A steady pace, well-placed surprises and a detective story bring to life Charlie Lovett's The Lost Book of the Grail.
THE LOST BOOK OF THE GRAIL
Charlie Lovett
Text
By WILLIE CAMPBELL
Set in an unashamedly elitist religious and academic setting, this story moves at a gentle pace through several times from the 6th to the 21st century.
Arthur Prescott, a bibliophile who despairs of his university’s attention to the now (seminars on Hogwarts) and its neglect of the important (Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen), is secretly pursuing the Sancgreall, the Holy Grail.
As a small boy he has devoured eagerly all literary works on the Grail and has been strongly influenced by his grandfather, an Anglican vicar in the City of Barchester, to believe there is more than simply legend to find.
Each chapter follows a pattern that works well: a short introduction about an aspect of the Barchester Cathedral (written by Arthur) highlights both architectural and liturgical aspects that are clues in the search; then an episode from the former times of the cathedral and its allied churches and monasteries, depending which monarch was in the ascendancy, tells the story of those involved with scribing the sacred books and protecting them from marauding soldiers.
We then arrive in the present, where Arthur’s quiet existence is disturbed by the arrival of an American digital archivist who, it is revealed, knows almost as much as he about the Holy Grail and the Book of St Ewolda, the founder of the monastery. Further, irritatingly for him, she notes clues in portraits and architectural features in the churches that Arthur has missed.
This pattern leads us in ever-tightening circles and places some red herrings on the way to a logical resolution.
While the pace is gentle, it is steady and keeps moving through possibilities with well-placed surprises. It stands well as a detective story. There is also a love interest which really adds little substantial to the tale.
If you enjoy very English, liturgical and mythical stories, The Lost Book of the Grail will satisfy.
- Willie Campbell is a Dunedin educator.
