A Time of Angels
1 journaler for this copy...
Synopsis (Credit: www.abebooks.com)
Primo Verona, a professional magician and soothsayer, is born with a gift of clairvoyance so strong that he is able to predict his own mother's death while still in her womb. He is brought up on a rich diet of astronomy, philosophy and storytelling by his watchmaker father and widowed aunt, both survivors of the death camps in Auschwitz. Primo accurately reads the futures of the local Long Street community of Italians and Jews, who pay him in wads of money, honey cake, tiramisu and other delicacies.
Pasquale Benvenuto, his close friend since childhood and fellow soldier in the Angolan war, is the owner of a bar and delicatessen favored by local businessmen and gamblers alike. Pasquale is passionate and headstrong, his culinary reputation resting on the recipes for the fruited breads and salamis his father taught him to make -- recipies he acquired while hiding from the horrors of the Holocaust.
Together Primo and Pasquale form an easy friendship triangle with the beautiful Beatrice, Primo's wife and Pasquale's former girlfriend, but when she leaves her husband for her old love, Primo is devastated. He casts spells to spoil Pasquale's creations and to win back Beatrice, but he inadvertently conjures up an unexpected visitor.
(Bought new at the CAFDA Charity Bookshop, Warwick Street, Claremont.)
Primo Verona, a professional magician and soothsayer, is born with a gift of clairvoyance so strong that he is able to predict his own mother's death while still in her womb. He is brought up on a rich diet of astronomy, philosophy and storytelling by his watchmaker father and widowed aunt, both survivors of the death camps in Auschwitz. Primo accurately reads the futures of the local Long Street community of Italians and Jews, who pay him in wads of money, honey cake, tiramisu and other delicacies.
Pasquale Benvenuto, his close friend since childhood and fellow soldier in the Angolan war, is the owner of a bar and delicatessen favored by local businessmen and gamblers alike. Pasquale is passionate and headstrong, his culinary reputation resting on the recipes for the fruited breads and salamis his father taught him to make -- recipies he acquired while hiding from the horrors of the Holocaust.
Together Primo and Pasquale form an easy friendship triangle with the beautiful Beatrice, Primo's wife and Pasquale's former girlfriend, but when she leaves her husband for her old love, Primo is devastated. He casts spells to spoil Pasquale's creations and to win back Beatrice, but he inadvertently conjures up an unexpected visitor.
(Bought new at the CAFDA Charity Bookshop, Warwick Street, Claremont.)
Journal Entry 2 by Stoepbrak at Cape Town, Western Cape South Africa on Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Small Gripe 1: The cover design of this book is totally misleading. The frilly font is an insult to the substance of the book. I've uploaded the US edition's cover with this JE; it's marginally better.
Small Gripe 2: The title feels wrong as well, but that's not too serious. The Dutch translation changed it to De smaak van vruchtenbrood — much better.
Gripes, because I nearly didn't pick up the book to have a second look. Fortunately I did. This is one of those books that is sensual in the true sense: one can taste and smell and feel it. It is indeed a rich, fruited bread of unexpected delights and textures. There is a careful balance between historical recollection and present–day reality, beauty and horror, real and surreal, predictably naive and shocking surprise ... all held together with a continuous thread of compassion and wit.
An added bonus for South African readers: the strong links to Cape Town, her places and her people. It felt as if I knew most of these characters personally.
