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Overview
Displaying his characteristic penchant for the macabre, the tender and the comic, Michael Tournier presents the traditional Magi describing their personal odysseys to Bethlehem—and audaciously imagines a fourth, "the eternal latecomer"' whose story of hardship and redemption is the most moving and instructive of all. Prince of Mangalore and son of an Indian maharajah, Taor has tasted an exquisite confection, rachat loukoum, and is so taken by the flavor that he sets out to recover the recipe. His quest takes him across Western Asia and finally lands him in Sodom, where he is imprisoned in a salt mine. There, this fourth wise man learns the recipe from a fellow prisoner, and learns of the existence and meaning of Jesus.
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Synopsis
Displaying his characteristic penchant for the macabre, the tender and the comic, Michael Tournier presents the traditional Magi describing their personal odysseys to Bethlehem — and audaciously imagines a fourth, "the eternal latecomer"' whose story of hardship and redemption is the most moving and instructive of all. Prince of Mangalore and son of an Indian maharajah, Taor has tasted an exquisite confection, rachat loukoum, and is so taken by the flavor that he sets out to recover the recipe. His quest takes him across Western Asia and finally lands him in Sodom, where he is imprisoned in a salt mine. There, this fourth wise man learns the recipe from a fellow prisoner, and learns of the existence and meaning of Jesus.
Editorials
New Statesman
The Four Wise Men struck me as a true masterpiece.— Lewis Jones
New York Times Book Review
A work of extraordinary clarity.— Jonathan Baumbach
The Atlantic
There is a real touch of magic in this novel.
America
This is a novel of high achievement. Tournier works to assert an apologia of Christianity and its underlying message of love, and he does so with finely paced arguing, well-balanced counterarguing and, most importantly, genuine intellectual energy... This may be more than a novel of high achievement, in fact; it may be the best work so far of a truly daring writer.
Washington Post
Tournier is an ambitious and profound writer.
New Statesman -
The Four Wise Men struck me as a true masterpiece.
New York Times Book Review -
A work of extraordinary clarity.