THE FENCING MASTER - Arturo Pérez-Reverte

 Madrid, 1868. Don Jaime Astarloa is a fencing master. He is reputed to be the only fencing master in the world to know how to execute a rare, unstoppable thrust move. Don Jaime is approached by a young woman, Adela, who asks him to be her fencing instructor.  It is a highly unusual request - for a woman to learn fencing - and Jaime insists that it would not be proper. But there is something compelling about the woman, who insists that she has had fencing training (in a country that isn't so repressed). He agrees to test her skills and sees that indeed she is well skilled and learned and he promises to teach her all that he can. But what she really wants is to learn the thrust for which there is no counter defense.

But why would this attractive young woman (and she is attractive, of course) want or need to learn such a difficult fencing move? The fact that there's a movement afoot to overthrow Queen Isabel II might have something to do with it.

Don Jaime gets unexpectantly caught up in a traitorous plot, sees friends killed, and learns that while his chivalrous ways are old-fashioned, sometimes the old ways are still the best.

This is a pleasant little book ... if one can use the term 'pleasant' for a story about fencing and subversive activities. But it's a story about a man - Don Jaime Astarloa who is facing a crossroads in his life, which mirrors the social mores crossroads in Spain some 150 years ago.  Don Jaime's life has always been about fencing - a noble art and skill. But in today's world (in the mid-to-late 1800's), the gun was becoming the weapon of choice. But for someone like Astarloa, chivalry and honor are everything. How can someone kill someone else from across a field, without facing him directly?  What honor is in that?

The real struggle here, then, is within Don Jaime, who tries to find a way to stay true to himself and grow with the times. Agreeing to take on a female student is his concession to being more modern - and of course it comes back to bite him in the ass!

I like that the chapters are fencing moves - the whole book is a bit like a fencing match; beat, thrust, parry, retreat, riposte!

In so many ways this is a nice, tight little novel.

But in some ways, this doesn't quite work.

We have a nice set-up of our protagonist, and a couple of supporting characters, but then we jump into the plot rather unexpectedly and the entire character set-up seems unimportant until the very last couple of pages. It's almost like having two stories that converge accidentally at the end.  I was much more interested in Don Jaime's internal struggle of staying true to himself and his beliefs than I was in the secret plot the Jaime got mixed up in!

I picked up this book at one of those free libraries you see everywhere.  I'm glad that I grabbed it and glad to have read it, but equally glad that I didn't pay cash for the book because I'm sure the cash/enjoyment scale wouldn't balance well.  Some other lucky reader will be picking up this same book in another little free library in another state any day now.

Looking for a good book? The Fencing Master by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, like the main character in the book, is a bit old-fashioned, trying to find a way to stay relevant in a world that has sped up and seen more action.

I traded for this book at a little free library.

3 stars

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The Fencing Master

author: Arturo Pérez-Reverte

translator: Margaret Jull Costa

publisher: Mariner Books

ISBN: 0156029839

paperback, 244 pages