Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants

September 17, 2018
Énard is known for his monolithic novels Zone and Compass (winner of the Prix Goncourt), making his latest translation into English, a slim and studious volume, a surprising and exciting break from form. Set in 1506, it is the story of Michelangelo Buonarotti, still in his early 30s and not yet at the height of his renown, smarting from his perceived crude treatment at the hands of the Pope and eager to outdo his rivals, Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael. The proud artist leaves Rome to accept a commission from the Sultan Ali Pasha of Constantinople to design the bridge that will connect the great city with the greater Holy Roman Empire. But in Constantinople, Michelangelo finds himself beguiled by the company he keeps: Manuel the translator, Mesihi the poet, and the page Falachi, with whom Michelangelo is something more than friends. Michelangelo spends his days in Constantinople arduously designing the bridge, and his nights in almost psychedelic debauchery. The flavors of the East will prove transformative to the Florentine, as Renaissance sensibility collides with the flourishing Muslim world, leaving him to conclude that “we all ape God in His absence.”
a historical novel of exquisite beauty.

September 15, 2018
Continuing his explorations of the meeting of East and West, French novelist Énard (Compass, 2017) imagines a lost episode in the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti.History tells us that the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, having rejected a design by Leonardo da Vinci to join Europe to Asia by a bridge over the Golden Horn, approached Michelangelo with the same project. History adds that Michelangelo said no. But what if the answer, Énard posits, had been yes, as newly discovered documents suggest? Michelangelo, after all, had been having endless troubles getting paid by Julius II, "the warlike, authoritarian pope who has treated him so poorly." The temptation to slip across the border of the Papal States into Florence and thence to Venice and Constantinople would have been great, especially because the sultan knew just how to appeal to him by contrasting him to Leonardo: "You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal...." That, and he'd quintuple his salary. Intrigue immediately ensues, for there are spies--of the pope, of Venice, of the sultan--everywhere, and where there are spies, there are lures and temptations. And then there's Mesihi, the Kosovar Muslim who guides Michelangelo between two worlds and becomes more than a Virgil in the bargain, first taking Michelangelo to the former cathedral and now mosque of the Hagia Sophia, now devoted, as Michelangelo thinks, to "the one Dante sends to the fifth circle of Hell." In his way, Mesihi is as great an artist as the master, a man who "loved men and women, women and men, sang the praises of his patron and the delights of spring, both sweet and full of despair at the same time." Naturally, cultures and personalities come into collision, and all does not end well for Michelangelo, "afraid of love just as he's afraid of Hell," or, for that matter, for anyone in Michelangelo's orbit.An elegant meditation on what might have been.

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December 1, 2018

Author of the magisterial, multi-award-winning Compass, Énard returns in English with a slim, beautifully crafted volume, published in France in 2010, that packs just as much punch. In 1506, angry with inflexible Pope Julius II, Michelangelo accepts a commission from the Sultan in Constantinople to build a bridge over the Golden Horn, delighted that he'll be showing up Leonardo da Vinci, whose design was rejected. In jewellike language, Énard recounts Michelangelo's forays in Constantinople as he's escorted around town by court-favored poet Mesihi, who competes for his attention with a sexually ambiguous singer and man-of-the-world Arslan. Throughout, the process of creation is clarified, with Michelangelo explaining that he will draw the form of the bridge "from the material of the city"; an unexpected but carefully constructed conspiracy radically shifts the plot. VERDICT Art, jealousy, and political intrigue make for a stunning work recommended to all smart readers.

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