Gutenberg's Apprentice
Alix Christie, 2014
HarperCollins
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062336019
Summary
An enthralling literary debut that evokes one of the most momentous events in history, the birth of printing in medieval Germany—a story of invention, intrigue, and betrayal.
Youthful, ambitious Peter Schoeffer is on the verge of professional success as a scribe in Paris when his foster father, the wealthy merchant and bookseller Johann Fust, summons him home to corruption- riddled, feud-plagued Mainz to meet "a most amazing man."
Johann Gutenberg, a driven and caustic inventor, has devised a revolutionary—and, to some, blasphemous—method of bookmaking: a machine he calls a printing press. Fust is financing Gutenberg's workshop, and he orders Peter to become Gutenberg's apprentice. Resentful at having to abandon a prestigious career as a scribe, Peter begins his education in the "darkest art."
As his skill grows, so too does his admiration for Gutenberg and his dedication to their daring venture: printing copies of the Holy Bible. But when outside forces align against them, Peter finds himself torn between two father figures—the generous Fust and the brilliant, mercurial Gutenberg, who inspires Peter to achieve his own mastery.
Caught between the genius and the merchant, the old ways and the new, Peter and the men he admires must work together to prevail against overwhelming obstacles in a battle that will change history...and irrevocably transform them all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June, 1958
• Where—Redwood, California, USA
• Raised—California, Montana, and British Columbia, Canada
• Education—B.A., Vassar College; M.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.F.A.,
Saint Mary's College of California
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Alix Christie is an author, journalist, and letterpress printer. She learned the craft as an apprentice to two master California printers and owns and operates a 1910 Chandler & Price letterpress. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Saint Mary's College of California and currently lives in London, where she reviews books and arts for the Economist. Gutenberg's Apprentice is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
In her words:
I was born in the Silicon Valley while it was still orchards, and grew up in California, Montana, and British Columbia. A move to New York state to attend Vassar College, where I was a Phi Beta Kappa philosophy major, led to Manhattan and a stint in advertising copywriting. I returned home to pursue a masters degree in journalism at the University of California and have been a peripatetic reporter and writer ever since.
My articles and commentary have appeared in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The Economist, The Guardian, Salon and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. I am the former editor of the Foreign Service of the San Francisco Chronicle, a network of freelance foreign correspondents.
While raising two children in the 1990s I earned a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from St. Mary’s College of California. My debut novel, Gutenberg's Apprentice, is forthcoming this fall. An earlier unpublished work was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, and my short stories have appeared in Southwest Review, Other Voices, and For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn: Six Words, Six Stories, Six Writers, a limited letterpress edition from Foolscap Press.
(From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.)Christie’s fiction debut descriptions of technical processes and medieval society are enthralling; the romance and personal melodrama are less compelling. At her best, she demonstrates a printer’s precision and a dogged researcher’s diligence in her painstakingly meticulous account of quattrocento innovation, technology, politics, art, and commerce
Publishers Weekly
Christie's slow-paced debut is rich in historical detail. Although the writing can be overblown, the story of the birth of the printing press is fascinating. Readers who enjoy historical fiction such as Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures will enjoy this admirable outing. —Terry Lucas, Rogers Memorial Lib., Southampton, NY
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Gorgeously written...dramatizes the creation of the Gutenberg Bible in a story that devotees of book history and authentic historical fiction will relish...An inspiring tale of ambition, camaraderie, betrayal, and cultural transformation based on actual events and people, this wonderful novel fully inhabits its age.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Christie masterfully depicts the time and energy required to print the first Bibles...against a catastrophic backdrop of plague, the fall of Constantinople, the violent superstitions of the peasantry, and a vested intelligentsia.... [T]he narrative is given texture through intermittent chapters in which Schoeffer...relates his story to Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim. A bravura debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel begins with Peter Schoeffer telling the story to a writer. In what ways are verbal and written storytelling similar or different?
2. What does Peter retain and lose in his shift from artisan scribe to printmaking engineer?
3. Considering Peter’s initial conflict between the scribe’s art and the printing press, what’s the relationship between art and technology?
4. A central issue in Mainz is the ancient one between homo faber—the man who makes things—and he who sells or trades what others make. What is the conflict here? How might it continue in contemporary culture? Examine the irony of craftsmen making by hand something that would "replace the hand of man."
5. Peter admits late in his life that the printing press never brought "the liberation that it promised" by lifting man "from bigotry and want and greed." How might it have done this? What forces kept it from happening?
6. In what ways does Peter’s experience and identity as an orphan affect his life and relationships?
7. Hermann Rosenberg, a vicar, argues that the printing press could secure knowledge with a standardized text and avoid cultural disorder. In what parts of culture might such a lack of variation be problematic?
8. How do the many references to the biblical stories woven throughout add to the novel? Which seem the most powerful or poignant?
9. Peter thinks one of Gutenberg’s brilliant abilities is "to see a thing—a person too—in pieces." What might this mean? What are its costs?
10. Peter also describes Gutenberg as "beholden to no group…nor…any other man. He stood outside, alone, a solitary soul." How did such disconnection serve or hinder him? To what degree might such behavior be a necessary precondition for brilliance or innovative thinking? or something like this…)
11. When Peter first sees the print from metal letters he carved, "it all changed." What is the nature of such a "spark"?
12. Gutenberg makes harsh statements about the value of women, referring to Eve, Pandora, and Magdalene. Consider the two women in Peter’s life, Grede and Anna Pinzler. How are they powerful, valuable women?
13. What constituted Peter’s "unexpected joy" working with the various craftsmen in the secret workshop?
14. What qualities in Gutenberg caused him to risk the failure of the printing press itself? Were these qualities necessary and unavoidable for him?
15. As the workshop falls apart Peter realizes that the work there had a series of technical rites and rituals and prayer-like vocabulary that bound the workers together. How does this occur? What’s the nature of rites and rituals that they can have this effect even in a secular activity?
16. In what ways is our contemporary shift from print to digital media similar to or different from the shift from hand-written to mechanically printed text?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)