The Bestiary

The Bestiary is Nicholas Christopher's fifth novel, and like its predecessors, it's full of that peculiar magic that springs from the unexpected intrusion of lost mythologies into everyday life. The novel sketches out part of the life story of its central character, Xeno Atlas, as an intimate first-person narrative. With Xeno, readers experience the vicissitudes of life in the 1950's, '60's, and '70's, following him from the loss of his mother in the moment of his birth, to a boarding school in Maine, to his undergraduate years at Harvard, into battle in Vietnam, and then all over Europe on the quest that drives and defines him: the search for the Caravan Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript reputed to contain a complete list of the wondrous, magical, or fearsome animals denied passage on Noah's Ark. The story of the Caravan Bestiary is so seamlessly integrated into the history of the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic period - as well as into the stories of the genuine bestiaries of Physiologus, Hereford, Aberdeen, and others - that one isn't quite sure how much of it might actually be true. And the best feigned mythologies work in just this way. The Bestiary is a novel full of wonderfully satisfying parallels. Xeno's life revolves around animals - the semi-mythological ones depicted in the Caravan Bestiary and in its various (incomplete) descendents. The lives of Xeno's best friends, Bruno and Lena, concern animals, too: Bruno becomes a scientist, researching species mass-extinction, while Lena becomes a radical animal activist who is eventually forced to flee the country. Thus, Xeno's childhood friends work to save today's animals from the same fate that befell those mythical animals so dear to Xeno - annihilation. Xeno's grandmother is also associated with animals. She has the gift of understanding their speech, and claims that their spirits surround us all the time. When she dies (early in the novel; I don't think this is a spoiler! :), it appears to Xeno that she becomes a fox and flees the room through the window, leaving Xeno with only a single white whisker, which he treasures from then on. Her own grandmother, Silvana, according to personal family mythology, had been a dryad, and so was aptly named. One of Xeno's cousins inherits the name, and apparently the ability to disappear into a wood - and to transform into a fox. The shapes and spirits of animals run throughout the novel. Perhaps Xeno's greatest parallel is with Noah himself. As Xeno chases a manuscript describing animals denied passage aboard the Ark, Xeno himself becomes a Noachian figure, helping Lena to ferry animals from an African wildlife preserve aboard the freighter he inherits from his father. The book feels like a cross between Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Jorge Luis Borges's Book of Imaginary Beings, with a touch of the poetry of Ovid's Metamorphoses thrown in, and yet it is more intimate and accessible than any of these. Xeno is f

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I notice that other reviewers liked the first christopher novel they read the best; That was true for me with this book. Beautifully written, a compelling mystery and fascinating characters. After I finished Bestiary, I read all his earlier novels which I enjoyed, but not quite as much as The Bestiary (Franklin Flyer was my second favorite. There is a simplicity that I really liked to this book). Strongly recommend Christopher,especially if you are partial to magical realism.

nicholas christopher's books are not-so guilty pleasures of mine. not-so guilty because they're just so much fun to read -- effortlessly beautiful page-turning prose following an intellectual (usually arcane) quest. he's quietly building a unique body of work. if you're the kind of person who wanted less action and more book-browsing in far-flung libraries in Raiders of the Lost Ark (which isn't to say ROTLA isn't one of the most perfect movies ever), his books might appeal to you, especially this one, featuring conscipuously named characters like Xeno Atlas, the protagonist, and his lifelong search (1950s - 80s) from the Bronx to Paris to Venice to Crete for an obscure illuminated book called the Caravan Bestiary. legend holds this book contains descriptions of all the animals that failed to make it on to noah's ark. it may not be powerfully deep in the end, but reading this is mostly about sumptuous intellectual escapism in the hands of a wonderful imagination. i'd also recommend A Trip to the Stars by christopher. his poetry books are excellent too, as they also excel in narrative and mood.

Normally I don't fall in love with characters in Christopher novels, but in reading The Bestiary, for the first time I did. Yes, there's the usual blend of fantasy and reality. There's also a deep message about the ecology of planet earth. But best of all there's a lovely story about a man in search for himself. This one should win a lot of new fans for NC and satisfy his current ones as well.

In the Bronx, his mother died when Xeno Atlas was very young and his disciplinarian nomadic father was always grieving at sea. Thus he was raised by his shapeshifting Sicilian grandmother, who told him stories of animal spirits that excited him. At fifteen at boarding school, Xeno learns of the legendary CARAVAN BESTIARY, a medieval tome that described animals not allowed on Noah's Ark; the book vanished without a trace eight centuries ago so that today most scholars doubt it ever existed. Xeno believes this ancient text that describes extinct or mythological beasts depending one one's perspective exists. Now an adult he begins a quest to find the CARAVAN BESTIARY that describes the pre-flood lost world of griffins, basilisks, Catoblepas, and much more as he journeys to Vietnam, Europe and other places, but Xeno begins to realize his family's secrets that he is uncovering hold the answer he seeks. The BESTIARY is a terrific coming of age fantasy starring a troubled young man on a quest allegedly to find the missing tome, but in many ways his mission is to find himself. His trek takes him around the world in search of the lost text, but he also learns to love and be loved. Readers will adopt the sympathetic hero as he uncovers his heritage and much more in his most wonderful adventure. Harriet Klausner