ing persecution is printing Hebrew
texts (although he does try to strangle
the Chief Inquisitor-to-be in one
scene). With the help of Johannes
Gutenberg, Gabriel and several of his
converso friends develop an under-
ground Hebrew press by which they
hope to preserve rare works of Spanish
Jewish scholarship and to make avail-
able daily prayers and holiday services.
Unfortunately for the Jews and
their Christian and Moorish support-
ers, antisemites in the Church have
other plans. Friar Perez, a disciple of
the notorious Tomas de Torquemada
and one of the more revolting villains
in recent fiction (he actually curls his
lips when he sneers), blackmails one of
Gabriel's friends into naming names of
"Judaizing" conversos.
Following Torquemada's orders and
fueled by his own sadistic passions,
Perez tries to torture a confession out
of Gabriel's best friend and, in the
process, rips his arms off. To Perez's
dismay, the prisoner dies without con-
fessing.
Perez's most brilliant and harrowing
acts of sadism occur not in subter-
ranean torture chambers, however, but
out in the open. Perez makes Gabriel
join him on a Yom Kippur hunt for

secretly Judaizing conversos. Later
Perez has Gabriel use his Hebrew press
to print an antisemitic treatise that
calls for the persecution of the Jews.
To recap, Gabriel is a secretly
Judaizing converso; Perez knows but
can't prove it; Gabriel suspects the
friar's knowledge but isn't sure; Gabriel
is made to work against his own peo-
ple and pretend that his real cause is
the rooting out of his friends. Layers
of doubt, charade, and unspoken
hatred elevate these scenes to a literary
level which, unfortunately, the rest of
the novel does not consistently reach.
The Heretic has plenty of action,
the most thrilling of which is a knife
fight in the ruins of a Roman gladiator
arena between Gabriel's son Tomas
and the man who raped his wife and
kidnapped his child.
The Heretic also has plenty of
romance: by my count, there are more
than 10 scenes in this novel that cul-
minate in lovemaking.
However, these more exciting pas-
sages, along with the aforementioned
flashes of literary brilliance, are some-
times overshadowed by an all but con-
descending didacticism
The first of Weinstein's excessively
HERETIC on page 108

Sarah Cahn enjoyed celebrating her 13th birthday with family and friends
at Mario's, her favorite restaurant.As a special treat she made a
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religion,

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also a novel
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Not AWA kk

easy to follow'
several narrative
lines, and multiple
speakers shift
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those readers who
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and en s
find it difficult.
But it's never not interesting, and

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~t

Doctorow writes beautiful sentences.

The author is perhaps best
known for his novel Ragtime, a
best-seller translated into 30 lan-
guages, which was made into a
filrn and Broadway play. His

^ t

Standards," can be-
a notebook Everet t

preparation for his nove
The lives of several
become connected whet*
brass cross is stolen fro4

i "Wir o .

CgrClung

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alieW

235 Main Street, Rochester, MI
248-656-8559

■

N

4/7

2000

107