Fiction: There's a moment of great poignancy early in Gregory Norminton's new novel, when the narrator, Tommaso Grilli, dwarf and future curator and whoremonger, describes the life almost shared by himself and his disappointed father, writes John MacKenna.
"The two of us existed, separate within the same walls, tortured by mutual longing - my father for success, myself for my father."
And there are other moments when Grilli, and Norminton, catch aspects of Renaissance life with precision and beauty - the casual suffering, the weather, and the daily life of an individual and an age.
There's the moment when Grilli contemplates disfigurement - his own and others: "Consider, good reader, how the world is glutted with deformity. The sick, the lame, the goitrous poor surround us; and we could so readily join their ranks, cankered by a wound or devoured by the pox".
There's a moment when he describes winter: "Winter brought deep snows that nearly immobilised me. On the River Moldau everyone was a Messiah, walking on water." There's a moment when Grilli enters a room after a night's carousing: "The table in the centre of the cottage was heaped as we had left it. A party of mice somersaulted at my approach, shooting across the floor as though pulled on strings."
There are many such moments scattered within this vast pilgrimage through Renaissance Europe but moments do not make a story and, for all the exploration and all the detail, and all the adventures and misadventures that befall Grilli, there is something heartless about him. Worse, there is something cold about the book, something that made me not care what happened to Grilli. Norminton has recreated a time and a place; he has peopled it with werewolves, tricksters, royalty and vagabonds; he has produced dramatic situations. But, for all that, only in the opening 100 pages and the closing chapter did I feel that Grilli's fate was of any concern to me.
Norminton is a fine writer, his imagery is often striking, his turn of phrase can be wonderful, his research is extensive but, to leave a reader cold in the midst of so much intrigue, mayhem and possibility raises the question of what exactly Norminton is trying to do. Is he trying to impress with his erudition? Is he trying to amuse? Is he trying to convince? Is he moralising or is he, like his hero, trying unsuccessfully to be all things to all readers?
When, on page 444, Grilli joined a wandering troupe of entertainers, I found myself wondering whether they might resurrect my flagging interest. They did but only temporarily and not sufficiently to erase the memory of the struggle that had been the previous 300 pages.
A surfeit of anything is still a surfeit. I long for Norminton to put his tremendous talents to work on a story that is more concise and, most of all, on getting close to the heart and soul of a character who makes us care.
John MacKenna is a novelist and short story writer. He is currently working on a new collection of short stories
Arts And Wonders. By Gregory Norminton, Sceptre, 490 pp. £14.99