, and once you are immersed in the world that Wharton creates, you don't want to leave. If every character's backstory was described as lovingly as the French aristocrat in the first chapter, there would have been a lot more to the book, and I would have enjoyed it even more.

I felt that once Wharton had created so many interesting characters and situations, he would do a lot more with them, especially as he sends them all over the world (Venice, London, China). Having said that, other readers may prefer the fact that the novel is not that long, and the story is certainly satisfying. No loose ends or anything like that.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suspend your belief for a moment, September 29, 2003

By 

Butterfly Review (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Salamander (Paperback)

Oh how I would love to enter the castle in Salamander! What a strange place, you wake up in a different room than you went to sleep in, walls move and change.

A book creater is hired to create a book like no other for a count during the 1700's. The problem begins when Flood, the book creator falls in love with the counts daughter.

A engaging mystery with love and a bit of the fantastic sprinkled in. A dalightful read.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Second Effort, August 22, 2002

By 

John W. McCarthy (Washington, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salamander (Paperback)

This novel, the author's second effort, is a complex, romantic and fascinating fable. While focused on the manufactured puzzles of printers, automata-makers and the like, the book's early eighteenth century characters manuever through the puzzles of their lives. From Hungary to Venice, Alexandria and farther afield, Salamander is a puzzle unto itself, that rewards the reader with good writing, big ideas and strong narrative.