Review of The Architect by Brendan Connell

Connell delivers another absorbing fictional account of bizarre people acting in satirical fashion. 

This is a baroque and elegant gem about a brilliant architect driven mad by his vision of the greatest edifice ever to be imagined. His eldritch genius spreads to others, infecting them with illusions of grandeur, leading them to fall under his spell and undertake the doomed enterprise of reconstructing a Tower of Babel. And the primordial emotions which arise out of the gruesome spectacle are a wonder to behold.

As in his other books, the author makes use of vibrant imagery to construct Boschian panoplies, elaborating upon the insane cathedral in his mind, which absorbs the people and materials from the far-flung corners of the world like a psychic sponge, possessing thousands of souls, gorging itself on a populace of worshippers.

Breathtaking and otherworldly, this magnificent account will haunt your dreams. We are all Builders of Pyramids, fashioning idols out of clay, and blood, and our own bodies, children held in contempt by a wicked deity – one might surmise from the author’s atmospheric depiction of excessive human pride and the devastating consequences of hubris. Should heartrending genius be encouraged, even in the face of death and ignominy? Should visionaries and engineers of the imagination be indulged or raised to the status of conquerors? You be the judge.