Sixteenth-century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland, a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe. In this astonishing work of historical imagination, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence. For, in a world that is equal parts splendor and barbarism, an obscure cleric who seeks "the secret music of the universe" poses a most devastating threat.
"A tour de force... Exciting, beautifully written and astonishingly redolent of the late medieval world." --The Times
"One periodically rereads a [Banville] sentence just to marvel at its beauty, originality and elegance." --USA TODAY
"John Banville deserves his Booker Prize." --Los Angeles Times Book Review
"[Banville's] books are like baroque cathedrals, filled with elaborate passages." --Paris Review
"A grand writer with a seductive style." --Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"Banville is a master at capturing the most fleeting memory or excruciating twinge of self-awareness with riveting accuracy." --People
"A brilliant stylist." --Christian Science Monitor
"Represents a watershed in contemporary Irish writing." --Colm Tóibín
"John Banville is the heir to Nabokov." --Sunday Telegraph
"One of the best novelists in English." --Edmund White, Guardian
"He cannot write an unpolished phrase, so we read him slowly, relishing the stream of pleasures he affords." --The Independent (UK)
"The heir to Proust." --Daily Beast
"A great storyteller." --Observer
"Banville's ventriloquism is word-perfect." --Vulture