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The Fencing Master | 
 enlarge | Author: Arturo Perez-reverte
Creator: Margaret Jull Costa
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: £12.85
Buy Used: £1.41
You Save: £11.44 (89%)
Used (19) Collectible (2) from £1.41
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 1031415
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0151001812
Dewey Decimal Number: 863.64
EAN: 9780151001811
ASIN: 0151001812
Publication Date: May 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Described as a "master of the intellectual thriller", Arturo Perez-Reverte has established himself as a major figure in European fiction. The English translation of The Fencing Master, first published in Spanish in 1988, follows the critical success of The Flanders Panel and The Dumas Club. Contemplative, skilful, and--in a quiet way--melancholy, The Fencing Master is a foray into historical fiction: Perez-Reverte draws his figures against the background of a Madrid sweltering on the eve of Spain's September Revolution in 1868. Each of its eight chapters begins with an epigraph to the art which emerges as a way of interpreting the world through this novel: fencing. Jaime Astarloa, the master, has made fencing his life and legacy, and it's through his eyes--the eyes of a man who wants to resist the vulgar progress of 19th-century politics and passions--that the mystery, and tragedy, of the book unfold. It begins with a woman who wants to learn fencing--"At that moment, someone knocked at the door, and nothing would ever again be the same in the fencing master's life"--, a woman who draws Astarloa into a world of political and erotic intrigue which will test his art to the limit.--Vicky Lebeau
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Atmospheric, intriguing and mentally stimulating January 12, 2005
A. Gordon (London)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Madrid has always been an atmospheric city for me so overjoyed to have discovered this book that transports you there in the 19th century. The characters are well drawn, the plot is compulsive and the prose is beautiful. You are hooked on the first page because there is a story! Fabulous.
Touche or Cliche? Why not both? March 11, 2003
4 out of 10 found this review helpful
I write this review in part as a response to the accusations that Perez-Reverte's debue novel 'The Fencing Master' is more cliche than touche. Having read a number of his novels I'd say this was a pretty accurate observation but, crucially, not one that I believe detracts from his wider literary creation. In short I recon Senor P-R has successfully re-established a tradition of popularistic cliched stories. His characters - all a little secretive and ambiguous in there way - are of a kind. In The Dumas Club, The Seville Communion and The Fencing Master (the ones I've read) I get a tangible sense of natural-born loners who are bound-up in a fringe-world, an outdated possibly dying world, which they inhabit with a dedication to the smallest detail, obscurest knowledge and obsessive habits. The characters defences are pepetually up, but inevitably become tested by dire events and dangerous conspiacies. In The Fencing Master it is the glacile, violet-eyed Adela de Ortero that treatens to do the damage - in The Seville Communion Macarena Brunner, and in The Dumas Club an equally seductive devilish-feme. These women draw Perez-Reverte's characters out of themselves at a risk to everything they hold dear, and towards the limits of their well-honed personal philosophies. I would say that it is from these asciewed and quietly rebellious view points that we can take a valuable oblique look at everyday life in a seemingly normative world. I'd compare this particular Perez-Reverte with Milan Kundera at his best. Stylisticly very different, but in over all tennor, the same. And so I say - touche!, and embrace (as I must) cliche.
Beautiful Prose January 9, 2003
A. M. Speigal (UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The reviewers of this book have said most things about this excellent novel. It is refreshing to read a well constructed novel which creates the characters with considerable panache. The translation is superb and misses none of the tensions in the plot. What is equally refreshing in this day and age is a novel that is both realistic and romantic in true meaning. Language is used beautifully and brings to life an age, and a man to whom honour is his code. I look forward to reading more of Arturo Perez-Reverte's work.
A grand old "ripping yarn" October 5, 2002
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like a less intellectual Umberto Eco novel, this is a well written and intelligent thriller.Senor Perez Reverte keeps the pace going all through the story, though you may guess the odd twist, the whole is a thoroughly satisfying novel. Don Jaime is a fine protagonist, and if you are like me you want him to win through, if only to refute the "modern" world, emerging in the story. There should always be Gentlemen, and Don Jaime is a fine example. If you enjoy Umberto Eco or Iain Pears, I would heartily recommend this book.
 OK July 23, 2001
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For me 'The Fencing Master' turned out a bit of a disappointment. Despite drawing various parallels between life and the fencing strip the book simply fails to reflect the frenzied intensity of the game.Apart from that, it's a decent book. It's a detective story set in mid nineteenth century Spain. The main character is a reclusive fencing master in his fifties, who through a mysterious female client becomes embroiled in grizzly political intrigue. The actual detective plot is a bit unoriginal but aside from that it is quite a touching story about an idealistic and lonely man trying to deal with the onset of old age. I liked the pacing (trotting along steadily most of the time and accelerating with suitable vigour towards the conclusion). The language and the general style of the narrative I found in places a bit wooden and contrived, but not so much as to really put me off. All in all, I quite enjoyed the book, although I can't say I feel greatly enriched for having read it. My final judgement is: if you like detective stories and/or period drama you'll most likely enjoy 'The Fencing Master', otherwise, it's not really worth the bother.
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