|
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Nicholas Salaman
reviewed by XXX
Original appearance: Albedo one issue XX, 199X
Nicholas Salaman's novel The Garden of Earthly Delights takes its title from a painting by Hieronymous Bosch. The painting is a strange melange of the wondrous, the beautiful, the sublime, the odd, the terrifying and the repugnant. It is a testament to the breath of imagination not just of one man but of mankind. That it was allowed to survive the moralistic posturings of four hundred years of religious dynasties is a testament to the obvious genius of the painter.
Nicholas Salaman has taken the creation of this painting and set it as the centre piece of a short period of history that has all the hallmarks of a dark fantasy invented by a master of his craft. Yet the novel is based upon truth. It is only in the normality of the innocent protagonists, acting as contrast to the monstrous perpetrators of spiritual insanity who people the rest of the work, that the author has utilised pure invention. Of the major characters only the lovers around whom the action revolves have any innate goodness; the rest, those based upon real people, are virtual monsters, the type that only the perverted pressures of the real world can create.
Julius, an orphan and a bastard, is apprenticed to the painter Hieronymous Bosch. His master is not a well man and, sensing that the end is near, reveals to Julius an uncompleted masterwork The Garden of Earthly Delights. The painting is in three parts but a portion of the third scene is incomplete. Bosch tells Julius that he must complete the work.
The apprentice is eighteen and though skilled is overwhelmed by the task of completing this work of greatness. But after his master's death the painting disappears and no-one will admit to even knowing of its existence.
In quick succession poor Julius is railroaded into marriage by a merchant's daughter, reacquainted with the painting, supplied with a small income from an unknown source and moves from his home to the nearby town of Rensburg, which is in the throes of a religious upheaval.
The themes that Salaman has woven into the broad canvas of this novel revolve around love, desire, betrayal, lust (for both power and physical gratification) and the weakness that is at the core of man (both spiritual and moral). He has used his historical horror fable to point up universal truths. But unless you wish to hold up his mirror and stare into the ugliness he reflects from our very souls, then I suggest you pass up this most insightful novel.
Those who feel strong enough to survive this careful dissection of the worst (and parts of the best) of what we are will find The Garden of Earthly Delights sterling. A light read it is not.
.
|
