Customer Reviews

Waking Raphael

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

WAKING RAPHAEL is another worthy addition to the growing genre of history and art history thrillers populating bookshelves these days.

Charlotte, a repressed divorced Brit, has traveled to Urbino, Italy --- the birthplace of artist Raphael --- to restore "La Muta," one of his paintings. While removing previous repairs to the painting, layers of Urbino's history during the war unfold as well. Like the painting of the silent woman, the town's inhabitants and the novel's characters each have their own unique reasons for silence. The silence is, as they say, deafening. With a town's horrible secrets at risk here, the folks of Urbino will stop at nothing to ensure that their age-old mystery remains undiscovered. But this is not to be.

A documentary company is shooting a film about the restoration. The on-camera talent is Donna, a dimwitted but attractive reporter, who cannot read even the simplest of text, but clearly has a sharp eye that something here is amiss. Charlotte and Donna begin to realize that the town holds a dark truth below its surface when the painting is attacked by a mute woman.

There is some heavy metaphor about silence and breaking silence here. Charlotte is incapable of expressing her feelings. The true mute who lives in San Rocco on the periphery of the town says nothing. Donna speaks volumes, about nothing. The count lives a secret life of adultery, hidden from all involved. Each silence and awakening propels the story onward.

With a narrative that was sometimes difficult to follow, WAKING RAPHAEL is redeemed by lush descriptions of Italy, the countryside and the people. The scenes involving food contain sumptuous writing where the reader can taste the tenderness of the prosciutto, the smoothness of the ice cream and gelato, and the delicate cheeses. Magic, religion, art and history weave together to make a compelling story.

--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara

Middle age art restorer Charlotte Penton travels to Urbino, Italy to work on a fabulous project, restoring a faded Raphael painting, La Muta, The Silent Woman. The renovation assignment is difficult as Charlotte must first peel away the previous "repairs" to get to the basic masterpiece. Then she applies skill, experience and guesswork to mend the painting.

Following Charlotte to Urbino is youthful Canadian media star Donna Ricco, who is the pretty girl frontal visage for an arts restoration program. Donna quickly finds the tedious meticulous work boring, but knows she must bear it if she is to get ahead in her career. When a mute woman defames the masterpiece, the two visitors see it differently. Charlotte is appalled but wants to learn why while a gleeful Donna sees a terrific story. As the two North Americans combine resources to learn the truth, they will open up secrets from the war and much more about grandmasters that the town's elderly want left hidden.

This engaging tale hooks the reader from the moment that the mute woman desecrates La Muta because the mystery within a mystery is embedded in an incredible background tidal wave of art, history, legends with a hint of the paranormal, local politics, and religion. The lead duo is dynamic opposites except both have energy that will make a marathon runner feel like a couch potato. Fans of crime thrillers with an edge will want to read WAKING RAPHAEL and obtain Leslie Forbes' previous tales, BOMBAY ICE and FISH, BLOOD AND BONE as this reviewer plans to do.

Harriet Klausner

An interesting plot combining bits of WWII outrages with what is happening in nineties' Urbino. The tale twists and weaves a lot due to a mulitude of characters introduced. Many of the characters are implausible and the book has to contrive various unconvincing vignettes around them to knit them into the story. My general reaction was that the reader was introduced to too many points of view which weren't prioritised and as the book draws to a conclusion I began asking myself who cares? Also there is an annoying habit throughout of introducing the criminals in short conversatiosn without their identifying names. They usually hint at violence to come, but at the end of the book I wondered why they were there at all, since their roles are both thin and thinly described. I agree entirely with the reviewers who wrote that the book took too long to read. It is not a page turner.

This book is set in Urbino, Italy and involves the restoration of a painting by Raphael called La Muta. The plot is extremely complicated and there are many characters. The principal character is the English art restorer, Charlotte Penton, recently divorced and feeling very mousy and unsure of herself. Other characters are a beefy ex-communist butcher, an Italian count with strange sexual predelictions and a secret to hide, a Canadian girl who is literally trying to "screw" her way up the career ladder, etc. etc.

This is not an easy book to read. The book is "told" in a series of "miracles." Like looking at camera flashes. There is very little continuity in the plot and you have to focus on the flashes, like following the dots, to figure out what's going on in general. One miracle or camera flash will be three old men talking in a cafe, while the next one will be of the restorer looking out her window. A very awkward presentation. Many times the speaker is not identified, so you have to guess by the accent or placement of the scene who it is.

I think to really appreciate this book you have to have some knowledge of art restoration, Italy, Christian symbolism and even the Catholic church. A knowledge of current Italian politics helps too. For example, the name of the destroyed town, a central focus of the books, is San Rocco. It helps to know in advance that San Rocco is "Saint Roche" and that Saint Roche was the patron saint of veterinarians, an animal lover who was kept alive by a wolf/dog who brought him bread. One of the central "characters" in the book is a mysterious wolf, who is protecting a modern day St. Roche, a mute woman. Knowing this factoid and others sprinkled through the book in advance helps.

The depictions of the countryside, the architecture, the speech and characteristics of the Italian inhabitants of this medieval city and their interrelationships are spot on. The food descriptions are too die for. I have never been to Urbino but would love to go.

I did not fully appreciate this book until I read it a second time. I recommend the book but warn that it is not easy going. This isn't a "beach book" or easy read but for me it was worth it.

I found the first half of this book slow going. I was introduced to too many unlikable characters with vague hints of terrible violence. I almost put the book down. However, a book has to be horrible for me to quit reading and so I continued on and I am glad I did. It was interesting to see how Fascism affected Italy and why so many Italians turned to Communism. Also, the characters became more life-like and likable and I actually enjoyed the ending. Not much of a mystery, but the descriptions of the Italian country-side and way of life was very enjoyable.

This book has brilliant and beautiful moments. It has all the ingredients to make it a book I could love: art, history, Italy, mystery, small towns. Writing is very good. Yet, it just did not all come together for me. There was just nothing to hold it all. I was having hard time identifying with any of the characters - they all seemed sketchy and remote. They lacked warmth of real people. Art and history provided just some fragments of the background, never being explored enough to become interesting.

Given all that, the plot itself was not interesting enough, and mystery not much of a mystery. I did not find myself wanting to go back to reading.

I was excited to read a book that was a historical-modern-Italian-art book, but it took me a while to get through the book. There seemed to be many unnecessary characters and a lot of vamped up importance of things that you never really find out much about. I thought that it could have been much better, but I gave it 3 stars because it is a story that had a lot of potential.

This book got such high reviews from everyone else, that I was really excited to read it. Was I ever disappointed. The book moves so slowly, I was forced to go to the end to find out what was happening before I was bored to death. If you don't want a quickly moving story with interesting characters, then this is the book for you. Otherwise, I would pass it up. Dull! Dull! Dull!

This marvelous novel has a lot of this and that and more throughout. Many parts: Art including the titular Raphael not to say art restoration; spooky wolf; luscious cuisine including ICE CREAM; part history, WWII and betrayal; fabulously gorgeous Urbino and Umbria -- entirely fine is this novel. I'm sorry to have read it because I'd rather read it again in virgin mode.

in fact, it was pretty boring. Sure, there were metaphors, but the characters were boring, and it was hard to care about what happened to them. And what was up with the wolf??? And why did Fabio and Paolo create the "miracles"? What happened to the mute woman after she left the courthouse?? If you really want to read this, get it at the library....don't waste your money.