As remains today, science and religion don’t exactly see eye to eye. Unfortunately, in the late 17th century, that meant putting women suspected of sorcery to death by so-called Christians claiming to do God’s work. It was not a pleasant chapter in our world’s history, and James Morrow brings out this injustice to a degree I’d never before felt in his latest novel, THE LAST WITCHFINDER.
Historical it may be, though boring it is not. Instead, THE LAST WITCHFINDER is a bawdy, boisterous tale of superstition and persecution, played out in a scope that is epic and told in a voice that is expert. If Neal Stephenson had written THE CRUCIBLE instead of Arthur Miller, the results likely would’ve played out like this (albeit in about 2,000 fewer pages).
The title refers to Duncan Stearne, a second-generation hunter of heretics, taking on his late father’s fervent duties to cleanse both England and New England of supposed witches. But he’s a minor character; the novel belongs to a heroine, Duncan’s sister Jennet, who’s never the same after witnessing the hanging by her own father of her own beloved aunt, merely for dissecting animals in the name of science. At that moment, Jennet renounces not God, but her father and his “holy” mission. She vows to destroy all witchfinders, even if they’re members of her own immediate family.
And there begins a hard-to-classify but easy-to-love novel that’s part swashbuckling adventure, part political screed, part courtroom drama, part scientific treatise and all original. Rich in plot, Jennet’s story – spanning decades – encompasses everything from a forced marriage to an Indian named Lynx Man and a long-term affair with Benjamin Franklin to a traveling freak show of deformed fetuses. Stranger yet, the book is narrated by another book – namely, Isaac Newton’s systematic masterpiece, MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Knowing and wry, Newton’s text breaks from the narrative at times to ponder the monkeys-with-typewriters problem or debate the genius of the Universal film HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
This is the kind of historical fiction I adore: that which deals with a serious subject yet refuses to take itself seriously. As a result, Morrow’s work is exciting, funny and utterly addictive. THE LAST WITCHFINDER is one of the very best novels 2006 has given us thus far. –Rod Lott
“I’ve come to see ’tis fornication, not gravitation, causes the planets to wander. You heard me right, jurors. Each time a gentleman sticks his doodle inside a lady’s happy-sack, he makes a deposit in that grand erotic fund from which the universe draws its energy. Heed now the Principa Priapica! Law one: a virile member at rest rarely stays at rest! Law two: the speed of the semen is directly proportional to the force of the orgasm! Law three: for every illicit ejaculation there is an equal and opposite story to tell your wife!”
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you r a bastard
But at least I’m on-topic!