From Publishers Weekly
An art historian's trip to Venice to study a landmark painting turns into an effort to solve a murder mystery in this intelligent but murky second novel by Spanish writer de Prada (his first to be published in English), which mixes elements of crime fiction with musings on the process of evaluating great art. Alejandro Ballesteros is the Spanish protagonist who arrives in Italy to study The Tempest, a painting by Renaissance artist Giorgione that represented an important breakthrough in the use of landscape. But Ballesteros's expectations for a quiet academic interlude are overturned when he witnesses the murder of art dealer Fabio Valenzin and is caught up in the subsequent investigation. The na‹ve art historian is fascinated by the intrigue at first, especially when it leads to a series of romantic and erotic interludes, the most significant with an art restorer named Chiara who turns out to be Valenzin's adopted daughter. The case bogs down in a morass of local politics, but is finally revealed to turn on the contents of a chest belonging to Valenzin that contains clues to a well-crafted, diabolical forgery plot. De Prada does a good job balancing the murder mystery with his exploration of the history of Giorgione's painting, but the romantic tangents make the book cluttered and busy. An ensemble cast of eccentric secondary characters and a foggy, evocative portrayal of Venice help blur the missteps, and the murder resolution is reasonably satisfying if somewhat slow to arrive.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Spanish author de Prada's talent is evident from the opening passage, an incantatory prose poem describing a Spanish art critic's horror at watching a stranger die on a deserted Venice street. It is also quickly evident that de Prada has little time for such niceties as coherent storytelling, realistic dialogue, or simple continuity--conventions that are difficult to dispense with in any sort of thriller, even an ostentatiously literary one. After witnessing the murder described in the first chapter, the hero and narrator, Alejandro Ballesteros, in Venice to study Giorgione's painting The Tempest, becomes obsessed with finding the killer. Along the way, he falls in love with an art restorer who struggles to teach the naive critic that "art is the religion of feeling and emotion." That's the author's message, certainly, but it's difficult to "feel" it with any force given the incredible clumsiness of the narrative. Still, it is impossible not to be impressed by de Prada's potential. His mesmerizing, surreal evocation of Venice is genuinely haunting, and his occasional bursts of beautiful prose, trapped amid a sea of overwriting, take the reader's breath away. This is not a great book, nor even a particularly good one, but de Prada may one day be a great writer. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
ABC Madrid
A fascinating novel. . . . Mesmerizing, a product which has been elaborated to perfection.
Book Description
Murder, love, betrayal, and some of the world's most beautiful objets d'art come together in Juan Manuel de Prada's tempestuous, prize winning novel set in Europe's quintessentially enigmatic city: Venice. In a tale with all the complex twists and turns of the city itself, The Tempest is a marvelously complex, erotic, and atmospheric mystery reminiscent of the bestselling novels of Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Iain Pears. Alejandro Ballesteros, a young Spanish art historian, arrives in wintry Venice to study Giorgione's painting "The Tempest," but on his first day there, he witnesses a shocking murder and is propelled into a dangerous web that brings together the city's rarified academic world and a master forger. Exploring the boundaries between art and reality, intellect and passion, The Tempest is a mesmerizing and thought-provoking novel by one of Spain's most gifted new writers.
About the Author
Juan Manuel de Prada was born in Baracaldo, in Spain, in 1970. The Tempest, his second novel--and the first to be published in English in the United States--won the prestigious Planeta Prize on its publication in 1997 and has published in 9 languages.
Tempest FROM THE PUBLISHER
Alejandro Ballesteros, a young Spanish art historian, arrives in a damp and wintry Venice to study Giorgione's The Tempest, the magnificent painting that has obsessed him for years. But on his first night in the quintessentially enigmatic city, Alejandro witnesses a shocking murder and is quickly sucked into a dangerous web of deceit. The murder victim is Fabio Valenzin, a notorious forger and trafficker in stolen works of art who, it turns out, has close ties not only with Gilberto Gabetti, the director of the Accademia where The Tempest hangs, but also with Gabetti's enchanting daugher, Chiara.
FROM THE CRITICS
The Washington Post
The novel's triumph is its masterful outsider's point of view. A Spaniard in Italy, Ballesteros is both fascinated and repelled by Venice, which one character says will soon "cease to be a city and become an underwater cemetery . . . where the dead can walk."
— Carolyn S. Briggs
Publishers Weekly
An art historian's trip to Venice to study a landmark painting turns into an effort to solve a murder mystery in this intelligent but murky second novel by Spanish writer de Prada (his first to be published in English), which mixes elements of crime fiction with musings on the process of evaluating great art. Alejandro Ballesteros is the Spanish protagonist who arrives in Italy to study The Tempest, a painting by Renaissance artist Giorgione that represented an important breakthrough in the use of landscape. But Ballesteros's expectations for a quiet academic interlude are overturned when he witnesses the murder of art dealer Fabio Valenzin and is caught up in the subsequent investigation. The na ve art historian is fascinated by the intrigue at first, especially when it leads to a series of romantic and erotic interludes, the most significant with an art restorer named Chiara who turns out to be Valenzin's adopted daughter. The case bogs down in a morass of local politics, but is finally revealed to turn on the contents of a chest belonging to Valenzin that contains clues to a well-crafted, diabolical forgery plot. De Prada does a good job balancing the murder mystery with his exploration of the history of Giorgione's painting, but the romantic tangents make the book cluttered and busy. An ensemble cast of eccentric secondary characters and a foggy, evocative portrayal of Venice help blur the missteps, and the murder resolution is reasonably satisfying if somewhat slow to arrive. (June) Forecast: The Tempest is a big seller in Spanish (300,000 copies in print), and de Prada appeared in a New Yorker photo spread of hot young European writers a few years ago, but the book may prove a wobbly launchpad for de Prada in the U.S. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An art historian's dangerous trip to Venice produces both enlightenment and disillusionment. In this (Planeta) prizewinning 1997 Spanish novel, Alejandro Ballesteros arrives planning to study The Tempest, a richly imagistic canvas painted by the Renaissance master Giorgione, which, local academics and connoisseurs murmur, "represents the mystery of Venice," a city in which "catastrophes do not actually occur . . . and it is the threat of what might happen, but doesn't, that makes us anxious and apprehensive." Well, yes and no, for Alejandro witnesses a murder, suffers the attentions of unidentified thugs, painstakingly unravels subsidiary mysteries involving the murdered man's personal effects, a lissome art student (who was the victim's protﾽgﾽ, if not more) and matches wits with a Javert- and Columbo-like police inspector. It's fun, but it's also turgid and de Prada's insistent use of garish and sometimes stomach-churning visual images makes the going even rougher. In the tradition, as they say, of Eco and Pﾽrez-Reverte, but hardly in their league.
Art & Photography
Book Info
