The Brothers Carburi

Petrie Harbouri

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Review

This unusual and immensely beguiling book tells the story of three brothers in the 18th Century, who left their native Cephalonia to seek their fortunes elsewhere.  Giovambattista, the eldest, became an eminent physician at the French Court.  Marco was a Professor of chemistry at the University of Padua for half a century.  Marino had to flee the Republic of Venice after killing a whore: he went to St Petersburg, where he made his name and fortune by designing a machine to move a vast rock from the marshes to the base of the statue known as the Bronze Horseman.  After his wife’s death, Marino’s Russian ventures sour and he goes to Paris where he takes up with a Stephanie, a new mistress.  But then he does the unthinkable – he marries his “French whore” – and returns with her to Cephalonia.

When I began this book, I was under the impression that it was a kind of triple biography, but it is a novel.  It is constructed with short episodes that link very cunningly back and forth, and the author intervenes with her interpretations and reinterpretations (“on second thoughts”) more than is usual.  This could be irritating but I did not find it so: on the contrary, it helps to bring the characters alive because one feels that they have an existence independent of the narrative.  It is a high-risk technique, but the author is sufficiently wise and imaginative about her subjects for it to work.  And what we are left with is a superb portrait of the brothers’ relationships with one another. - review by Johnny de Falbe