Passarola Rising
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
In the year 1731, Alexandre Lourenco watches as his brother Bartolomeu’s airship, the Passarola, ascends from the ramparts of St. Jorge’s Castle in Lisbon. When the brothers board the ship, they embark on a journey that will take them from the salons and bordellos of Enlightenment Paris to the desolate far reaches of the North Pole, in search of scientific truth and knowledge. As they encounter such characters as the loquacious Voltaire and the irascible King Stanislaus of Poland, and attempt to escape Russian enemy fire and the condemnation of Portugal’s Cardinal Conti, Alexandre hopes to find his calling in life, while his brother keeps his eyes on the Passarola’s next horizon.
A delightful picaresque tale filled with evocative period detail, Azhar Abidi’s debut is not only a story of adventure and suspense, but a thoughtful book on the nature of truth, and a heartfelt portrait of the relationship between brothers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pakistani-Australian author Abidi's American debut charts a marvelous fictional journey by a pair of real 18th-century Brazilian brothers. Alexandre Louren o recounts his daring adventures with his older brother, the inventor Bartolomeu, aboard their wildly innovative airship, the Passarola, or "great bird." After finding rich patrons in Lisbon to fund Bartolomeu's flight obsession, they make their successful maiden voyage on the vacuum-pumped Passarola in 1731 in the presence of His Majesty Jo o V. However, the brothers run afoul of Cardinal Conti's Inquisition and flee to France, where they are championed by the Enlightenment regime of Louis XV, as long as their airship can serve his purposes. Commissioned by the Acad mie des Sciences to measure distances to the polar circle, the brothers set out on a harrowing trek into the extreme northern regions, where Alex is beset by hallucinations of a splendid phantom city, and they must turn back. They cannot offer indisputable proof of what they saw during their exploration, so, disheartened they separate Alex back to Brazil, to lead a mediocre existence, and Bartolomeu off to incredible adventures in India and beyond. Inspired by the historical record, Abidi's narrative offers a wonderfully fanciful realization of Bartolomeu's aeronautical ambitions.
