This is a true story that's fake. And I had a really hard time grasping that. Basically, the author claims he found Fra Mauro's journals and transcribed it for us to enjoy. Fra Mauro was consumed with a need to create a map that is not altogether geographically perfect but perfectly represents each region per disclosures of personal experience of anyone who shared their experience with him. Confined by to his cell by vow (and fear of truly living in my opinion), Mauro longs to experience the world but settles for stories.
This book is filled with every '-icals' and it was slightly exhausting. I thought reading C.S. Lewis was hard on the mind!! I am confident that there were more sentences than not that contained a word that I didn't recognize or isn't exactly colloquial for me. The pages are filled with the philosophical/theological/geographical ramblings of a monk who needed to just go see the world for himself if he was going to worry so much about reporting it correctly. For a man of God he questioned a lot. He was not content. I think he could have had a deeper and more honest relationship with God if he would have never taken the vow and went around for himself to see what the Lord created.
I had two takeaway quotes. The first from page 80 "you have become addicted to the observations of men. You are not your own man but a composite of others." And later on page 107 "no man should learn the meaning of life from another: he must seek it somewhere else..."
Appearance: 3/5 It looks old which is appealing. On the inside covers there is a map that Fra Mauro created (not the one described in the text) and that was cool!
Readability: 1/5 I don't even remember when I put this thing down but when I picked it back it was on page 75 and I skimmed until chapter 20 to finish it up. It was hard to maintain interest when the text was about events that are not current or relevant, and at one point there was a lot of extra information at the bottom of the page to help the reader understand but it was like work. Too many big words. It made me want to sleep every time.
My Points: 4/10 I like the concept of this book. If it were only the beginning and the end I would think 'huh, that's interesting', but there was so much in between. Even the in between would have been more bearable if it were not for the intense language and lack of any building plot. I suppose that is a journal for ya. But no wonder he couldn't stand to be in that cell!! He just needed to give it a rest!
Total Points: 8/20
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