The Spanish Doctor

John I. Jackson was a library technician at the University of Toronto.

In The Spanish Doctor, Matt Cohen presents the life of Avram Halevi, a Montpellier-trained surgeon who, on his return to his native Castile, embarks upon his life’s adventure. Conceived by his mother’s rape during the pillage of Toledo’s Jewish barrio that followed Henry of Trastamara’s defeat of Pedro the Cruel in 1369, Avram is converted to Christianity at sword-point in the course of another such rampage. His uncertain paternity and religion are the crucial elements that determine his questing nature and fire his ambition.

The novel properly begins in 1391, with Avram just returned from the south of France. He performs a miraculous operation upon the young wife of a powerful Christian merchant whose brother is the evil cardinal, Rodrigo Valasquez. Valasquez is a prime mover in the resurgent persecution of Spanish Jews, and his suspicion of the not-quite-Jewish, not-quite-Christian Halevi provides the principal physical conflict of the novel. Through Spain, France, and Italy, Halevi is dogged by Valasquez, until, after a precipitous climax, he finds exile and, finally, death in Russia.

Behind this plot, a great deal is going on in the world; more or less unobtrusively, Cohen manages to keep readers abreast of the schism in the Christian Church, and the state of Western science, art, and commerce. But the plot of The Spanish Doctor is emphatically not dependent upon this historical backdrop. This is fundamentally a story of an individual alienated from his parent culture, and yet unaccepted by the society within which he moves. It is not hard to translate this basic concept into other contexts. In addition, the ruthless persecution of the Jews cannot, sadly, be said to be unique to fourteenth and fifteenth century Europe.

But these are small quibbles. The plot does advance quickly and logically. The real problem with this book is the author’s failure to breathe life into his characters. Halevi himself rather reminds one of Charlton Heston playing Michelangelo — either in agony or in ecstasy.

In all, this is a disappointing effort from a proven Canadian novelist.