This Magnificent Dappled Sea: A Novel
By: David Biro / Narrated By: Cassandra Campbell
Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
A Feel-Good story that kinda went on and on and? On and on…
It seemed like I was really going to have my socks knocked off with This Magnificent Dappled Sea, what with the setups of so many wounded and struggling characters. Grand chances of healing abounding, all coming from altruistic acts.
And so it went on, the story developing, the characters’s stories being told.
A 9-year old Italian boy, diagnosed with leukemia, an Italian nurse who just found out her boyfriend has decided to stick with his wife, a Jewish Rabbi who’s not finding meaning in life any longer, suffering a crisis of faith. Oh yeah, and? The Rabbi’s wife haaaaaates Italians because of what they did to her grandparents who went on to die in concentration camps.
We get to know each of these people, we learn that Luka (The boy the whole of the novel centers on) is the spitting image of his dead father, Pablo. Both of them with striking red hair, so different from his grandpa Giovanni’s hair, his grandma Letizia’s hair.
But Giovanni has a secret. The story has always been that, after trying to have children of their own, one day Giovanni took it upon himself to go to the Sacred Heart orphanage where the nuns had an infant waiting for him. This infant was Pablo who did NOT know he was adopted and who was later killed in a horrible auto accident with his wife, the sole survivor of the accident being Luka. All Luka knows is that his grandparents are his family, his world. But when a stubborn cold is discovered to be leukemia, and as his prognosis worsens, secrets WILL most surely come out, right?
Well, it all starts with the nurse taking it upon herself to get samples to an oncologist of note who suggests a bone marrow transfer. Alas, none of Luka’s friends or family are a match. One IS found, however….
Back in the U.S., there’s been a testing drive to find marrow to treat a young girl. Jaded beyond belief, the Rabbi has joined the drive, hoping that he can do SOME good. After all, his son is acting up, one of his fold is a wife-beater, his wife doesn’t wanna listen to ANYthing he has to say (Indeed, she comes off as a total shrew!). He’s tired, oh so tired. So when it comes back that he CAN provide marrow, that he’s a match? He’s somewhat happy and invigorated. He has to donate on the sly as his wife has flipped her lid when it’s discovered that the person who will be helped is in Italy, but no matter. The Rabbi must help!
Which is where Giovanni’s secret comes in because how does a little Italian Catholic boy share the same genetic markers as someone of pure Jewish heritage?
Turns out, during WWII the village Letizia and Giovanni lived in was peopled with Nazi sympathizers and informers. A chance encounter in the woods, a man thrusting an infant at Giovanni along with a slip of paper, the sound of gunshots after the man melts back into the woods. And a secret Giovanni will NEVER tell to anyone, not even Letizia—the baby is from the nuns, he stoutly maintains.
As Luka’s illness progresses, that secret threatens to come out. And we’re treated to eeeeendless scenes of Giovanni’s all-consuming guilt which manifests itself as a wound he keeps picking at, leaving a gaping bloody hole in his leg, so severe that veins have to be tied off on occasions lest he bleed to death. Oh man, do we hear about it, a LOT. Over and over and over, and I kept wondering why on earth he didn’t just tell Letizia at LEAST, or the doctor when he has a chance. But noooo, author David Biro writes well of a sore turned gaping wound, of guilt and shame, sooooo forEVER we hear about Giovanni’s mute remorse over an “offense” I didn’t quite see.
Add to that Luka as he gets older, as he and the Rabbi and the Rabbi’s family meet, as he learns of secrets and gets all peeved then lets go, then he gets to be college age. All the while the nurse comes into her own but still can’t break it off with her married boyfriend? I mean, when was it going to finish already?
Then we come to see Luka as a man who just can’t settle down, who keeps on being drawn into learning about his birth family, who’s good with kids, etc. etc. et freaking cetera? I mean, good cow!
Now, at first I started to wonder why the (Awesome) Cassandra Campbell was chosen to be narrator. This is peopled with Italians! The Rabbi and Luka are male! What on earth?! But then I listened and came to remember that Cassandra Campbell is, quite simply, AWEsome. She handles the accents, she differentiates between characters. And tho’ I deeeeearly wanted to strangle or spit at the Rabbi’s wife for how unyielding and judgmental she was (Thanks to Campbell narrating her as the hate-filled wench she was), that character had an arc of her own and showed growth as the story progressed, so PHEW! No, Campbell has SUCH a smooth unflappable voice, plus she reeeeally knows how to milk a story for all the emotions it’s worth!
Still, the story could’ve used some editing, gosh, even just a smidgen woulda been appreciated. And I still have noooo clue, nope, zippo, nada, as to why it has the title it has. Was Biro merely going with what would seem poetic as an Amazon First Reads? Try to make the prospective chooser feel s/he was gonna be in for some literary fiction with, maybe whazza? a plot?
Well, a bit of plot, yes, some lovely writing, yes, but waaaaay too much of it. I would NOT say this was a baaaad listen, but I WOULD say it’s about two, maybe even three, hours too long.
But hey! It has Cassandra Campbell bouncing out the Italian accents and doing a bit of kvetching. What’s not to like…?
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