A review by ryner
The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
A skilled neurosurgeon, Beatrice Trovato must to take a sudden sabbatical when her older brother Ben suddenly passes away. She travels to Siena, Italy, where Ben had been researching the Bubonic Plague epidemic of 1347, and despite her heartbreak immediately immerses herself in collecting his research notes and putting his affairs in order. One afternoon, while paging through the journal of a 12th-century Sienese artist, Beatrice is pulled into the past — a past where the Bubonic Plague is mere months away.
This is a creative and engaging story from a period in time I haven't read a lot about. While Winawer handled the writing beautifully, there were a few small things that grated on me. First and most noticeably, the foreshadowing was about as subtle as a brick through a window, and a few plot points felt forced/contrived and therefore unrealistic. I was also irritated by the need to explain to the reader how words were pronounced. (Please do not underestimate the reader's intelligence!) Some plot points were contradictory: for example, Beatrice is purportedly knowledgeable about the Italian language but then is surprised by how a word is pronounced (this was too obviously for the reader's benefit — Italian is such a language that no one with even passing knowledge of it would be surprised by pronunciation). Speaking of language, a native Italian speaker would recognize immediately that Beatrice wasn't a native speaker, not even one "from Lucca." Lastly, and this made me chuckle, I can't help but wonder where an Italian street vendor procured squash in the mid-1300s! I enjoyed this novel more or less via brute force, struggling against the many small irritants throughout.
This is a creative and engaging story from a period in time I haven't read a lot about. While Winawer handled the writing beautifully, there were a few small things that grated on me. First and most noticeably, the foreshadowing was about as subtle as a brick through a window, and a few plot points felt forced/contrived and therefore unrealistic. I was also irritated by the need to explain to the reader how words were pronounced. (Please do not underestimate the reader's intelligence!) Some plot points were contradictory: for example, Beatrice is purportedly knowledgeable about the Italian language but then is surprised by how a word is pronounced (this was too obviously for the reader's benefit — Italian is such a language that no one with even passing knowledge of it would be surprised by pronunciation). Speaking of language, a native Italian speaker would recognize immediately that Beatrice wasn't a native speaker, not even one "from Lucca." Lastly, and this made me chuckle, I can't help but wonder where an Italian street vendor procured squash in the mid-1300s! I enjoyed this novel more or less via brute force, struggling against the many small irritants throughout.