The first great reason why you should be interested in The Lies of Locke Lamora
is because of the cover: it is the sole reason why I bought this book. The cover is imbued with oneiric, effulgent colors of the looming towers, the looming towers themselves, and is complete with a dusk-dreaming thief. There is a deftly done double entendre at the formal level of the book's cover that is worth pausing to take note of: at one level, the cover is simply a dashing rogue looking out onto a fantastic, fabulous, city, but on a more cleverly inferred level, it looks like this charming yet unsavory day-dreaming theif is also quite full of ambition, and is dreaming about his own castles in the sky, which we are witness to. Also, the midnight blue at the top of the book along with the crepuscular saffrons and golds mix lazily together, which echoes the overarching theme of the book's cover. All in all, this is a really great send off, as it puts one in a mirthful mood at the opening of the reading experience.The formal structure of the book consists of four parts, each with a (much welcomed as far as this reviewer is concerned) literary opening (i.e., a quotation from a Shakespearean play and even one from none other than the very roguey Jean Jacques Rousseau).
I am traditionally a proponent of "pacy" writing
, but from the start of this book I knew I was stepping onto unfamiliar ground. This text is not a "quick" read: one should not consume Lynch like a soda, but more like a relaxing coffee at midnight
. Lynch takes a great deal of time to construct his world and his characters, delving deeply into their past, dwelling at length on the customs of the lands, its theological system, sporting and holiday events, and notable foods and wines. Lynch is particularly adept at describing meals (he shares this ability with Keats), and the reader is in for a feast whenever his characters stop their schemes and sit down for a meal. Lynch has created a thick world in which the reader can ably move about in (though one should always have one's wits about in a pit of thieves!), but for some readers, the detail will undoubtedly be too much, and too dizzying or very encumbering. I will quote, in extensio, a description of the description of the tavern, the Last Mistake, where Lynch gives a virtuoso performance of descriptive scene setting:The Last Mistake was a sort of monment to the failure of human artifice at critical moments. Its walls were covered in a bweildering variety of souvenirs, each one telling a visual tale that ended with the phrase "not quite good enough." Above the bar was a full suite of armor, a square hole punched through at the left breast by a crossbow quarrel. Broken swords and split helmets covered the walls, along with fragments of oars, masts, spars, and tatters of sails. One of the bar's proudest claims was that it had secured a memento of ever ship that had foundered within sight of Camorr in the past seventy years.
The text is a little over 700 pages, and about 460 are spent building plot, character history, and constructing the world. The reader is not privy to many interesting particular moments of thievery, but becomes very intimate with one grand scheme that is threatened to suddenly fail after deep planning and an initial grand execution of its opening phases. On the whole, Lynch masterfully sets the pieces in their proper positions, and goes about the climax with less vigor than your average porn star, but is nevertheless methodical and satisfactory. Said another way, the pay off is not sudden, though it is thorough.
At the level of style, Lynch will take a risk every now and then, but for the large part he sticks to very well choreographed scenes; in fact, much of it is so very well realized that one feels like he or she is reading a movie. The tone of the book is erudite throughout, and taken as a whole the text can be considered an intellectual triumph, rather than a show of force. One thing I will mention that is for (my purposes) a stylistic concern, but to most will fall within the realm of forgivable Homeric noddings: Lynch is terrible with names. With the exception of two occasions, (Locke Lamora and a popular thief tavern, the Last Mistake) Lynch stumbles again and again on his naming opportunities (though not as terrible as Abercrombie
): there is a nemesis, the "Gray King," and the nemesis's wicked "Bondsmage" named the "Falconer" who has a "scorpion hawk." Other transgressions against the art of naming are ones like "devilfish," "wolfshark," (yes that is really a name), "Father Chains," and a host of forgettable Italian names.Finally, so as not to end on a negative note, perhaps one of the most remarkable traits of Lynch's bonmotist writing style is the persiflage between his characters (more than a few clever phrases or "smirk-lines" crop up in his narration too). I will simply list a few examples in closing:
"That's that. Put it in your hat and wear it to town."
"Good. Because the only negotation we'll be doing is with bolt, blade, and fist."
"And so I give you permission to court my daughter."
Let's start wobbling, shall we? said Locke's knees.
"Rejoice!" cried Calo as he appeared in the kitchen, just as Locke and Jean were moving the dining table back to its customary position. "The Sanza brothers are returned!"
"I do wonder," said Jean, "if that particular combination of words has ever been uttered by anyone, before now."
"Only in the chambers of unattached young ladies across the city," said Galdo...
"This city has more gangs than it has foul odors, boy."
"How very comforting. If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing grapes."
"As Father Chains had once said, the best disguises were those that were poured out of the heart rather than painted on the face."
"Quiet as guilty husbands coming home from a late night of drinking."
"Thanks for deep pockets poorly guarded," said the Sanza brothers in unison...
"Thanks for watchmen asleep at their posts," said Chains.
"...I am the soul of caution."
"La, sir, if that is the case, I should hope never to meet the soul of recklessness."
"Ibelius," groaned Jean, "let him alone; you are henpecking him without having the decency to marry him first."
***
