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At the centre of this story, is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the Bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg's cathedral, a holy building growing over an often unholy city.
Around this narrative core, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a choral novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise. Ambitious, immersive, a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral deftly combines historical fiction, the literary novel of ideas, and a tale of adventure and intrigue.
Fans of authors like Umberto Eco, Elif Shafak, Hilary Mantel, Ken Follett and Jose Saramago will delight at the atmosphere, the beautiful prose, and the vivid characters of Ben Hopkins's Cathedral.
'Cathedral is a brilliantly organized mess of great, great characters. It is fascinating, fun, and gripping to the very end.'
—Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
'A thoroughly engrossing, beautifully told look at human frailty.'
—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
July 1, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781004040506
- File size: 563036 KB
- Duration: 19:32:59
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from November 30, 2020
British filmmaker Hopkins’s ambitious and satisfying debut uses a big story—the century-plus cathedral building project in Hagenburg in the Holy Roman Empire (now Lower Saxony)—to tell an even bigger story—the rise of merchants and the corresponding decline of the church through the 13th century. Characters play roles in the never-ending skirmishes among nobles, burghers, Jews, and the church, but they read like real people. Prominent among them are three siblings: Rettich, who buys his freedom and gets a job helping to build the cathedral; his brother, Emmle, who becomes a Jewish merchant’s gentile right hand; and sister Grete, the ambitious wife of a city trader. Also crucial: Von Rabern, the Bishop’s cranky but honest treasurer; Yudl, a Jewish boy torn between being a scholar or a merchant; and several nobles. What links them all is money, which is loaned, borrowed, stolen, and withheld, as goods, services, and secrets are bought and sold while the cathedral rises or stalls. Six hundred pages sounds long, but this deeply human take on a medieval city and its commerce and aspirations, its violent battles and small intimacies, never feels that way. This sweeping work is as impressive as the cathedral at its center.
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