Review of Passarola Rising . . . Posted September 26, 2007

Passarola Rising by Azhar Abidi Penguin, A$24.95 Reviewed by Ian Nichols Book reviews index

It's sometimes difficult to work out whether a book is suffering from post-modernism, magic realism or just plain bad copy-editing. Passarola Rising seems to have elements of all of them, or maybe it's just the last.

At bottom, it's an adventure story spiced with reflective passages and self-examination. It tells the story of two brothers, Bartolomeu and Alexandre Laurenco, who leave their home in Brazil to travel to Portugal and follow Bartolomeu's dream of flight. He studies and researches the science of the day, the 1730s, and creates the fabulous flying machine, the Passarola. The marvel of the age, the Passarola is lifted by copper balls containing a vacuum, and driven by the winds. Of course, all marvels have their detractors, and Bartolomeu's is Cardinal Conti, a rag-end of the Inquisition, lusting for the old days of absolute clerical authority enforced by the rack. Conti drives the brothers out of Portugal, and the seek refuge in France, where the King, Louis XV, gives them sanctuary.

The fun really starts when Louis asks them to perform some missions for him. The first is to rescue the Polish king, Stanislaus, from Danzig. They succeed, after a deal of high-minded debate and hair-raising risks, but the Passarola is severely damaged in the process. They rest in frustrating idleness until king Louis summons them for another task, this one of vast scientific importance; they must journey to the north pole to determine whether the Earth is flattened or elongated towards the poles, a determination vital to accurate navigation. Once more they set sail, or drift, off to Lapland and beyond, facing horrors and terrors on their way and, ultimately, defeat. It's just too cold and windy up in those high latitudes, and they are forced to return to France.

The two brothers come to a parting of the ways soon after. Lourenco has had enough of drifting ever further, ever higher, and he returns to Brazil to visit their family, later settling down as a prosperous businessman with his wife and children. Bartolomeu continues his adventurings, going ever higher, ever further, seeing more and more wondrous things in his eventual pursuit of the spirit of flight itself, embodied in the form of a strange bird only seen in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. His fate is as mysterious as it is befitting; whirled up into the very heavens by a hurricane on a voyage to the south of Peru.

It's a historical novel in intent, as the author's note at the end states. Bartolomeu was an actual figure in history, one of the pioneers of flight. The other figures of the Age of Enlightenment also existed. But in other ways it's an alternate history, because the airship and the flights it made never existed, indeed, couldn't have existed. The science is wrong. Copper balls with 2.5 mm walls can't hold a hard vacuum under atmospheric pressure, and to lift something the size of the Passarola they would need to be the size of the Hindenberg. So it's an alternate history, really, except it goes a little too far in that direction, as well. The dimensions of things such as the distance between lines of latitude are given wrongly, and cavalry can gallop at the speed of racehorses for extended periods. One could be forgiven, since the impossible and improbable is introduced and accepted so calmly, for believing this a form of magic realism. It certainly has some of the hallmarks of a post-modernist novel, since the smooth flow of narrative is often disrupted. Or, it could just be careless copy-editing.

But there is, I think, a more charitable explanation, and one which fits well with the gorgeous imagery and harrowing descriptions of peril passed. It is a fabulation, a grand confection of lies never meant to be believed as literal truth, nor as high moral tales. It is as full of careless and breathtaking invention as Baron Munchausen, and has much of the deadpan humour. It's a beautiful shaggy-dog story, told with all the high elegance of the grand practitioner, combined with idle speculation, which is possibly the best and most honest sort, about humanity and the world around it, and what makes people pursue dreams, even to their deaths. It's about a peculiar and wonderful madness, told with the gentle respect which the best dreams deserve.

Reviewed by Ian Nichols

Review first published in Grok! The Magazine of Curtin University.