(My friend Otto threatened me with bodily harm if I didn’t post, so I got my butt in gear and finished this review.)
The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason is the latest publishing marvel to come down the pike: it’s twisty and brainy and has puzzles in Renaissance art, like The Da Vinci Code! It’s written by two young punks just out of Princeton! It’s erudite and a gripping read! Yadda! Yadda!
Well, not so much.
The Rule of Four is the story of Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, two seniors at Princeton the night before their theses are due. Paul’s thesis is about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a real book from the Renaissance that details something in a strange code that has yet to be broken. Tom’s father worked on the puzzle for years; Paul looked Tom up at Princeton because what Tom’s father did on the book.
There were several things that bothered me about this book. The infatuation with Princeton is overweening—the emphasis placed on every little part of the Princeton experience as though it’s poetic or marvelous or something. (I asked Tamar if students at Harvard are this fatuous. She did say that Princetonians are a lot preppier. Then she snorted when I mentioned that these guys are working on a thesis the night before it’s due.) There is a hell of a lot of emphasis put on eating clubs, for instance. As someone not currently at Princeton or worked up about which eating club I belong to, the awe that “the Ivy” appears to inspire seems, uh, ridiculous.
Paul, the guy working on the thesis (and apparently doing so to the exclusion of anything approaching a life at Princeton), manages not to figure out that what he’s doing might be of some, uh, notice, in academic circles, if nowhere else. (You think some undergraduate working on a paper that happened to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem might have an inkling that what he’s done might be of interest?)
The title is The Rule of Four, and much is made of the four guys at the center of the story (Tom, Paul, and their roommates Charlie and Gil)…except they have no relation to the title, no parallels, no thematic unity.
The puzzles that Tom and Paul figure out definitely struck me as stuff that was reverse engineered to show off how esoteric and cool the authors are and not how well the supposed author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili might have hidden whatever secrets the book might contain.
The timeline of the book really bothered me: I believe the entire current storyline of the book covers one night and one day, and there is no way the events described in there could happen.
But what annoyed me most about this book is that it’s not about anything. Or, even worse, I found the theme of the book to be this: it’s all about the bling-bling.
(Yes, the suburban mom in her thirties used “bling-bling,” thereby proving beyond a doubt that phrase has jumped the shark.)
The Rule of Four wants to be The Name Of The Rose, but the biggest difference between that book and this one is that The Name Of The Rose, for all of its puzzleworthiness, is about ideas. What is the secret of the monastery, and why are monks getting murdered for it? The Rule of Four is, in my opinion, pretty much about the stuff. I can’t tell you more without giving it away, of course, but tell me that what you’re supposed to think at the end is: Oh wow, wouldn’t that be cool?
Anyhow, if you want a twisty-turny thriller that makes you feel smarter than you really are, definitely check out The Name Of The Rose (by Umberto Eco, in case you’re wondering). Another one, always fun, is The Eight by Katherine Neville. There are also all the books by Arturo Perez-Reverte, such as The Club Dumas. (I’m not a huge Perez-Reverte fan, but he’s way better than this book.)
But if you want to read The Rule of Four, get it out of the library. Or better yet, read the rest of this entry and I’ll spoil the book for you…
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Here there be spoilers. You are warned.
Our Heroes discover that the author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili saw the world of the Renaissance—its learning, its art, its treasures—being destroyed in due to religious fanatics like Savonarola, who was burning books and artworks considered obscene or heretical. So he collected a vast quantity of art and books and other treasures that would have been burned in one of Savonarola’s gigantic bonfires, hid them in a secret tomb in Rome, and then put the directions on how to find the tomb in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
Now, it could just be me, but doesn’t it seem like that sort of set-up is rife with possibilities to make commentary on our own age? The Renaissance, height of learning, brought down by religious fanatics. Princeton, seat of higher learning, in a culture full of religious fanatics…
Nope, no, wrongo: what The Rule of Four is concerned with is: Where’s the stuff? We know that everything has turned out all right in the end, after all the murders and backstabbing and yadda yadda because five years after the end of the events in the main story, Tom gets a package in the mail from Rome, from Paul: it’s an artwork that another living being hasn’t seen for five hundred years. In other words: Paul got the stuff. Whoo hoo. Yay team.
If the previous three hundred and fifty pages hadn’t made it clear, the ending sure did: this book is a triumph of the culture of stuff. Finding the Cave of Wonders is enough of an ending…if you’re eight.
I don’t remember threatening you with BODILY harm…
I felt like I was in a disappointing sexual experience.
Can anyone tell me why Richard Curry seems to be attacking everyone at Ivy? Is it self defense? An attempt to fake Paul’s death? Distorted consciousness after hitting his head on the fireplace? Or was he actually attacking Paul? I was under the impression that he was still helping Paul win at the end, but I cannot understand those few pages of conflict.
I purchased the book yesterday (I might not have had I read the above), i found it puerile in some places and really not intriguing. They quote Goethe without translating the verse, some passages are repetitive as iwritten for forgetful “seniors” and the attempt to render it mysterious has failed, for me. Thank you for an honest view (it has been compared to the DaVinci Code. I think that was a better read!!!)
Just purchased The Rule of Four, after reading several reviews. This review is negative, first one. Looking forward to forming my own opinion. By the way, DaVinci Code was a thriller. Wonder what this one is?
This was one of the most disappointing books I have ever had to slog through to finish. I agree completely with the whole timeline problem; the emphasis was definitely on conveying the whole Princeton experience and did not have any coherent means of advancing the story in a believable way. The only good part was nearly 3/4 through when the mystery of the ancient book was laid out. This could have been fed out in installments and I would have at least been able to finish it within a month. Boring.
It is clear that whoever wrote this review did not pay much attention when reading the book, because many comments are misguided. This books was very interesting and beautifully written. Don’t pay attention to the nonsense in this review
Well, gosh. That kind of incisive rebuttal to my points sure put me in my place.
I stand by my opinion of the book even more now.
Im a sophmore in highschool and for some reason chose this book for a book report, hoping that it would be similar to the Da Vinci Code, which i finished in less than a week, so i figured i could finish this one and it would be just as exciting. But here i am due tomorrow and i have about 150 more pages to go and i still just can’t get that excited about this book, I mean its ok, i’ve read worse, but i don’t understand how people like Paul and Tom’s Dad could become so obsessed when in the end the truth was ok but nothing to become obsessed about, o well just my opinion.
I ended up reserving the audio version of this book at the library by mistake. After hearing halfway to Audio disc 3 I had to bail. The most exciting thing that happened while ‘reading’ was nearly losing my life in a car accident because I could barely stay awake. Do you know what its like to read “Hypnerotomachia” over and over again? Do you know what its like to hear it that much??
Not to say that the book wasn’t a little dull, but I think you guys are missing the point of the story. It wasn’t about the puzzles or the mystery, or the “stuff”. That was just for fun. It seemed the authors were mostly trying to make commentary about life and love. It was about how people are always torn between two loves. I think they just threw in the happy ending to avoid frustration from the less perceptive readers. It would’ve been better if they’d had Tom slump deeper and deeper into depression and finally kill himself. That’s real life.
Or better yet, maybe the book only seems dull until you solve it’s mystery? Arrange all the letters in 80 column rows and apply the rule of four, and then it becomes a more fascinating, action-packed story?
I don’t think it should really be compared to the DaVinci Code, though. Dan Brown’s stories are much more fictitious, and contain almost no human story, other than the eventual hooking up of Robert Langdon with the current leading chick. The puzzles are similar but the emphasis, I think, is much different.
That’s my $0.02, anyway.
This has to be one of the worst reviews I have ever read. Not only does it fail to make sence, it was also poorly thought out.
The book itself for a pleasent read. There are areas it could have improved on greatly, but it was very enjoyable nonetheless.
Mohammed Ali
A dreadfully boring read, which I would have accepted if not for the endless comparisons to the DaVinci Code. The DaVinci Code (which I enjoyed but did not love) was a riddle wrapped in a relatively fast moving story. The Rule of Four is a far less compelling riddle, on a far less interesting topic, wrapped in a story that goes nowhere slowly.
I must disagree with the review. This book was nothing like the ..Code, so comparing it with Brown’s novel is like comparing Los Angeles from New York. I was hoping for a gay-love-arc but nothing.
I liked the narration better than the central theme of figuring out the puzzle.The character sketches of Katie,Paul,Gil and Charlie is written in an abstract manner,as if they are not living people but subjects in a painting.There is probably a bit too much about princeton and the social mores and customs in place , but I skipped over that bit,when I couldnt relate to it.I think both kids did a decent job about writing this yarn.