Natural History - Hardcover

Perucho, Joan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394570588 ISBN 13: 9780394570587

Publisher: Knopf, 1988

Synopsis

Antoni Mantpalau, a young Spanish aristocrat of the early 1800s, agrees to aid a village beset by an evil force and is stalked by a thirteenth-century vampire until their final, bloody confrontation

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, Catalan (translation)

From Publishers Weekly:

The first of Catalan author Perucho's works to be published outside Spain, this fantastical vampire story set around Barcelona during the Carlist civil wars of the 1830s is, in its bookish fictiveness, reminiscent of Borges and Calvino; yet its strong infusion of Catalan culture lends it an accent all its own. Young aristocrat Antoni de Montpalau, a passionate scientist, progressive and liberal, having deduced scientifically that a vampire has committed a mysterious series of murders, is drawn into pursuit of the creature, which has assumed the aspect of a Carlist guerrilla leader known as the Owl. Montpalau is soon captured, however, by the Carlist General Cabrera who turns out to be one of the Owl's victims; despite their political differences, the two become fast friends. Fully aware that only if the vampire is destroyed before his victim, can he himself avoid becoming a vampire, Cabrera's involvement in the hunt becomes increasingly urgent, while the vampire metamorphoses always in startling guises. Unfortunately, Perucho's novel, for all its invention and playful mock erudition, disappoints in its failure to draw the reader into its conceits with an impelling narrative flow or to point outside itself to larger meaning.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0394570588
• ISBN 13: 9780394570587
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 186