Secrets of the Camera Obscura [Hardcover]

David Knowles (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The second of this publisher's pair of new novellas (see The Forty Fathom Bank , above), Knowles's disturbing debut explores the strange spell cast by the camera obscura, a room-size camera whose reflections cause dark behavior among those who explore its unique perspective. Part murder mystery, part historical flashback, the story is told by the camera's caretaker, a recluse who documents the camera's past in a journal while charging a minimal sum to tourists who wish to enter the device. When a young Italian woman who is a regular visitor to the giant camera is decapitated on a nearby cliff, the caretaker becomes suspicious of a gentleman who made her acquaintance inside the camera. Woven into the narrator's recitations of suspicion, guilt and jealousy is the account of the camera's bizarre past, which involves its two Chinese inventors, Leonardo da Vinci, who refined and perfected it, and Vermeer, who used the camera's perspective in his paintings. Knowles ably juggles story and premise, capturing the narrator's Dostoyevskian guilt through a terse, agitated interior monologue. Though the history proves sometimes difficult to follow, Knowles surmounts this minor flaw to deliver an intriguing set piece effectively overlaid with an atmosphere of menace and mystery.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-The mood is Poe-esque; the premise of a male photographer/storyteller working and living in a camera obscura is offbeat. An Italian woman whom the photographer met has been decapitated and he feels compelled to solve the murder. Now a dash of history is added through flashbacks, as readers see through the storyteller's eyes interesting details about the lives of two Chinese inventors as well as about Leonardo da Vinci and Vermeer. The theme of decaptiation surfaces again and again. YAs interested in photography, art, history, or a good mystery will be fascinated by the emotional tension in this novella.
Ginny Ryder, R.E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 138 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; First Edition edition (March 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811806553
• ISBN-13: 978-0811806558
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,382,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem worth the trouble to find., August 7, 1998

By 

BEN RILEY "autodidactic polymath" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of the Camera Obscura (Hardcover)

A brilliant piece of fiction that succeeds in carrying the reader along a tightrope between genius and insanity, between desire and obsession, and between the challenges of intellectual pursuit and primal self-interest. This slim little volumes's legacy is to haunt your thoughts long after the last page has been read. You must read this book!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not all things are as they appear in the camera obscura..., June 6, 2002

By 

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets of the Camera Obscura (Hardcover)

The camera obscura is housed in a small, box-like, concrete building atop a hill overlooking the ocean surf. The only clues that it isn't a storage shed or a utility space are the worlds - GIANT CAMERA -- painted in black on one side. Which is precisely what the device is -- a giant camera. A series of mirrors reflects the panorama of the Pacific onto a screen in the center of the dark chamber, creating an image that is almost magical in its beauty. It is a sight that has sparked deadly rivalry. It has driven men mad. It has claimed lives. In fact, it's still doing it... right now.

Near the end of my first reading of Knowles' esceptional novella, I asked myself: what authority does the author have to recast the major figures of history as deviants and scoundrels? Does the end result justify his means? In my humble opinion, the answer is a resounding "yes!". Underneath an insipid and meandering exterior, Knowles' novella is a gem of precise plotting, polished tone, and bizarre vignettes (one character is described as having invented the submarine "to escape the world of women on land"). It takes real talent to write something so consistently humorous and puzzling, even upon re-reading (in fact, I suggest reading the book twice - it's a mere 138 pages long, a night's reading).

Even the author's mundane, conversational language and the little, irritating, anachronistic faux-pas he commits so frequently (like art "yet to be hung" on the walls of Leonardo's Vatican, or sugar cubes in Vermeer's Delft) and his main character tries to pass off as historical truth serve to gradually estblish the narrator as a less than sympathetic character.

In the end, the book boils down to the question whether the camera does indeed bear an ancient curse, or if the "patterns of history" are siply products of an agitated imagination. I lean toard the latter, that the narrator is playing out his fantasies in his research journals, but there is no real, unequivocable evidence either way. Then again, who is the blind woman in the photograph? Is Darin as innocent as he claims? What did happen on that foggy night? It's easy to jump to the obvious conclusion, but far more tantalizing to ponder the possibilities.

For what it's worth reading, "The Secrets of the Camera Obscura" is worth reading twice. I hope I have helped you make the decision whether it's worth reading at all.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant work, February 24, 1998

By 

Chess Heart "paxbear" (Canton, OH) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Secrets of the Camera Obscura (Hardcover)

Knowles has written a beautiful, moving work rich in languageand imagery. Through the eyes and experiences of the main character,who owns, operates and researches the camera obscura, we get a glimpse of one man's thoughts and obsessions, his loves and encompassing fears. Going between his bed, the library and the camera itself, only meeting those who enter the camera obscura, we fully enter his head and his small, focused life in a way that other writers fail to do in hundreds of pages. I would recommend tracking down this title even it takes a good deal to find it . Highly recommended!!