arkhaine's Full Review: Arturo Perez-Reverte - Fencing Master
In the nineteenth century, fencing was the domain of the nobility, a gentleman's activity used in dueling to settle matters of honour. Gunpowder had long been the dominant method for killing in war, which left fencing to the rich and the dedicated, a sport that was, even then disappearing into antiquity. Today, fencing is seen - if it is seen at all – at the Olympic Games, where the terminology of septime and ballestra and prise de fer lends a mysterious air to the already confusing dance of white-clothed, helmeted athletes. In Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel, The Fencing Master, fencing is Jaime Astarloa's life, his passion, his mistress and his vocation. He has given his life to it and, as happens to so many whose obsession becomes their all, it has taken much from him. He is wifeless, childless, approaching sixty and aware that his love is a dying art.
The Fencing Master spends much of the first half building the character of Astarloa, following him about as he teaches bored young students, holds vaguely political discussions with friends in cafes, and returns to his home, alone. He is a man for whom honour is sacred, and whose mettle has been tested. He has killed for his art, and would rather break than bend. Astarloa is also a sad man, one who recognises that his single-minded devotion has perhaps caused him to miss out on other, messier, aspects of life. He watches the young men in his care and accepts with sadness that he never had a son to follow him, and what is more he understands that all he really has is his strength and speed as a fencer and that, as dotage approaches, even that will fail him. Melancholy thoughts of a seemingly inevitable suicide dog his steps.
Yet for all that he is consumed with the perfect thrust, a move that would make its wielder effectively invincible. He has searched for decades, and though he has developed what is known as the “two hundred escudo thrust” - named for the price he charges to teach it – he is no closer now that he was when in his physical prime. He practices in front of a mirror, “He made various moved directed at his own image. Counter parry in tierce. Disengage. Counter parry. Disengage. Three times he managed to touch his twin reflection moving simultaneously on the surface of the mirror. Counter parry Disengage. Perhaps two false attacks one after the other, yes, but then what? He ground his teeth with rage. There must be a way!”
Perhaps there is, but Astarloa has no idea how to accomplish the technique, or even if it exists. A distraction comes by way of a woman, Adela de Otera, who falls neatly under the cliché of being as talented at fencing as she is beautiful. Astarloa is smitten, though he admits it to himself long after his actions have revealed it to both the reader and Adela. He is at first reluctant to teach her because she is a woman, but eventually he relents, and their training begins. She is skilled at fencing and, what is more intriguing to Astarloa, she seems to have appeared from nowhere, without history or family connections, or at least none she is willing to share. Yet she leaves the door slightly ajar when she changes, and her conversation remains disarmingly direct and playful. Adela “seemed so unusually independent that it was difficult to place her amongst the ranks of the more conventional women of the fencing master's acquaintance.”
Pérez-Reverte's novel is at its best when Astarloa is on his own, wandering the streets of pre-Glorious Revolution Spain listening to political murmurings, or worrying away at his fencing problems. His sadness is one that requires a lack of expression to be properly felt, which means that his character tends to slip whenever he opens his mouth. Because this is a thriller, which means titillation is in order, Adela and Astarloa necessarily flirt with one another, though their relationship never progress because – she disappears.
And immediately the murders being. Roughly halfway through the novel the pace ratchets up in intensity, a whirlwind of events that bewilders Astarloa as much as the reader. Because the centre of the novel is so emphatically Astarloa, the rapid deaths of people close to him elicits a shrug more than anything else, though the increasingly wide-eyed prose suggests perhaps that we are supposed to feel more than a passing concern.
Soon, the murmurings heard in cafes erupts in revolution, though Astarloa's general ignorance (and, it can be assumed, the ordinary reader's) ensures that it, even then, remains in the background. He comes into the possession of a series of letters that, to a politically aware person, would be of great national importance, but because he is not they become a Macguffin to push the plot onward. It is a very great shame that the introspective, melancholy, and sympathetic Astarloa becomes, because the plot needs him to, something of a detective cum warrior. And, as often happens, old friends return as new enemies, or is it old enemies return as new friends? It's a thriller, so it's one of them, but I won't spoil which. Either way, the scaffolding of the novel becomes increasingly visible as it progresses, leading to an ending that is laughable in its simplicity and unbelievability.
For all that the plots falls apart, and the characters become tangled within the absurdity of their ridiculous threats and reveal-all dialogues, the art of fencing has received a great service from the novel. Pérez-Reverte goes into quite a bit of detail regarding the sport, and he is unafraid to use exotic terminology when celebrating the discipline and aesthetics of parry and riposte. Each chapter heading comes from a fencing maneuver, and directly below a short description of the technique is provided. One such description reads, “The glissande or coulé is one of the surest attacks in fencing, obliging one to cover oneself”, another, “The short lunge normally exposes anyone who executes it without judgment or prudence. Moreover, it must never be performed on encumbered, uneven or slippery ground.” Within the text, Astarloa often discusses the history of fencing and its applications in daily life, either in dialogue with his students, Adela, or with himself. Pleasingly, the description of the fencing manoeuvre that accompanies each chapter tends also to provide a thematic primer for the events within the chapter.
It is an oddity of The Fencing Master's that, when the murders and conspiracies appear, the novel loses what interest it has, and become rather hum-drum and overdone. The denouement is simultaneously obvious in its particulars and confusing in its details, a wash of allusions to ill-defined or never-defined participants before, of course, a fencing match. Could it be otherwise? No. And if a man spends half the novel worrying about the perfect thrust, what happens at the end? Yes, he discovers it, and exactly when he needs to. Pérez-Reverte has created a sympathetic protagonist and placed him in a worryingly pedestrian novel. As a character study, it is interesting, but as a thriller it is fairly dull. The thrills fail to excite, and the murders and intrigue are not given a full enough historical explanation to properly resonate with a reader not already familiar with late nineteenth century Spain.
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