At first I was annoyed by a cut too short and artificial. Chapters of two or three pages certainly encourage sustained reading but prevent me to immerse myself in history. Many scenes have been developed, thorough, even sacrificing some other frankly useless.
My biggest regret, however, concerns painting, or rather the lack of paint, the author of the time (1313, the Middle Ages) which is its history. At no time did I have the feeling of being immersed in ancient times, I have not felt the bitterness of this violent age, rude. I have not seen the sounds, the smells, the dirt in the streets. For me Loevenbruck offered us a fourteenth century pasteboard, as in these cloak and dagger films of the 1950s It is only compared with the work done by Robert Merle, for example, which in his famous series of Fortune France actually teaches us how people lived, what they ate, how they are cared for, etc. 'the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Jean-François Parot also anchored much more sound Nicolas Le Floch in his time. In the work that we are talking about the action might as well have taken place in the fifth century as in the sixteenth without this change there anything fundamental. So Paris is a city like any other, not much different from Etampes. Yet the author has managed to give us a rather successful description of Burgos and an interesting insight Compostela.
But the weakness of the design unfortunately does not stop there in my opinion. The main character is certainly apothecary, but at no time, despite some fast and light intrusion, I had the feeling to enter the mysteries of its function. I am not entered his laboratory, no decoctions, maceration, only came flatter my nostrils, the ingredients seem very thin on the bench and few secrets have been revealed to us on how to extract the principles assets. Again Loevenbruck would have made his hero an architect or a glass such that it had not changed much to the story.
Let us admit that this Andreas Saint-Loup is apothecary. And an apothecary with a character and an unusual personality. He is a man with a troubled past, to the great erudition and little offset some ideas. Portrait certainly interesting but I have the feeling that the author has defined a character too complex, too large to achieve take the measure and especially to us transcribe. This apothecary there seems known throughout the kingdom, and beyond, more for his ideas than for his practice and at a time when the information put months to irrigate the country's reputation seems to always precede the fanfare. His reputation is also what the set, more than his deeds, for a good half of the book.
I also found all too Manichaean characters and portraits too quickly brushed. An apprentice with a kind of genius who teaches in no time Latin, Greek and scientific corpus is, in my view, a little credibility farmer's son in that time. And what about Aalis (what a nice name by the way) that would have made a wonderful tortured character if the author knew we present what makes him so hated Béziers then play the cord remorse it seems quickly forget once embarked on the adventure. Only Andreas Saint-Loup seems to have somewhat aroused profound interest Loevenbruck but he made too mysterious character and too entrenched in itself that I wanted to know him better. Especially the acts of the protagonists we reserve any surprise: these three are basically good and kind, and Andreas despite his gruff side is no exception to the rule.
It remains history, the storyline. A background of esotericism and mysticism was but a tantalizing promise that the author has failed to deliver for me.
The two first hundred pages were of a rather deep trouble and it took the start of the long journey that I persist in reading. However it is not until the first meetings with the Gnostics and the arrival in Compostela that my interest has been aroused. But again it is a feeling of artifice I have left upon completion book. Unlike a Dan Brown that has, in his Da Vinci Code, symbolic play and its interpretation by relying on concrete and existing elements Loevenbruck proposes a riddle that no support by any Actually, no artwork, and to which I have not joined a moment. It is not enough for some mysterious characters of lyrics on the path of a quest to embody an enigma. And yet, we were promised the greatest enigma of the Middle Ages!
Then there is my taste too white in this story: what happened to the twin sister of Andreas (is it the famous apothecary who disappeared from human memory - but not entirely that of his mother? ), how the book she brought to Paris ended up on Mount Sinai, what about those mysterious Gnostics who seem to lead the quest for Saint-Loup and what interest to their existence because they know where to find the answers to questions (in this famous book that did not exist ').
I would end my remarks by evoking the style quickly used here. The choice, here and there, too uneven, turnings starched sentences to give an old style is not enough, once again, to the color of another era. Allow me to quote again Robert Merle who by a command of the French language does not have Loevenbruck, stamps his phrasing a tone initially confusing but that quickly enchants the reader.
Titles like The Ockham's Razor, or The Cathedrals Void bite my curiosity, only when I read that the author considers this Apothecary as his most important book I doubt one day soon cede to the sirens of his words. This book will definitely gives me a sense of unfinished business, and unfulfilled. I feel that Loevenbruck had big ambitions with this volume but failed to live up to its claims. Rather than a great historical novel, rather than esoteric fable he gives us, I think, a book by the background that landmark in the history nor literature nor in that of mysticism.
