Whew-ee! OK, let's map this out. The Dedalus edition of The Cathedral is 339 pages of small, dense type. Realistically the "novel" portion of the book, that is the part that concerns the fictional character Durtal and his story (such as it is), takes up a slim 65 to 75 pages. Go ahead and count 'em.The rest of this beast can be divided like so: (1) 150 or so pages constitute a well researched and opinionated guidebook on Chartres Cathedral, its history, architecture but mostly the art therein; (2) 95 to 100 pages comprise histories of aspects of Early Christian and medieval religious symbolism, specific categories including saints, priestly vestments, flora, fauna, gemstones, colors...well, it's endless shit really; and (3) an article of approximately 20-odd pages discussing a work by Early Renaissance Italian painter Fra Angelico, which, it might be noted, hangs in the Louvre and has nothing at all to do with Chartres.Section Ratings:I. Novel = B-II. Guidebook = A-III. Symbolism Shite = D (monstrously bad)IV. Fra Angelico Sideshow = C-Now, I've dissected The Cathedral in this way only to disprove a dubious representation knowingly made by Dedalus, Ltd. To wit, the blurb touts The Cathedral, published in 1898, as "a major step forward in the development of the novel." My good citizens of GR, this is demonstrably and damnably false! Has anyone over there ever picked up 1835's Pere Goriot? One could credibly argue that their lie satisfies the common law definition of fraud, the only element in question being whether I've suffered any proximate injury caused by my totally reasonable reliance on Dedalus' lying-ass representation. 'Tis a pity but the steadfast honor of Lady Justice, that cool and imperious mistress of Guy Liberty, oftentimes produces ghastly and inequitable results. Though I was actually reading a series of art lectures delivered by quickly sketched "characters" and connected only by a thin skein of a story, they will show I suffered no injury because my inquiring mind can root out interesting nuggets from a book like a brood sow's snout finds grub-bits in the mire.
