Eclipse was both mesmerizing and thought-provoking. While I struggled to engage fully and found connecting challenging, I appreciated the unique reading experience and beautiful writing. Overall, it’s a captivating read that offers much to ponder, earning me a solid four stars!

This book reminded me somewhat of Silence, by Shusaku Endo, though this one is set in Europe. I didn't like the graphic bits in this one any more than I liked the similarly graphic scenes in Silence, but I did enjoy this book more than I expected to. The first third of the story is really slow, but once the plot kicks in the story gets easier to engage with. I suspect that readers who enjoyed Hanya Yanagihara's The People in the Trees, Christopher Priest's The Islanders, or Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose may also enjoy the style of this novella. For me it was a decent bit of serious literary fiction, but not a book I would recommend to just anyone. There is enough going on in this novella to make it a great option for college world literature classes, so I would not be surprised if this book winds up in the syllabus in a few courses over the next few years.

3.5/4

This is probably the strangest book I've read this year. The prose is excellent and flows well. There were parts which were captivating in their oddness and I found it difficult to stop reading at times. However there were also parts which I read several times and still didn't understand what Hirano was trying to say.

The story follows a young priest, Nicolas, on his journey through France ostensibly heading to Florence to find a manuscript. However, along the way he gets waylaid in a village where he becomes entranced by an alchemist, Pierre Dufay. Strange things begin to occur in the village which culminates in the burning of a witch.

The book is a strange mixture of religion, paganism and the failings human nature. It certainly wasn't the book I was expecting to read. I would recommend this book if you have an interest in religion and its attitude to life in the 16th century.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Columbia University Press for the advance review copy.

Thank you so much to author Keiichiro Hirano, translators Brent de Chene & Charles De Wolf, Columbia University Press, and NetGalley for this free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A relatively quick read (which can likely be consumed in one sitting), Eclipse is a bite sized novella that follows a religious man pursuing different avenues of knowledge in 15th Century France. Rather than seeing Good as Good and darkness and Evil as 100% evil, that bit in between-that grey area--is explored as our main character meets new people and stories along his journey. Though the original Eclipse was published in 1998, I do believe that the themes brought up back then are still relevant to this day. Overall, I enjoyed this translation, though I would like to note that while the story begins a bit slow, it does ramp up as the story picks up. Just stick with it!

The ideas and premise of this story was fascinating. Hirano explores religion, philosophy, alchemy and nature within a short book. We get a real sense of the religious journey the Friar embarks on, and how he questions the world as his relationship with the alchemist develops.The language at times was beautiful and soulful.

However, this felt like a slog. Perhaps it is a novel that needs to be savoured, and concentrated on more than I was able to. The ideas and exploration as mentioned above are profound and fascinating, but they are a lot to digest and really understand. This book took me a long time to get through. It may have achieved its purpose in making the reader think and really understand the world and nature, but it felt like the reader really has to commit to absorbing these.

Everything was there in this novel, but the pace and language require it to be completely embraced and pored over. It is certainly not a quick read, nor an easy one. But it is extremely clever and impressive and I can see why it was awarded.

An odd, mysterious little novella, translated expertly. I found myself interested in the strange happenings in this medieval French village, but the theological discussions didn’t engage me and it moved too quickly to build tension to the explosive ending. Certainly an intriguing work, but it didn’t fully work for me.

Eclipse is a novella which spans a very short space of time but the pacing made it feel much longer.

The protagonist, who writes in the first person, is an inquisitive but cautious person and has an air of detachment to their narration which meant I didn't feel there was much build up or excitement to the novel. The writing style distracted me from the action and I found my interest waning several times although I did manage to finally get to the end.

A mesmerising, atmospheric and thought provoking story, following a priest's experience with pagan forces and a mysterious alchemist in Lyon. I was absolutely captivated by this, it's a little slow to start with but there is such a sense of suspense and the final third is very thought provoking. A very unique story, I'm so glad we've finally got an English translation of this.

My experience reading Eclipse was a bit like going on a great first date—followed by subsequent dates that were nice enough, but lacked that "glow" that had portended magic.

Keiichiro Hirano's novel tells the story of a young Dominican (the Catholic type, not the Caribbean type) in 15th Century France. Our central character—we never learn his name—admires Thomas Aquinas and hopes, like his hero, to reconcile parts of pagan science and philosophy with Christian doctrine. Pagan ideas, he explains "Though for a time driven into exile... are invariably revived by whatever elements they contain that are philosophically valid. And when they return, their errors are seen, seamlessly, as one with their truths. It is for this reason that we are obliged to incorporate the entirety of these systems of thought, submitting them to the teachings of the Church even as we rigorously seek out and expose whatever they harbor that is false, Excluding them would only leave them abandoned, beyond the scope of doctrine. Even poisoned water must be turned to wine." (The reader might ask here "but is the poisoned water going to result in poisoned wine?")

Our Dominican sets out for Florence, hoping to find rare pagan texts that will allow him to begin his work of wine-making/reconciliation. He stops in a village that is home to an alchemist he's been told to seek out and has a series of interesting but inconclusive interactions with this man. Theirs is not a teacher-student relationship, but more like a an older sibling letting a younger sibling tag along while pretending that younger sibling doesn't exist.

They village has been suffering through a miserable period of drenching rain and poor harvests and villagers are beginning to ask who or what is responsible for this disaster. Which leads, of course, to questions of whether something diabolical is at play. At the same time, visions of hermaphroditic giants begin appearing to villagers.

The events that play out in the village at this point provide the heart of the novel, and for our Dominican, open up questions of spiritual and earthly justice, dualism, the nature of the sacred, and the possibility of transcendence. Our Dominican's thoughts span the profound and the banal—and he is much more interesting an following these thoughts than in taking action during this time of crisis. He observes the world, but largely avoids interacting with it.

As I said at the beginning of this review, I lost some of my fervid, love-at-first-sight reaction and I made my way through Eclipse. But I never considered putting the book down. It had substance, though that substance was oddly non-directional.

I received a free electronic copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

Sigh, sad to say that I didn’t enjoy this book that received Japn’s prestigous Akutagawa Prize. I enjoyed one of the author’s other books A Man, which I enjoyed a lot and I’m looking forward to reading his At the End of the Marinee. Back to this book - I couldn’t get into it…Set in the 15th century it’s about a friar who meets an alchemist while traveling from Paris to Florence to search for rare manuscripts. It’s replete with philosophical and psychological fare, medieval alchemy, and symbolism. I was drawn to the premise of the book and was intrigued as the book began, but alas, it didn’t hold my attention and I couldn’t get into the book. I hope other readers will enjoy it much more than I did. It was a 2.5 star read for me, rounded up to 3 stars. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

very daring and unique, but i wish the explanation was earlier and i wish tehre was more contextualization to "map" it onto the emotions of the reader. 4 stars. tysm for the arc

I found the whole idea of this novella strange, a Japanese writer telling the story of a Dominican friar in France in the late 15th century so I read it for interest but I must admit that I didn’t really connect with it. It’s a straightforward structure and starts a bit slow as it sets the scene. Plenty of ideas and philosophy packed into a short book.

I love the premise of this book, with the young Dominican friar Nicolas, setting out on a journey, but to be honest, I found the start a little hard going, it is very philosophical and structured, that it felt like wading through an academic article, rather than a start to a novella. This comes from his fascination with "fragments of pre-Christian philosophy that have come into his hands and determined to achieve a synthesis of Hermetic and Neoplatonic thought with the Christian tradition" (quote from the Introduction).

Thankfully, after setting the scene, the story starts to open up and the writing offers some quirkiness (whether this is the author or the translator, I am not sure).

"I came to realize that obtaining the document I sought would be more difficult than I had expected, and for two reasons: first, the fundamental problem that it was simply not to be found".

I laughed - It is a quote that is so simple that it is almost at odds with some of the other parts of the book.

The story is expressed as the narration of Nicolas' journey, in which he shares his opinions about the people he meets and the places he visits. These are often descriptive and not always complementary. It also, is of the challenges the friar feels, struggling to correlate his beliefs against people he admires and alternative scientific views. The following is an example of this conflict of feelings relating to the alchemist Pierre:

"Above all, I dreaded any debate with him. I was particularly averse to being forced to pronounce on the heresy or orthodoxy of his views. I, an ardent defender of the faith, a brother in the order of Saint Dominic!"

The author is also quite brave and brazen. There are scenes which resemble the big bang creation of earth, extravagant carvings, strange people, curses, and a good deal of local fear. Hirano, certainly knows his 15th century literature and history and has provided a book full of wonder, hysteria and conspiracies.

I think this book is quite divisive and some will really enjoy it, and others will find it less so. This seems particularly true of the reviews I have already read. For me, it was not my favourite book. I didn't feel emotionally connected to it, but I am glad to have read it.

Eclipse is essentially a story of ultimate contrast. Set in the 15th century, we follow a religious figure in the pursuit of knowledge. Along the way, light and dark, good and bad, and the holy and unholy are thrown against each other in every given moment Nicolas encounters. While initial binary in their understanding of what is “good”, Eclipse takes Nicolas on a story of grey areas, contesting their understanding of the world, and themselves and taking them on a spiritual journey not necessarily aligned with their religion.

The introduction is in-depth but very much appreciated. It essentially covers the entire story, so don’t read this prior to reading the novel if you want to avoid spoilers.

Overall I can understand why this book was so successful when it launched, and the last 50 pages were by far my favourite. Had it been more fast-paced throughout. I appreciate having the opportunity to read this book!

Thank you Columbia University Press and NetGalley for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

**This review will be published on my Goodreads account a week before the publication (Publication being 12th November 2024).**

#Eclipse #NetGalley

(ARC Gifted/AD for honest review)

First of all, my gratitude to #NetGalley and #ColumbiaUniversityPress for the opportunity to read #Eclipse (an already highly acclaimed novel by Japanese author Keiichiro Hirano--now translated for publication in the US on 11/12/2024). I was drawn to the book's cover and after reading the synopsis, committed to some demanding and possibly dense content.

The book begins with a lengthy description about the original publication of the novella, its acclaim, the extensive translation process, and much of its plot. I read through everything carefully thinking it would help me to navigate the historical/philosophical/religious material more readily. In retrospect, I would have preferred to begin with the text and to read this preface material as an afterward.

The efforts invested in translation (which included the author himself) were notable and the plot of the friar's journey from Paris to Florence seeking religious/historical manuscripts was laid out as a first person account. The novella got very interesting for me toward the middle when the friar, Nicolas, started meeting with the alchemist, Pierre Dufray, and learning concepts firsthand by observing the mysterious alchemist and watching his comings and goings. The tension builds continuously during these visits and we are also introduced to a few other characters including the enigmatic child "Jean" whose character added a touch of the supernatural for me and contributed to the underlying darkness of the story.

Unfortunately, the final third or so of the novella just eluded me in what felt like metaphorical allusions to religion and also the disturbing "human tendency" toward mob mentality, violence and rage. With that the compelling feel of the story diminished for me. While very grateful for the opportunity to read this translation, the entirety didn't hold my attention through the conclusion. I am interested in reading other translated works by this author and wish him tremendous success in its release here.

Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the ARC!

Keiichiro Hirano’s newly-translated Eclipse is a subdued exploration of the tension between synthesis and syncretism—a novella concerned with how one responds when the foundation falls out from under belief.

The story is simple—a fifteenth-century Dominican monk feels a burden to explore philosophical possibilities outside Christianity so that he might integrate them into his faith. It worked with Platonic thought, he argues, so why not alchemy? There isn’t much of a premise beyond that, but the first-person narration (translated beautifully by Brent de Chene and Charles De Wolfe) draws the reader toward interiority, even when the storyteller is witnessing some truly bizarre imagery. It’s an effective approach because it forces us to constantly wrestle with a question:

Which matters more—events or their interpretation?

Late in the book, there’s a line about the villagers being filled with “eschatological anxiety,” and that’s perhaps the easiest way to define the story as a whole. All of the disparate elements—alchemical possibility, religious hypocrisy, and un-gendered ambiguity—serve to rupture the narrative and suggest it will careen to some sort of reality-shattering destruction.

And yet it lumbers uncomfortably on.

We expect the catharsis of crisis, but the author rejects it as a form of confirmation bias—the need to retrofit new experience into old beliefs. I say “belief” here because I don’t think this is simply about faith or religion. It seems more broadly ontological.

Throughout the book, we move deep into the nature of belief. When the alchemist’s practices are similar to a monk’s, does the object of faith matter? Similarly, when a lecherous priest holds the power to condemn, what is the nature of absolution? Do these distinctions matter, or are they universally destructive?

All of these tensions come to a head when an innocent, hermaphroditic creature born from the shadows in a cave (hello, Plato?) is stoned for being a witch. Its innocence—maybe its holiness—seems rooted in its lack of humanity. Its refusal of gendered dichotomy echoes the Christological significance of the hypostatic union. More importantly, however, readers are left pondering whether its salvific function originates in its lack of language—the absence of a structure to scaffold faith. The narrative never gives us a clear answer, instead culminating in an apocalyptic explosion of burnt flesh and bodily fluid before returning to muted uneventfulness almost immediately.

In the end, the only sin is holding on to belief too tightly.

Beautiful descriptions. The writing is a work of art. I did not quite understand the story but I think it is one of the points of the book that it feels like a dream were the line between reality and fiction is thin and it adds to the allure of the novel. This book is one of the few instances where I enjoyed feeling confused.

I’m not sure how to describe this novella. There are no chapters and it’s a memoir written in the first person by a Dominican friar, mainly about their time in a little village outside Lyon visiting an alchemist. It is a work of incredible research and empathy as fifteenth-century christian theology is rather removed from Japanese buddhism/Shinto/neo-confucianism. Yet, it didn’t grab me. Nothing much happened. I struggled to follow the philosophical musings, various lists of books looked like a display of research rather than driving the plot forward and it ended up as a DNF at 50%. I wish I liked it more but it really reads as a light fictionalisation of philosophical/theological treatises rather than as a true work of fiction. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Eclipse is a short piece following Nicolas, a 15th century Dominican friar who is exploring theological issues and is interested in alchemy, so much so that he ends up travelling to a village in search of a known alchemist. The author shows us Nicolas' mind, the way he questions some ideas and doesn't consider others, how he reacts to the person and the events that he encounters, allowing the character to narrate in great detail his feelings and reflexions. Meanwhile, the village is going through some events, leading all threads to meet on a version of the historically known witch trials of the inquisition.
The prose was slow to pick up my interest in the first half but made up for it on the second part of the book. I'd say it is at its best when exploring the extasy of the friar when "exposed" to specific knowledge or experience and how he finds a way to fit it all into his frame of mind and his continued life. I'd consider reading more from the author if the chance arises.

A strange and satisfying novella. It has a style that I am not used to in Japanese fiction – the sentences are long, flowing, colourful. You will need to absorb them slowly and patiently.

Eclipse reminded me of The Name of the Rose – that is, if the latter was a fever dream. In 1482 a young Dominican priest scholar named Nicolas is traveling through France, looking for a complete manuscript of Corpus Hermeticum. Nicolas believes that his mission in life is to reconcile Christianity to “pagan” philosophy. There is a lot of such dichotomy and duality in the book - Christian vs pagan, mind vs body, sin vs God, world of flesh vs the divine, female vs male, etc. Can we meld and reconcile?

Nicolas has a habit of thinking deeply about everything he sees. There is a lot of theology and Christian philosophy that an unwary reader might drown in. (I had to quickly refresh my memory on Thomas Aquinas and Willian of Ockham.)

For no particular reason other than curiosity, Nicolas decides to stop at a remote village to visit an alchemist. His interactions with the villagers are very nicely written, and the descriptions are beautiful.

“… we passed three young women who had come flying out of the building. They were all dressed in long white gowns whose hems, flipping in the wind, were like clumps of earth kicked up by galloping horses.”

There is another Dominican there, an inquisitor who carries Bernard Gui’s Inquisitor’s Manual everywhere with him. (Hello again, The Name of the Rose.)

The geometrical layout of the village might carry a deeper meaning and there is a bridge where people have seen ghosts. Nicolas’ first meetings with Pierre the alchemist are powerful and poetic.

Then we go into a territory which is very weird, very disturbing, and impactful. Horrible things happen. There might be a hint of an explanation at the end, but this is up to the reader to determine.

Having finished, I am left with the feeling of wonder and a conviction of having been elsewhere.

This is not a book for every kind of reader. I suspect the current average GR rating reflects this. But I am glad that I have read it.

P.S. The preface summarises the plot in great detail. I realised this in time and skimmed forward in panic, as I wanted to go in blind. You’ve been warned :)

Huge thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!