Set in
thirteenth-century
Europe, against
the backdrop of
a medieval world
where beauty and
violence,
science and
mysticism,
carnality and
faith, exist
side by side,
this is a
masterful,
mystery-laden
novel from the
author of The
Gift, in
the tradition of
Umberto Eco,
Barry Unsworth,
and Michel
Faber.
Since he
was a young boy,
John has studied
at the
Franciscan
monastery
outside Oxford,
under the
tutelage of
friar and magus
Roger Bacon, an
inventor,
scientist, and
polymath. In
1267, Bacon
arranges for his
young pupil to
embark on a
journey of
penitence to
Italy. But the
pilgrimage is a
guise to deliver
scientific
instruments and
Bacon’s great
opus to His
Holiness, Pope
Clement IV. Two
companions will
accompany John,
both Franciscan
friars: the
handsome,
sweet-tempered
Brother Andrew,
with whom
everyone falls
in love; and the
more brutish
Brother Bernard,
with his secret
compulsion for
drawing
imaginary
monsters.
Neither knows
the true purpose
of their
expedition.
John
the Pupil
is a medieval
road movie,
recounting the
journey taken
from Oxford to
Viterbo in 1267
by John and his
two companions.
Modeling
themselves after
Saint Francis,
the trio treks
by foot through
Europe,
preaching the
gospel and
begging for
sustenance. In
addition to
fighting off
ambushes from
thieves hungry
for the thing of
power they are
carrying, the
holy trio are
tried and
tempted by all
sorts of sins:
ambition, pride,
lust—and by the
sheer hell and
heaven of
medieval life.
Erudite
and earthy,
horrifying,
comic, humane,
David
Flusfeder’s
extraordinary
novel reveals to
the reader a
world very
different and
all too like the
one we live in
now.
