The Last Renaissance Man
by Michael Guy

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Book Reviews of The Last Renaissance Man

Book Review: a nice "sail" but waiting for book 2
Summary: 4 Stars

Almost seems he would have liked to have a CD included with the excerpts of the music of Purcell that he refers to. At least he doesn't overdo description of music and other things, but lets dialogue do the talking. If you don't know any of Purcell's operas, the first chapters, though visual and bringing the composer to life, would be not as intersting to you. The plot thickens a bit from chapter 6 on, but overall it's not a plot heavy book. Chapter seven: "St. Michael's Flower" is very intersting, set in old rural England. It is like a combo of a horror storm scene with a Fly-fishing misadventure (complete with quotes from Izaak Walton's 'The Compleate Angler'). The main character ends with amnesia after being struck by lightning and surviving while getting caught out fishing in the dark woods as night and the storm overtakes him. The character of the "witch" who actually rescues him and later seduces him (she's a young good-looking witch)is fascinating and not stereotypical.

From here it has him fleeing in a hallucinogenic state on a ship across the Atlantic and the parallels to Shakespeare' Tempest are obvious if you know the plot. The dramatic scene of tossing him off the ship, while lashed to a lifeboat is darkly done, complete with Biblical and Shakespearean references. Ending up in the Caribbean on Barbados the new characters that parallel The Tempest enter and there are some action scenes between slave-owners and the second main character that paralells Prospero in The Tempest, a Lord Willoughby. He's also a nautical guy who ends the book telling a very realistic Fateful Tale of his fleet having been sunk in a Hurricane off of Guadelope in 1666. Good sea action, a real 'Rum Tale'. The book ends almost in the mood of a Romance novel, with Henry (main character) parting from the brief companionship of Miranda, the Admiral's daughter, and then sets up book two--which you'll have to await to get the resolution to this Shakespeare influenced drama.
Lastly, I like the use of first-person almost exclusively and the unsual form of alternating chapters, heavy in dialogue with pure narratives by his protagonist, as though he were writing or reading from his journal. The narratives are written in a very 17th-century feeling prose and offer philosophic reflections.

I reccomend it. You'll have to give it a chance for the 'story' to take shape. There's a lot of real "Renaissance Men" and their history in the opening chapters that makes the diversions educational. If it is the author's debut, it's at least imaginative and bold. He didn't fall into the trap of writing his autobiography like many first authors. The back-cover blurb says he's a composer. Couldn't find the CD he mentions on the net though.

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