Summary

An Instance of the Fingerpost refers to a way of discerning, from conflicting evidence, the truth (set out by Francis Bacon in a discussion on fallacies in thinking). An Instance of the Fingerpost shows the same set of events from the perspective of four men. These men include Marco Da Cola, a Venetian gentlemen, in England to look after his father's business dealings there, James Prestcott, son of a man believed to have betrayed the cause of the King during the struggles of the Civil war, Dr. Wallis, cryptographer for hire, priest, and counsellor to highly placed men in Government, and finally Anthony Wood, an historian hard at work cataloguing the manuscripts in the archives of the University.

This book might annoy you. An Instance of the Fingerpost includes densely plotted historical recreations with lots of characters and several intersecting story lines. You may not like books written from the perspective of people from the late 17th century, in Oxford, England, where people cared about position, status, honour and loyalty, but not as much about bathing and brushing their teeth. You may not care for the use of the unreliable narrator as a narrative device, or may not like the writer tricking you into believing untruths.

I enjoyed An Instance of the Fingerpost, but, for an opposing view, I urge you to read Grouch's review not recommending this book. I believe that Pears has written an endlessly fascinating book, a credible fictionalization of a murky period in English history. What Don DeLillo's Libra did for the Kennedy assassination, An Instance of the Fingerpost does for the post-Cromwell period of England history. It offers a possible explanation for events by now obscured by the mists of time.

The murder of Dr. Robert Grove, a senior fellow of New College of Oxford University provides the backbone of the novel, and a common event for the four narrators to discuss. (Oxford University built New College in 1379, 200 years after the establishment of Oxford University, making New a relative term). Marco da Cola discovers Dr. Grove, dead of apparent arsenic poisoning. Jack Prestcott, jailed for attacking a family friend, holds important information about the murder, and wants to bargain with it to get his own release. Dr. Wallis believes himself the target of the poison, and the final narrator, Anthony Wood, sets the record straight.

Plots do not come much more complicated than in An Instance of the Fingerpost. The complexity of the intersecting stories and conflicting testimonies converges in the testimony of historian Anthony Wood. I found it immensely satisfying to have all the loose ends tied up in the last quarter of the novel. I marvel at the mixture of historical fact and imaginative extrapolation in which Pears engages. Subplots involve the King of England's true religion, the draining of the swampy Fenlands, the siege of Oxford during the Revolutionary period, the rise of the Quaker movement, medical advances and beliefs, basic cryptography, to name but a few, all integral to the characters and the action. Pears tacks very little to the story merely to revel in his erudition.

Iain Pears ably tackles the challenges of producing a book with four distinct voices. Wallis and Wood, both published authors, encompassed vastly different temperaments. Suspicion fills Wallis to the point of paranoia. For public consumption, Wallis displays the appropriate level of piety, but it barely covers his conniving and jealous nature. His cold brilliance he uses to cut others like a diamond. By comparison, Wood comes across more sympathetically, much like in his autobiography (understandably; not many people think ill of themselves). He has a favourable opinion of himself, but inclines towards uncharitability when discussing others. Wood's avocation renders him vital to the story; a packrat, he spends his days cataloguing and reading manuscripts in the Oxford library, when not deep into reading his books. A true historian, he desires only to show the truth as best he knows it.

Pears' imagination supplies the other two voices, Da Cola's and Prestcott's, (Prestcott based on the true account of the son of Sir Richard Willys). Da Cola's account, which opens the book, offers the greatest challenge for the reader, and also marks the sections where Pears has succumbed to the temptation to make one too many sly modern references. Da Cola's section must introduce us to all major and most minor characters, set up the murder investigation and establish setting and time period. Pears' canny decision to have a foreigner begin the book allows for plenty of detail that an Englishman would never notice. The eating habits, peculiar speech, bathing frequency and medical philosophy all need explanation to Da Cola, (and to us, by extension).

Pears, who obviously laboured hard over An Instance of the Fingerpost, takes full advantage of Da Cola's newness in England to make some joshing comments about the sexism, or leaps in logic required to conform to ecclesiastical doctrine, or fashion in general. For instance, in a small hut where two women (a mother and a daughter) live, Da Cola reasons that a man must live there as well, as the decor includes a shelf of at least half-a-dozen books. For an amateur student of history, like myself, these insertions of commentary into Da Cola's account offer fascinating insights into this period of English history. For anyone else, they might serve only to drag the story to a brief halt.

Jack Prestcott's account exudes the bitterness of the wronged, the foul bile generated by years of choking on other people's (in his opinion) wrong view of him and his father. He considers it his duty and obligation to clear his father's name, and to take the lofty position that he knows belongs to him. Pears does a pretty good job of invention here, having no written work to mimic.

Dr. Wallis' twists all events to conform to his paranoid worldview. Dr. Wallis, a mathematician, and Cryptographer for three Kings and Parliament, lives and breathes cryptography, to the point where he believes that he sees a sinister underlying truth in everything, of which the rest of the world remains ignorantly unaware. For his contemporaries, he shows only contempt; for his social betters, sly insinuation. Wallis' personality exudes a fetid stink, borne of too many years looking at life through equations.

Dr. Wallis explains that in the encrypting of communications, a written letter substitutes for another, depending on a code, or cipher. Find the key to the cipher and you've broken the code. As a symbol of the novel, the cipher serves extraordinarily well. Events occur that appear to have one explanation, but signify something else entirely. Wood, holding the key, can break the event's cipher.

Pears, as encrypter and decrypter of English history, knows few equals.

I have only scratched the surface of the themes in An Instance of the Fingerpost. I derived great satisfaction from re-reading the book, not just because I forgot who murdered Dr. Grove (probably an indication that the identity of the murderer seems somehow not as significant as the surrounding themes, and also that I have a bad memory), but also because I appreciated the richness of the writing anew, and Pears' impressive invention.

Highly recommended.

An interesting bit of apocrypha debunked concerning Oxford University, which figures strongly in An Instance of the Fingerpost

Legend has it (in Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn) that construction of New College's main dining hall required very large oak beams, and that during the 19th century these beams needed replacing. In College forests, large oak trees existed, planted expressly for the purpose of replacing the beams, more than 400 years before. Not quite true, however. See http://www.new.ox.ac.uk/NC/Trivia/Oaks/ for the real story.

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I submitted this entry as part of proeditor's E-Prime Write-off. The write-off consists of reviews that avoid the "to be" verbs, following a discipline known as E-Prime. Writing in the E-Prime style encourages more a more active writing style, and reduces hedging and imprecise verbs.

The "to be" family includes be, is, am, are, was, were, been, being; plus contractions - 'm, 's, and 're. If you found any in this review, please leave me a comment, and I'll promptly excise it.

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Recommended: Yes

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