Severe Headache At Bridge Of Nose

Bartiméus (because he is!)

Jonathan Stroud - The Original Trilogy of Bartiméus: The Amulet of Samarkand, L ' Golem's Eye, The Gate of Ptolemy, ed. Salani.

Warning: This rant / review / what you will contain some spoilers on the books. Nothing serious, but before going ahead fatevene a reason.

Every year I spend an amount that is close to madness in the library. And because sometimes I like to read in English, and then I pay more, and because I like to read up and stop. Of the various legends, epics and series that I followed and I am following in time, one in particular I want to drag for a moment at the center of the stage.
It is a fantasy story, starring a young boy struggling with English magic.
Sound familiar? Sounds of seven books that are a few bricks and five box office movies to break the bank? Well, think again.
because the story of which we speak today is Trilogy of Bartiméus , the first protagonist, the boy mentioned above, is so irritating and annoying the first time it appeared not even deserve the title of the frieze. He, the protagonist, is said Nathaniel Nat. The other, the jinn mentioned as a challenge and pride, a being whose cynical sarcasm oozes from every note at the bottom of the page, you Bartiméus (no diminutives, and thank you very much). A wheel
follow Kitty, rebellious girl and not at all inclined to magic, various spirits and entities magic magicians and politicians (or both) more or less corrupt and more.
But let's step back.

In London, at a time unspecified, but roughly a twentieth century different from what we know, the wizards are a sort of caste well integrated into society, with the most important of its members to manage government facilities. The magic is not based so much on supernatural powers or other live sticks, but rather on individual will and the ability to summon "from another place" spirits and the like (please note that there are various types of spirits, many of which will remove the head without even thought to be only equate to the most infinitesimally small representatives of the class, then I have not written and you have not read) which enforce their will, standing still to comply with certain rules.
Three among all, never reveal your name - so much so that it was common for wizards to change it as soon as possible, never leave the pentacle while you are calling the entity in question (which, understandably, will never be satisfied in ' be torn from their environment to go to serve a omuncoletto) and, reasonably, never summon spirits that you do not know how to handle.
goes without saying that this leads to a kind of hierarchy in the magicians, the most powerful can control dozens of jinn, afrit Marid and no effort to trafficoni arrabattano you every day with those 2:00 to 3:00 Foliot that fate has granted almost out of spite.
It goes without saying that when one of these, a pompous old man, is given in the little Nat expectations in order to educate him and make him grow as an apprentice, that things can not end badly.
The beginning of the end is when Nat, from cute little boy, curious and looking for affection (and still funny, it must be said), he receives from his teacher a "life lesson" is intended to mark it.
The anger and the desire for revenge will take him first to take advantage of his thirst for knowledge to summon the jinn Bartiméus (for the reader, the starting point) for him to steal the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, then find themselves in a series of adventures that will gradually committed to fight against forces greater than himself, to come to face with intrigues politicians and powerful wizards, to know the life of the poor wretch, "common" and the rebels aimed at subverting the dominance of the wizards.
And by the rebels in check Kitty second book, the third main character, pure and delicate as a slap in the face and ready to overcome all boundaries in the name of his ideals, with which both Nat Bartiméus will be meeting in over- confrontation, and more than one unresolved tension.
Crescendo adolescent Nat, raised among the adults in the vision for which the magicians are right and everyone else wrong, it will show all its candor, its rigidity, the meanness and the thirst for power to which man is capable, never succeeding However, to completely hide the player - who by virtue of what is brought to bear to the end - the grain of good that is brought in, until the final all'exploit that is certainly not to ruin me.

In the three books that follow without losing the thread, by the action moves from time to time to follow the protagonists, unchallenged in the eyes of readers, however, is the millennial Bartiméus, which presents itself as "the one who rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak and Prague, who spoke with Solomon, who ran along with the fathers of the plains buffalo, which oversaw the Old Zimbabwe until the stones fell and the Jackals feasted with his men, "etc., that narrates the events from a particular viewpoint (his), without neglecting children wandering and conceited comments that are inserted as footnotes page (a reason enough to read the books), we never, ever makes a display of humility or repentance but then, having to choose a human form in which to incarnate, to prefer a boy no bigger than that Nathaniel knew three thousand years before (a kind of fourth protagonist, but for more on the third book is needed) and whose relationship with Nat and Kitty develops and narrows with the progression of events. A fun character, whose twisted logic does not admit mistakes on the part of the command, the answers are double if not triple-cut, whose jokes and displace the nostalgia which almost touched, that you can not appreciate.

And now, while I need to lashes for being unable to make the right on the books that I have passion, you spun to read!