Louisville Medicine Volume 65, Issue 4 | Page 14

REVIEW
Gutenberg’s Apprentice:
A NOVEL
by Alix Christie
© 2014 Harper Collins Publisher
Reviewed by
Elizabeth A. Amin, MD
I
doubt I would have sought out this book,
particularly at its full price, however I
found it on the “deeply discounted” shelf at
Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago. I enjoyed
reading it. The genre is historical fiction,
and there are enough attributes to historical
facts and artifacts to keep the story real. The
author is a journalist and letterpress printer
who owns and operates a 1910 Chandler &
Price letterpress. Gutenberg’s Apprentice is Alix Cristie's first novel.
The novel is structured along two parallel tracks. The narrator,
Peter Schoeffer, is 25 years old in 1450 when he starts his personal
account. This is the year his stepfather, the Mainz merchant Johann
Fust, peremptorily recalls Peter from Paris saying only, “I have met
an amazing man.” Living in Paris for several years, Peter has become
a professional scribe, apparently of considerable talent. He carries
the tools of his trade with him in a leather pouch; his 15 th century
business card. In the first chapter of the book, Peter recounts the
journey, uncomfortable, dirty and dangerous, through eastern
France to Strasbourg, and down the Rhine to Mainz. Once arrived
at his stepfather’s house, it is business first for Peter and Johann.
Peter is presented with five folded sheets of middling quality parch-
ment. At first he does not understand, but when he flips the pages
to the written side it is more than amazement that grips him. “The
textura lettering was squat and ugly. The edges of the letters were
blotchy. Yet every string of letters was unnervingly even, all across
the line. Each of those lines ended with an utter, chilling harmony,
at precisely the same distance from the edge……..He felt his heart
squeeze and his soul flood with an overwhelming dread.”
Johann has already seen the future of this “printing.” He has
already decided to commit his fortune and all future earnings to
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ensure its success; a success that he believes will guarantee that his
life on earth will not have been spent in vain. A significant part
of his business has involved book-dealing, and he is perceptive
enough to understand that “printing” will have to match the quality
and appearances of hand lettering in order for it to gain the place
he envisages in the future of book production. Hence his need to
bring Peter home promptly, get him apprenticed to the printer and
get them churning out books of quality. By nightfall they are at the
home of Johann Gensfleisch, otherwise known as Gutenberg. The
dance begins. Gutenberg, the brilliant inventor of the moveable
press is not an able executor of print. He has three artisans working
with him, one a former goldsmith, who keep the smithy fire going
day and night. Technical problems have immediately arisen. The
proper mix of metals is essential. The letters must be malleable
enough to carve, yet hard enough to allow precision edging. They
must be robust enough to withstand repeated use in the printer.
The fire, molten metal and toxic fumes pose risk to life and limb.
Peter takes his place as artistic director and team leader of letter
production, and slowly the challenges facing the group come into
focus and are painstakingly overcome. The author creates a realistic
environment where local trade wars, travel restrictions, disease,
internecine rivalries within the church establishment and a call to
arms (crusade) after the fall of Constantinople all provide obstacles
to a necessarily secretive endeavor.
By December of 1452, printing techniques have been perfected
and they chose, at last, to produce a Bible. Gutenberg works out
the finances of printing 180 copies of the Biblia Latina. Johann Fust
continues to try