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A review by pemuth59
An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town by David Farley
4.0
As one who was reasonably entertained by the "DaVinci Code," I found it interesting to consider how much different Dan Brown's books would be if his characters ever stopped running long enough to consider the utter absurdity of what they were "discovering." Maybe instead of encountering murderous zealots at every turn, they met a series of harmless goofballs with rather eccentric beliefs. The books might well resemble David Farley's charming "An Irreverent Curiosity."
The book tells the saga of a writer who goes in search of -- and finds -- a great story in a obscure place. In the process, Farley spins an often very funny tale about hunters of religious relics and how one particularly odd relic weaves a magical spell over a deeply bizarre Italian town. In this age of globalization, it is beyond refreshing to read about a dot on the map where people can still behave today like you imagine people might have behaved centuries ago.
The utter absurdity of religious relics -- and if you don't find them absurd, you will not find this book very funny -- is a great premise for any comic novel, but this story actually happened in the not-too-distant 1990s.
The author's mini-history of the carnival sideshow that is the relics business is worth the price of the book alone. But the weird relic mystery is sometimes only a backdrop for Farley's encounters with characters straight out of, well, I'd say a Fellini movie if I knew more about Italian cinema. Safe to say you won't soon forget these folks -- or their little piece of sham history.
The book tells the saga of a writer who goes in search of -- and finds -- a great story in a obscure place. In the process, Farley spins an often very funny tale about hunters of religious relics and how one particularly odd relic weaves a magical spell over a deeply bizarre Italian town. In this age of globalization, it is beyond refreshing to read about a dot on the map where people can still behave today like you imagine people might have behaved centuries ago.
The utter absurdity of religious relics -- and if you don't find them absurd, you will not find this book very funny -- is a great premise for any comic novel, but this story actually happened in the not-too-distant 1990s.
The author's mini-history of the carnival sideshow that is the relics business is worth the price of the book alone. But the weird relic mystery is sometimes only a backdrop for Farley's encounters with characters straight out of, well, I'd say a Fellini movie if I knew more about Italian cinema. Safe to say you won't soon forget these folks -- or their little piece of sham history.