Rating: 
Summary: Very very good, but not great
Review: After having devoured the previous three books by Arturo Perez Reverte, I had extremely high expections for this book. In fact I bought it online before it was released. I wasn't exactly disappointed, but the plot just doesn't seem as gripping as the others. The action and descriptions of 19th century Spain is excellent as expected, but the plot just did not hold me like the author's other titles. Maybe I psyched myself out of an excellent book. The narrative was excellent, I felt myself transformed to Madrid, an old fantasy of mine. The descriptions of the fencing and the settings were magnificent. Like I said before, it is much much better than most of what passes for mysteries out there but I was just a touch let down.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably the best from Perez Reverte !!
Review: It is a quite similar novel to the Flanders Panel.This time Perez Reverte concentrates on Fencing and not in chess.There are a couple of "fencing strategies" that are quite hard to understand, if you are not familiar with them, that are used by Jaime Astorloa. The ending will astonish you...
Rating:
Summary: Another great one from Perez-Reverte
Review: I already had The Fencing Master on my shelf after having loved Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas (which is about antiquarian book dealers, and is much better than The Ninth Gate, its film adaptation--despite the presence of Johnny Depp). So, after finishing The Orchid Thief, I picked it up to read as well. It's a story of mystery and intrigue involving Don Jaime Astarloa, the local fencing master, who lives in a reclusive mansion and concerns himself with little other than his chosen occupation. That is, until a mysterious woman--Doña Adele de Otero--asks him to teach her his secret, unstoppable fencing thrust. Don Jaime is distraught. Teach a woman a gentleman's sport? Never! But she turns out to be quite proficient and he gives in, but not before he falls in love with her. This sets into action a chain of events that will end up with at least two people dead before it is all worked out. Pérez-Reverte is excellent at this sort of intrigue and I was glued to every page, even as I was absorbing the art of fencing. Now, due to reading The Fencing Master, I want to learn how to fence.
Rating: 
Summary: A simple, straightforward book
Review: I have not read any of the author's other books, so I cannot compare, and really that's not very fair. I was under the impression that this was a thriller but the book really felt like a romance to me.
Not that that's all bad, but nothing seemed to be happening until about page 150. The premise: old fencing master is approached by a mysterious and beautiful female student to learn a "secret" but deadly fencing move and lust and deceit ensue. I couldn't help but picture Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Wait, they already did that movie.
The story is more than a little predictable, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it, mornings at my local coffee shop. I have to say that the motive in the book was lost on me, maybe if my Spanish history was better. It didn't help that my knowledge of Spanish Revolution of 1868, the back drop of the novel, is zero. Seeing that Pérez-Reverte is a native of Spain, his core readers may have been better in tune than I. The Fencing Master is such a simple, straightforward book that it is difficult to say much without giving much of the story away. Though predictable, it was an enjoyable read and it was nice to read an international best seller for a change of pace. Oh, by the way from Fencing.net's glossary: Foible: the upper, weak part of the blade. For more details, go to aj.huff.org. Thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Predates his much better other books
Review: Although this is the fourth of Pérez-Reverte's book to appear in English, it actually predates The Flanders Panel, The Club Dumas, and The Seville Communion. Originally published in 1988, this earlier book is an entirely historical thriller set in Madrid in 1868 amidst Spain's September Revolution, which apparently heralds the end of the monarchy as plots abound and the Bourbon Queen Isabella II is rapidly losing control and influence. One of the novel's flaws is that this period of turmoil is so chaotic and confusing that, although the reader knows the political machinations and plots will somehow prove integral, it's presented rather tediously and is hard to follow. On the whole, the prose is not nearly as rich and accomplished as in his other books. The story follows an aging fencing instructor, Don Jamie, whose personal code of honor defines him as he attempts to live outside the "real" world around him. He is a rigid and exacting "maestro" to the few remaining pupils he has (guns have all but supplanted swords), and an amusingly old-fashioned expert to the wealthy nobleman he spars with every day. His only other human contact is with a group of yammering men who gather every day in a café to argue politics-and whose main function is to deliver the political background the reader requires to understand the rest of the story (although as indicated above, their arguments are not very effective in this). Don Jamie is a portrait of a faded gentleman, with all his best experiences behind him, he almost revels in his self-constructed persona of a man of honor (and little else). When a beautiful woman comes to his door and demands instruction in the male-only art of fencing, it catapults him into a dark intrigue. It's another flaw of this early Pérez-Reverte work that readers will see what's coming almost from the moment she first steps onto the page, and only the details need to be revealed. Indeed, those who have reader his intricately plotted other books, will likely be disappointed by the relative simplicity of the story. What is perhaps more intriguing are the timeless questions raised about honor and its role in a world where honor means little. Don Jamie's disengagement from the world around him has tragic consequences, so is he a failure for clinging to tattered ideals, or should he be lauded for his commitment? In that sense, this book has a more moral center than any of Pérez-Reverte's others. One other minor flaw is the lack of a fencing glossary or any diagrams. The terminology of fencing and its maneuvers are so integral to the story and so arcane to most modern readers that the publisher does both the book and the reader a major disservice by not providing any supplementary material. For those with access to a video store with a good selection of international titles, the book was made into a film in Spain called El Maestro de Escgrima.
Rating:
Summary: Simple, but nice
Review: "The fencing master" is an early work by thriller author Arturo Perez-Reverte. The story is simple, but compelling. The characters are great, and the setting and environment is dellicious.
Don Jaime Astarloa is an aging fencing master, living in the second half of the nineteenth century, during a time of political difficulties in Spain. Don Jaime's life is pretty empty. He has no relatives, no wife, and a few friends that get together in a coffee shop, to discuss mainly the argument "Republic vs. Monarchy". Don Jaime doesn't talk that much. His life is his fencing, and the few students that he teaches among doubts caused by the increasing easiness in buying and using firearms. But suddenly his life changes. A beautiful and misterious lady appears out of the blue, and asks Don Jaime to polish her already high fencing skills. Murder, mistery and political intrigue follow.
This time, it is not the thrilling part that make the story good, as usually happens with Reverte's books. This time it's the sad description of a decadent life that finds a new spark and a new reason to go on. Obviously, the young woman, Adelia de Otero is also the reason for Astarloa's problems.
As I've already said, the story is simple, and not even original. But the fencing duels, the decrepit but sympathetic beliefs of Astarloa and - as always - the misterious beautiful woman make this little book a very good reading.
Grade 8.2/10
Rating:
Summary: Interesting diversion, but not his best work
Review: What saves this work is the richness of its characters and the vivid descriptions of a Spain torn apart. The honorable Jaime Asterloa is an anachronism at best and a fool at worst, but he redeems himself in the end by being true to his code. It's hard not to feel some pathos in the tradition of the Greek tragedies. The dark Dona Adela would tempt any red-blooded man, and most would not fair as well as Don Jaime. As in all tragedies, in the end everyone loses something dear - a life, a future, a way of life.
Still, this isn't Perez-Riverte's strongest work. Best is The Flanders Panel, followed by The Club Dumas and The Seville Communion.
Rating:
Summary: good book
Review: The book is a very good read. As for being a mystery,
the ending seems lacking. The real bad guy seems
to come out of nowhere.
Rating:
Summary: I had no idea about fencing...
Review: If you want to learn a thing or two about the art of fencing, combined with a good story with fascinating characters, this is the book. Good story, fast paced, a little tedious with all the political turmoil at the time, but the main persona (the fencing master) made up for it. I loved the ending,perfect.
Rating:
Summary: A Character Study That Doesn't Skimp on the Plot
Review: It's rare to see the combination that one finds in The Fencing Master -- a deep and engrossing character study that incorporates a page-turning plot. Make no mistake, the brilliance of the novel is getting to know its main character, an aging fencing master continually disappointed as the world changes around him with unnerving rapidity. Not a perfect man by any means, but a likeable one, Don Jaime explains his philosophy about two-thirds of the way through the book. We can devote our lives, essentially, to anything -- pursuit of money, knowledge, the perfect dinner, or just getting by while looking for fun (a skill his favorite pupil has perfected). Don Jaime's decision was to pick a code to live by -- call it honor -- and then stick to it as an immutable dog star. It's as good as anything else, he explains, and it gives him purpose.
(Completely unrelated thought, but I thought of another great character -- Sidney from the movie Hard Eight if anyone knows it -- who seemed Don Jaime's modern day equivalent.)
Not entirely unwilling to adapt to the times, however, Don Jaime finds himself in a place he did not expect to be at nearly sixty -- in love. And that's when the fun begins.
I found this novel impossible to put down. I enjoyed every page, right to the end. I thought Perez-Reverte got a little bogged down in the details of the revolution, which was a Mcguffin, but not unbearably so. The resolution was satisfying and the final scene of the old master still searching for the perfect thrust, which was built on the blocks Perez-Reverte had stacked up for 250 pages, was, in a word, perfect. Glad I read it, recommend it highly.
|
