IN THE SHAPE OF A BOAR

In this novel, which begins in myth-shrouded ancient Greece and ends on a Paris film set, the boar of the title takes many shapes: first it is a savage animal, then an SS colonel during WWII, then the symbol of competitiveness between writers, then history itself. A complex vision binds the threads of the novel together and simultaneously defines each metaphorical strain. The book's first half takes place in ancient Greece, where a band of hunters chase after a mythical boar, their quest complicated by internal romantic and psychological struggles. Footnotes are sprinkled liberally throughout this section, detailing the location of relics or giving textual references, and occasionally tediously crowding out the actual text. The book then jumps to the contemporary story of poet Solomon Memel, a German Jew who was imprisoned in a Nazi labor camp during WWII, switching between tales of Solomon's life before the war, descriptions of his wartime torture and interrogation, vignettes from the his postwar literary career, and stories from the making of a film. The film's subject is the hunt for the boar described in the first section of the novel, which in turn is revealed to be Solomon's first published book, an allegory based on his wartime experiences. The footnotes in the first section, it turns out, are the responses of a fictional scholar to the work, designed to prove it historically inaccurate. Throughout, the book maintains a confidence and poetic cadence that pushes it forward, giving gravity to every event. Figures like Atalanta, a Greek huntress whose thirst for the Boar of Kalydon gives her unquestioned allure, or Solomon, perpetually persecuted and searching for a way to express himself, are timeless while also believably vulnerable. Norfolk's new work is a challenging and exhilarating read, matching his first two novels—the critically acclaimed Lemprière's Dictionary and The Pope's Rhinoceros—in intellectual reach, and surpassing them in storytelling passion and intensity. (Oct.)