Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

A few weeks ago? Months ago? Time goes so quickly! I reviewed a copy of Electric Velocipede here. And in that particular edition was a story by Brendan Connell. Though I didn’t get into some of the poetic bits of the story he wrote (they were nice, I just didn’t understand how they added to the story and for me, they took away from it), on the whole, I enjoyed the Herr Doktir. Well, time passed and one day I received an email from Brendan Connell thanking me for my review and asking if I’d read and review a book of his called The Translation of Father Torturo. So, I said Cool! Yes! and a little while later the book shows up and I say Cool! again and then put it down and promptly forget about it because life got busy.

So, time passes some more and then I realize, Shit! I have a book I said I was going read and review and I still haven’t cracked it open! So, I finally stick it in my book bag and begin to read it. And I’m captured by the second sentence, which is beautifully written and an entire paragraph long, so I won’t quote it here. After I finished reading the story, it took me a while to get to the review because I wasn’t sure how I was going to approach it. I’m still not sure. I can tell you that I did like it. That is for sure. And it’s a thinker’s story. That is for sure as well. This is not a typical action adventure. In this tale, the discussion is of right and wrong, authentic and fake, and whether the ends justifies the means, and especially about belief. Most specifically about belief. What do you believe? And how strongly do you believe it?

Father Torturo is the story of a bright, ambitious, sensitive man who makes his way in the ecclesiastic world in his own individualistic manner. He is charming, goodlooking, virile, and a bit of an alchemist so you really want to like him. He also really does want to do some good and on a certain level really does believe what he says he believes, but also has instances of stark nonbelief and crass ambition. He’s not always a very nice man. So, you’re not sure how to take him. But he does try to do what’s best and keep things equitable for all concerned.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot, because part of the charm of this book is reading what Father Torturo does next. I can say that it’s very heroic in scope. Father Torturo does travel in both the best and worst circles of his time, which is in the not so distant future, and it’s a very good story I thought.

This tale is NOT hard scifi or fantasy. It IS a bit gothic. Not sure if there is a term for it, but it’s like a speculative gothic horror tale, but it’s not really horror either. I would call it slipstream, because it doesn’t fall into any reader’s “category” easily but seems to have elements of several.

Basically, the story begins when a religious artifact, a tongue belonging to a saint, is stolen and then mysteriously reappeares again just when Father Torturo reappears on the scene as well. Then we are taken on a ride we will not soon forget.

Like I said, gothic, speculative, and a little out there, anyone reading this story will have an interesting time reading this book. Connell is very sensual in his detail. And is, in fact, very detailed in his storyline. I think in many ways, this story can be considered an education in all things ecclesiastic. One of the early questions I found myself pondering was what priests do with all the negative energy poured into their ears during years and years of confession. Think about it.

There were a few hiccups I noticed. One thing is that I think it could have used one more proof. There were some places where words were missing or just not used quite right or something. Something was off. I believe this is typical of small press and this book was put out by Prime Books. Small press publishers don’t have the battery of copyeditors and proofreaders that larger publishers do, so the writer needs to depend on themselves or their friends to make sure everything has been gone over before their book goes to press. That being said, none of the hiccups I found subtracted from the story. They were few and far between.

Another hiccup, though I think this is just part of the style of the tale, is that it is written in limited third person. On the one hand, this adds to the dark fairy tale like quality of Father Torturo. On the other hand, it creates space between the reader and the story so that sometimes it felt like there was too much distance between me and the tale. There was not enough immediacy. Yet, there were some bits that were difficult to read because they were very immediate and the detail and sensuality helped me feel, at those times, the very realness of what was going on in the tale.

One of the other things I wondered about was the name of the character. Xavier Torturo. Torturo does sound a bit close to tortured, so I wondered if there was supposed to be a reference to a tortured soul, though he is anything but most of the time. Looking up Xavier, it means New House. And in some ways, Father Torturo does go about trying to reconstruct the Catholic Church from the inside, into a new house of religion. And there could also be some alchemic meaning in having a name that means New House, but that is best left for the story.
But like I said at the beginning, this is a thinker’s story. Connell gives the reader something for their brain and soul to brood upon and spells nothing out, just laying it out for the reader to make his or her own decision about it. This isn’t candy. It’s food. And pretty thick. Father Torturo lives on espresso and Parisiennes cigarettes, so I imagine it at least has a mix of those in there.