But once we gain our sea legs, this stylized, postmodern work by a masterly writer compels us to see genocide, war, deportation, and even compassionate deadly crimes through new eyes that reflect the characters’ perspectives.
The nonlinear time line of historical events and the nested stories involving wide-ranging and complex characters may sometimes make readers feel uneasy or even lost. She watches and tracks individuals (who feel hairs prick on their neck and search the shadows for visions) whose sins cannot be forgiven, upon whom she preys with flashes of magical realism, recalling the imagery in Perry’s The Essex Serpent (2017). Like the Wandering Jew, Perry’s nightmarish Melmoth the Witness ranges the earth recording horrors wrought by humankind. Potentially Sensitive Areas: Mild language Grotesque imageryīooklist starred (Septem(Vol. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.īut, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore.
In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts-or, at least, refuge. It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. Int Lvl: AD Rdg Lvl: AD.įor centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters-and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.
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