Just Finished Reading: Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte (FP: 1996) [248pp]
Madrid, 1620’s Spain. On his recent release from prison Captain Alatriste (played by Viggo Mortensen in the 2006 Spanish language adaptation) needs three things – a bath, his clothes fumigated and, most importantly, a way to earn a living. With Spain technically at peace the captain, along with many of his fellow soldiers, is out of work and hungry. So, when he hears of a well-paid assignment from a well-placed friend he puts his name forward. The desire of his potential employers to meet in secret behind masks was all the warning he needed. The task was to waylay a pair of foreigners and remove any documentation they carried. Simple enough, except that one of the potential employers wanted the extraction to take place from their dead bodies. It became abundantly clear that Alatriste was fast becoming ensnared in the machinations of political rivals and Holy Mother Church herself. Few, even with the captain’s hard-won skills fared well under such circumstances, especially when he decided to not co-operate.
I first came across the character of Captain Alatriste by accident. I had been browsing through some foreign language DVD’s (as I do) and came across an odd one starring Viggo Mortensen playing a 17th century Spanish soldier. On watching it, in Spanish naturally, I was totally intrigued and delighted to discover it was based on an entire series of books. Fast forward 20 years and here we are. Obviously whenever the captain appeared in the novel I saw him as Viggo, so I didn’t have to use my imagination overly much. His character was very down at heel, scraping to get by between conflicts and unwilling to become a simple bandit or thief. Driven by his own sense of honour (which gets him into a lot more trouble than some of the other more ‘flexible’ characters) he decides to set himself against the plans of powerful people by disobeying orders at a critical moment. This drives the second half of the novel and, presumably, the future books.
The feeling for early 17th century Madrid is handled well as is the almost Machiavellian political intrigue of the age (more on THAT later). Alatriste was a great character both simple in some ways and nicely complex in others. The other very good character – and almost a mirror image of the captain – was the Italian swordsman/assassin Gualterio Malatesta who crosses swords with Alatriste more than once. There are several very nice set pieces and some very good dialogue which I enjoyed greatly. The only criticism I had was with the pacing which stuttered on occasion. Overall though this was a good solid read and most certainly both entertained me and made me want to know more about that period of European/Spanish history. I shall be looking out for the other books in the sequence. Recommended (as is the movie if you can track down a copy).
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden
