Throughout the whole book, I found the style pedestrian, stilted and dull. In the section dealing with Arnau’s childhood it reads exactly like a children’s novel, with a complete lack of interest in psychological complexity and a penchant for unrealistic events (like the immediate lifelong friendship between Arnau and Joanet or the impoverished Bernat’s unquestioning adoption of Joanet). Over the coming years this faith and loyalty to the church will give him an anchor in a life full of trials, not least among which is the growing antipathy of his Puig cousins, who are determined to do all they can to undermine this upstart son of a serf, but which also include war, the moral and financial challenges of business, the Inquisition and the Black Death.ĭespite the very adult nature of the book’s opening chapters – droit de seigneur, rape, general misery – the style of the writing is peculiarly naive. As he grows older, he expresses his commitment by joining the guild of the bastaixos – the port workmen who carry the heavy blocks of building stone from the King’s quarries to the church itself, as an act of devotion and love. Arnau is entirely devoted to the church and its Virgin from a young age, when he naively adopts the Virgin Mary as a substitute mother for the one he has lost. The book follows Arnau’s story as he grows to manhood in this vibrant mercantile city, and it takes its name from the church of Santa Maria del Mar, which undergoes an extensive rebuilding project, beginning when Arnau is only a small boy and growing with him until, as an elderly man, he can witness its consecration. The book is set in fourteenth-century Barcelona, where the fugitive serf Bernat Estanyol and his infant son Arnau – on the run from their overbearing lord – come to seek shelter with his sister and her husband, the successful potter Grau Puig. Suffice it to say I won’t be recommending it to anyone.

I’m going to try to keep this post brief because, while I’m more than happy to write long effusive reviews of books I like, I see no virtue in dwelling on negativity. As it was, I forced myself through to the end. Had I not felt honour-bound to finish it, I would have put it aside after the first hundred pages. In fact, I am willing to go further in this instance and to say that this is a very disappointing book. Like The Visit of the Royal Physician, however, it left me cold. Like Per Olov Enquist’s Visit of the Royal Physician, Ildefonso Falcones’s historical novel Cathedral of the Sea has won a veritable bouquet of prizes both in its native Spain, where it enjoyed immense success, and in other European countries.

Ildefonso falcones books