The Rule of Four is the
story of four Princeton undergraduates becoming involved in the work of
scholars solving the riddles in a five-hundred-year-old text, the Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili.  It is told by Tom Sullivan,
a History senior whose father had devoted his own career to Renaissance
studies.  This hardly seems material for
an adventure, but murders and mysteries litter the novel.  The friendship between the four young men
adds some emotional grist, as does Tom’s relationship with his girlfriend,
Katie (a Philosophy major), but the weightiest theme in the book come from
Tom’s memories of his father, who died in a car accident when Tom was
fifteen.  Tom was riding in that car
with his father, and he often thinks of that silent journey. 

This novel by Ian Caldwell and
Dustin Thomason has been on the bestsellers list for months, so a review now
won’t have much to add to the many opinions already expressed.  Since I was a graduate student at Princeton
for six years, I enjoyed the story principally for its setting in the Ivy
League college.  The book places the
story in many of the actual buildings of the college, local coffee shops and
eating places, the student newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, and the
underground tunnels beneath campus.  So
it is a nostalgic book to read for Princeton alumni. 

Strangely, The Rule of Four
clearly holds much of interest for others. 
Presumably, the theme of the hidden codes within old texts has some
appeal because of the popularity of The Da Vinci Code.  It is a matter of personal taste; it has
some novelty value, but I find it surprising that so many people really enjoy
this.  For myself, I was more interested
in the depiction of Princeton undergraduate life.  The students spend a lot of time at Ivy Club, which comes across
as a very pleasant eating club where they can socialize and party.  The details in the book give some sense of
the sense of privilege of the students who go there, but readers might come
away from it with the misapprehension that Princeton students are primarily
interested in academic matters. What is clear from the story is the sheltered
nature of life at Princeton, shut off from the concerns of ordinary
people.  I would have liked a little
more focus on the sociology of Princeton, a place where many people who hold
positions of power make their connections with others and get a bachelor’s
degree in the process. 

This is an entertaining read,
managing to convey some information about Renaissance scholarship in small
bites, with intrigues and battles between the scholars more reminiscent of the
nineteenth century than the twenty-first.  

© 2004 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.