'The Invisible Worm'

 This is a running review of the book Spirits of the Dead. Find out more here.

I assumed from the title of this one that it would be Blakeian i.e. it's drawn from 'The Sick Rose'. And perhaps the story is, but not in ways I could have predicted. Because this time Ron Weighell takes us to Renaissance Italy and a period of history that saw an extraordinary flowering of scholarship. Unfortunately, it also saw something else - an outburst of censorship and anti-intellectualism that resonates all too uncomfortably with the modern West.

The story concerns Eleanora, a beautiful and accomplished young lady whose father - a true humanist - has ensured that she is as well educated and independent as any young gentleman. There is a long, sensuous description of classical statuary and texts as our heroine walks in her father's gardens. But then a fly in the ointment appears in form of a black-clad monk of distintinctly mean visage. Gradually it becomes apparent that we are in or near Florence in the days of Savonarola, and the Bonfire of the Vanities rounds off the tale.

In the square at Altichieri a mountain of beauty and wisdom was ablaze. And as the fire grew, fed on exquisitely wrought paint, wood, and the pages and bindings of precious books, it grew so fierce, so all-consuming, that Eleanora Corvino found herself wondering just how far the flames might spread.

I find myself wondering similar things whenever cynical politicians and media hacks stir up another moral panic. A relatively slight tale as to plot, 'The Invisible Worm' carries considerable weight nonetheless. Wherever they burn books, burning people becomes more probable.