Toward the Gleam (2011) (edit title/settings)

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Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters edit see section history

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• Porter: The porter of Saint Hugh's Charterhouse.
• Abbot: The abbot of Saint Hugh's Charterhouse.
• John Hill: The main character, a philologist and World War I veteran.
• Corporal Miller: A corporal in the trenches at the Somme, who gives Hill medicine that saves his life.
• Jenny: Corporal Miller's fiancee.
• Martin: A lieutenant that Hill serves with at the Somme.
• Erzo: A peddler Hill meets in Northwest England.
• E.M.: John's wife.
• Jacob Basile: One of Hill's students.
• Gilbert: A writer who John contacts for advice at the beginning of his search for knowledge.
• Adler Alembert: A historian in Paris who John contacts in his search. The villain of the book.
• Mika: A short man who works for Alembert.
• Gosdier Jones: A Scottish philosopher who lives in the woods
• Jack: A fellow academic and close friend of Hill.
• Owen: A fellow academic and close friend of Hill.
• Pepin Hermann: A paleogeologist at the University of Heidelberg who Hill consults in his research.
• Edith: A lecturer who Hill meets outside a cafe in Heidelberg.
• Reinhard Krieger: One of Alembert's henchmen in Nazi Germany.
• Rudolph Kuiper: A man Hill meets at a cafe in Heidelberg.
• Gregory Alembert: Adler's estranged brother.
• Agnes CurLio: A poisoner and assassin for Alembert, who has gone missing. Granddaughter of the Earl of Leicester.
• Greta Erickson: A peleohistory professor at Lund University.
• Christopher: Alembert's bodyguard, a silent, giantic African.
• Drake: A well-known politician who now works unofficially with the Foreign Office.
• Agatha: A writer who buys paintings from E.M.
• Clyde Walters: An entomologist at the College of Natural Sciences who Hill consults.
• Bob Farthing: An American tourist who drives a stranded bishop to Hugh's Charterhouse.

Quotes edit see section history

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• “The young man might have missed out on the war but he had been splattered by its psychic mud. The result, a common result in the professor’s experience, was an excess of earnestness but without the experiential framework to give it perspective. Careful, he cautioned himself. Experience didn’t necessarily point one toward true north.”

• “Once an idea becomes a movement, rational discourse goes out the window.”

  John Hill

• “He vividly remembered the day he’d unlocked the first words, the sense that he was communicating with someone across centuries. Other words followed. There were still many gaps in the text he had already decoded, and he found himself filling them in with his own informed and fruitful imagination. For years, he had studied the oldest extant stories of northern Europe, and many of these he had read in their original languages. In many respects, the world he discovered in the book did not differ greatly from those stories, or even from his own world. There were trees and hills and water, cottages and farms, but also grand cities and creatures he could barely imagine, as well as wondrous and terrible events.”

• “Many fantastic things are true, and the mundane is often false.”

  Gilbert

• “Thinking is far from passive, and hard thinking is positively Olympian.”

  Gilbert

• “A story that reveals truth is a true story, whether it actually happened or not.”

  Gilbert

• “The world is bigger than modern men who try to engirdle it with psychology and economics.”

  Gilbert

• “Heretics are burned at the stake, even in these enlightened times. The modern stake is a scholarly journal, and the consuming flames are critical reviews.”

  Adler Alembert

• “Will follows action.”

  Jack

• “The lure is pride disguised as stoicism, it’s greed disguised as hedonism, and it’s envy disguised as anarchism. Pride, greed, and envy are the ancient credos.”

  Owen

• “Stoicism, hedonism, and anarchism are, at their roots, urges for control, for the ‘I’ to dominate the other, if not the world. Dependency on any external authority is antithetical to these credos. The movement that promotes utility is a movement to make men, if not certain men, gods. Efficiency for the sake of efficiency, progress for the sake of progress, and advancement for the sake of advancement is a path to deification for these men. The stoic, the hedonist, and the anarchist have more in common than what separates them.”

  Owen

• “Ideas create idols; only wonder leads to knowing.”

  Gregory of Nyssa

• “One man said that the greatest gift Divine Providence can give someone is to send him a trial he cannot bear with his own powers and then sustain him so he may endure to the end.”

  Edith

• “Reading under the burden of obligation is drudgery and often a waste of time.”

  Agatha

• “The grand lie is more effective than the little lie. Many accept the grand lie; too many reckon something that preposterous must be true.”

  Owen

• “The use of freedom — will and action — determines whether outcomes are helpful or harmful. When we use freedom poorly, harmful outcomes occur, for others and for ourselves. That isn’t a bad definition of evil.”

  John Hill

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• England: The home of most of the characters in this novel, and the setting of most of the events.
• Sussex: A county in southeast England.
• Saint Hugh's Charterhouse: A monastery in Sussex, England where Hill takes the book.
• France: Events occur in different areas of France: in the Somme, during World War I, and also in Paris and Olorin.
• The Somme: Where Hill serves in the trenches during World War I.
• Leeds University: The university where Hill works as a philologist.
• Beaconsfield: A town in Buckinghamshire, England.
• Royal Standard Pub: A pub in Beaconsfield where John meets Gilbert.
• Paris: Capital of France.
• The Sorbonne: Where Adler Alembert has his office as a historian.
• London: Site of John and E.M.'s favorite restaurant.
• Scotland: Where John and his wife and children go for a vacation.
• Old Forest: A forest in Scotland where John and his family holiday, and where John meets Gosdier Jones.
• Oxford: The university in southeast England where John and his friends work.
• The Eagle and Child: A pub in Oxford where John and his friends regularly meet. Sometimes called "The Bird and Baby".
• Germany: Where John travels in the course of his research.
• Heidelberg: A city in southwest Germany where John travels during his research.
• University of Heidelberg: The university where John consults Pepin Hermann.
• Algiers: Where Agnes is hiding at one point in the story.
• Olorin: A village in southwest France where Agnes takes Gregory to a monastery. Possibly Oloron-Sainte-Marie.
• Sweden: Where Hill goes to research paleohistory.
• Stockholm: Site of the Museum of Natural History, where Hill meets Greta Erickson.

Organizations edit see section history

• The Thule Society: An occultist group in Germany dedicated, among other things, to researching a legendary prehistoric civilization called Hyperborea.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Discooperire: Latin: "to discover", "to uncover".
• Idioma: Latin: "language".
• Contentio: Latin: "antithesis", "strife", "contention".
• Illuminatio: Latin: "illumination", "enlightenment", "glory".
• Compline: The last of the canonical hours or church services, given near bedtime.
• Philomena: A Greek virgin princess and a martyr saint of the Catholic Church.
• Antiphonal: Sung in alternating, responding parts.
• Quinine: A bitter crystalline compound present in cinchona bark, used as a tonic and formerly as an antimalarial drug.
• Macadam: Broken stone of even size used in successively compacted layers for surfacing roads and paths, and typically bound with tar or bitumen.
• Sententious: Given to moralizing in a pompous or affected manner.
• Amanuensis: A literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.
• Dilatory: Intentionally delaying; slow to act.
• Sui generis: Latin: "of its own kind".
• In toto: Latin: "in the whole", "entirely", "in total".
• Epigram: A brief, clever, and usually memorable statement.
• Legerdemain: Deception; trickery.
• Delenda est Carthago: Latin: "Carthage must be destroyed".
• Gendarme: A French medieval or early modern cavalryman.
• Entre nous: French: "between us".
• Brownshirt: A colloquial term for the Stormtroopers of Nazi Germany.
• Peripatetic: Traveling from place to place; especially working in various places for relatively short periods.
• Cuneiform: Wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit, surviving mainly impressed on clay tablets.
• Agere contra: Latin: "to act against", "contrary to".
• Materialism: The belief that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions.
• Positivism: The belief that empirical science is the only legitimate portal to knowledge, and material facts are the only objects of knowledge.
• Phenomenology: The belief that reality discloses important things about human nature and the moral duties that derive from it. A movement founded by Edmund Husserl, emphasizing the study of conscious experience.
• Animus: A feeling of animosity; ill will.
• Acrimony: Bitterness or ill feeling.
• Martinet: a short, scourge-like whip with a wooden handle and lashes made of leather or cord. A traditional instrument of physical punishment in France.
• Ruse de guerre: French: "ruse of war". An action taken by to fool an enemy in order to gain advantage.
• De inimico non loquaris male, sed cogites: Latin: roughly, "Don't wish ill for your enemy; plan it."
• Approbriation: The taking of something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission.
• Joie de vivre: French; used to express a cheerful enjoyment of life or a carefree spirit.
• Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus: Latin: "False in one thing, false in all".
• Le belle dame sans merci: French: "the beautiful woman without pity".
• Casuistry: The use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions; sophistry.
• Sangfroid: Composure or coolness as shown in danger or under trying circumstances.
• Trenchant: Vigorous or incisive in expression or style.
• Gauche: Lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward.
• Folderol: Trivial or nonsensical fuss.
• Pabulum: Insipid intellectual nourishment.
• Sotto voce: Italian: "under the voice". In a quiet voice, as if not to be overheard.
• Insouciantly: In a carefree manner, without worries.
• Tumbrel: A horse-pulled cart used on farms to carry manure, also used during the French Revolution to carry prisoners to the guillotine.
• Contumacious: Stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority.
• Lepidopteran: Of or relating to butterflies or moths.
• Superscientiae: A term Alembert uses for a being who utilizes the laws of the universe at a level that is unintelligible to humans.
• Exophthalamic: Having or characterized by protruding eyes.
• Sub rosa: Latin: "under the rose"; used to denote secrecy or confidentiality.
• Contretemps: An unexpected and unfortunate occurrence.; a minor dispute or disagreement.
• Denouement: The climax of a chain of events, usually when something is decided or made clear; when all the strands of a plot are drawn together and matters are resolved.
• Chancery: A general term for a medieval writing office, responsible for the production of official documents.

Series & Lists edit see section history

List the series to which this book belongs.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. T. M. Doran (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3604.O734 T69 2011
• Dewey: 813/.6

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Fiction

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Toward the Gleam: The book's official website.