A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom by John Boyne

A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom by John Boyne – 465 pages 

ARC from Doubleday and Netgalley for an honest review

Book Blurb:

It starts with a family, a family which will mutate. For now, it is a father, mother and two sons. One with his father’s violence in his blood. One who lives his mother’s artistry. One leaves. One stays. They will be joined by others whose deeds will change their fate. It is a beginning.

Their stories will intertwine and evolve over the course of two thousand years – they will meet again and again at different times and in different places. From distant Palestine at the dawn of the first millennium to a life amongst the stars in the third. While the world will change around them, their destinies will remain the same. It must play out as foretold. It is written.

My Review: 4 stars

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John Boyne is one of those authors that I absolutely adore. I love his writing and consider him a brilliant wordsmith – if he released a grocery list, I’d probably buy it. So, of course, I was super excited to dig into A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom. I’m not going to lie, the start this book will seem daunting; it’s long, covers eons of time and crosses the globe. There is a lot of history embedded in the pages as well. In my opinion, it’s worth the time committment, so I say dive in, just know what you’re getting into from the start. 

The story is told by a nameless narrator who shares personal history, and by default, the world’s history, over a span of 2,000 years, beginning in Palestine in 1 A.D. and ending in an epilogue taking place in 2080. I’m going to be honest, the first fourth of this book I was extremely confused. I pushed myself to go on. Each chapter takes place in a different location during a different time period, but the same cast of characters appear with small tweaks and changes. Once I got into the narrative flow, which was formulaic, my reading experience became easier and I was more interested in what would happen next.

The narrator could have been in any country, in any time period and the story would have been the same. This was a fascinating feat as it touched on the common threads of birth, death, love, loss, duty, betrayal, friendship, pain and the creation and destruction of civilization. But on the other hand, I felt that there could have been more world history weaved in. Besides name and city changes, there wasn’t much else that indicated where and when the narrator was in history. When our narrator was working hand-in-hand with Michelangelo, and later on with William Shakespeare, I wanted to dig deeper and learn more. It would’ve made for a longer book but I felt like it was a missed opportunity.

The ending felt a bit rushed for me, but, wow, did I feel like the novel came full circle. I don’t want to give anything away, but by the end, I felt as though I finally got what Boyne was trying to get across to the reader. A unique story and unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

Quotes I liked:

Don’t we all hope for some form of immortality? We might not be able to breathe forever but there are other ways to stay alive.”