Books: The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

Tales from the cryptic

By John Ziebell

Consider the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an alleged work of fiction first published in 1499, now infamous because its author, intent and provenance are totally unknowable. Depending on one's point of view, the book is either an encyclopedic prose rumination or a series of arcane, unsolved codes and conundrums that pose as one. An icon in the rare book world, it was first translated into English in 1999--coincidentally enough, the year in which Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason set The Rule of Four, a fascinating though somewhat schizophrenic novel about that "last great Renaissance mystery."

The book's backstory could be mistaken for part of the plot itself: Two really smart Ivy League graduates, best friends since elementary school, decide to collaborate on a novel about one of the most obscure texts in Western literature. In their created world, the 15th century book serves as a treasure map of sorts. It also connects two fictional college students who have become friends and roommates. Tom Sullivan, the novel's narrator, is the son of a dead Renaissance scholar who made the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili his life's work; Paul Harris shares the obsession Tom's father had with the text. One is trying to escape history and the other recapture it, and, of course, over time both realize how they complement each other.

The Rule of Four opens the way thrillers usually do, with murders, but its ambition soon separates it from similar-sounding titles that currently crowd popular fiction. The actual mystery serves as the background for something even more mysterious--the business of crossing into adulthood. The novel is attempting to decode not only a 500-year-old manuscript, but what appear to be life's big questions from the perspective of a college senior who's more intellectually than emotionally mature. There's a literal puzzle in the Hypnerotomachia itself, and a metaphorical one in how Tom's obsession with it allows him to ignore real-life concerns--like why he treats his girlfriend so badly or what he's going to do after graduation.

Untangling the linguistic mystery brings surprises, betrayal, more death--all the really astute bookish thrillers resonate here, from Borges through Eco to Perez-Reverte. The novel is at its most intelligent when focused on Renaissance history and the mystery of the text, at its most earnest when dealing with the undergraduate angst of its idealistic protagonists and--occasionally--at its most awkward when it tries to bring those two elements together.

While the writing is rarely clumsy, the story can be. Even granting the abundance of coincidence, this is an awfully impacted environment. Characters are just sketchy enough that it's hard to always know what's really at stake. Tom and his pals are smart, but they lack discrimination, and their actions, thoughts and decisions are often inexplicable. But then these are people who hang out in steam tunnels and abandoned basement rooms, more comfortable with insular microcosms and arcane cryptograms than social situations.

Many things make this book worth reading, but a single thing makes it worth reading only once, and that's the incessant cheerleading for Princeton, Caldwell's alma mater. The problem is not the school per se--the story has to be set at some wealthy university that funds humanities research--but the mythical stature that the authors grant it. I'm sure Princeton is a great place, and its geeks are cooler than those of other Ivy League institutions, but the homage becomes oppressive. The story is thick with insider ritual, history and anecdotes that may mean something to alumni, but are boring to us civilians. If the novel began the day after graduation, rather than a month before, this would be a slimmer but more engaging book.