Books about books are generally dangerous territory for a
writer. Many times they seem to spiral into an overly
technical discussion of the author's favorite arcane genre
of literature. The writer cannot really help themselves --
they love a book and they want to share their devotion with
the world. Occasionally, however, some authors avoid the
trap and are able to bring an entertaining and thought
provoking story about another book to print. This is the
case with THE RULE OF FOUR by Ian Caldwell and Dustin
Thomason. In this case we are treated to a narrative that
uses a somewhat obscure Renaissance text as another
character in the story that is really about friendship,
devotion, faith, fanaticism and purpose.
The story focuses on the last semester of four college
friends, an unlikely set of listless scholar (Tom), future
wall-street yuppie (Gil), working class pre-med (Charlie),
and troubled genius (Paul). The other main character in the
story is a book, titled the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,
penned sometime near the end of the 15th century in Italy.
The book is more than it seems, on the surface it relates a
confused and complex story of the visions of a man named
Poliphli, but it's really something much more -- something
that lies locked, coded in its pages. It's the effort to
decode the story that obsessed Tom's father, and left a
series of bitter childhood memories. Tom knows more about
the Hypnerotomachia through his father's work than all but a
handful of scholars, but also knows that he disdains the
strange devotion to the book that tainted his childhood and
persisted until his father's untimely death.
Tom's attempt to avoid this painful part of his past is
undermined by Paul, a brilliant but somewhat troubled fellow
student. Paul has also been seduced by the desire to break
the code and understand the message that lies hidden in the
pages of the Hypnerotomachia. He knows from the first day
that they meet that Tom is the son of one of the most
noteworthy scholars of the Hypnerotomachia, and assumes that
they will seek the hidden answers together. Tom is able to
resist Paul's requests for assistance until a series of
events triggered by his father's old colleagues renews his
interest and he jumps in with both feet. Soon he is
seduced, just as his father, and risks losing track of the
important things in his life in the quest to solve the riddle.
Just as the Hypnerotomachia has multiple levels locked in
its pages, THE RULE OF FOUR is also a multi-layered effort.
On the surface it is an engaging story of the quest to
solve a puzzle. Beneath that, however, is a deeper story of
friendship. It's the fact that the four friends are a
diverse group with different interests that provides the
lesson here. When one of the friends missteps, the others
are there to help him up. While the message of the
Hypnerotomachia is carefully locked in codes and ciphers,
the message of THE RULE OF FOUR is decoded by the reader as
they experience the story.
An ivy league murder, a mysterious coded manuscript, and the
secrets of a Renaissance prince collide memorably in THE
RULE OF FOUR -- a brilliant work of fiction that weaves
together suspense and scholarship, high art and unimaginable
treachery.
It's Easter at Princeton. Seniors are scrambling to finish
their theses. And two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul
Harris, are a hair's breadth from solving the mysteries of
the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili--a renowned text attributed to
an Italian nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since
its publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a
link to his family's past -- and an obstacle to the woman he
loves. For Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason
for living. But as their deadline looms, research has
stalled -- until a long-lost diary surfaces with a vital
clue. And when a fellow researcher is murdered just hours
later, Tom and Paul realize that they are not the first to
glimpse the Hypnerotomachia 's secrets.
Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift
through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they
are beginnning to see the manuscript in a new light--not
simply as a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a
bizarre, coded mathematical maze. And as they come closer
and closer to deciphering the final puzzle of a book that
has shattered careers, friendships and families, they know
that their own lives are in mortal danger. Because at least
one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they
know even more.
From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified
realm of the Ivy League, from a shocking 500 year-old murder
scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, THE RULE
OF FOUR takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of
history--as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable
suspense.
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