Stephani
10-19-2009, 02:20 PM
:wave:
Hi everybody.
I'm after a bit of help tracing a fantasy novel I read a while back.
Unfortunately, I'd guess that unless you're an exceptional detective or have actually read the book that the limited details I give will be of no use whatsoever but here goes anyway:
For some reason I have it in my head that it was called "Manfred" but that may be completely wrong, I have no recollection of the author's name but am pretty sure it was a male.
The "hero" of the book, Manfred (if in fact that was his name) is part fairy as his mother was half fairy, his father human. He had at least 2 brothers who made their name in the world from acts of heroism or daring but Manfred was a scholarly type, very quiet and into conducting various experiments which his brothers couldn't see the point of and they looked down on him and thought of him as cowardly. I remember the one experiment he did over and over with variations whereby he had one brother drop a stone from the middle of a tower while he dropped one from the top of the tower and from the results of the experiment I think he devised a way of having water carried from the river up to the town. He was well into astronomy too. Anyway, he gets burnt to death in a fire in the monastery by the fault of one of his brothers.
His father was pretty powerful and rich, a nobleman of some sort.
The only other main point I remember is that his mother left his father because he accidentally broke a solemn promise he made to her which I believe was that he would never attempt to see what she did at night when she went off on her own to a cottage in the woods. He looked in the window and saw her changing from a human back into fairy form.
I really enjoyed the book, it was well written and quite informative on a scientific level too and I'd love to reread it but in a fit of tidiness once I gave it away telling myself that if I hadn't had the inclination to reread it up to then, I probably never would. How wrong I was!!
Hi everybody.
I'm after a bit of help tracing a fantasy novel I read a while back.
Unfortunately, I'd guess that unless you're an exceptional detective or have actually read the book that the limited details I give will be of no use whatsoever but here goes anyway:
For some reason I have it in my head that it was called "Manfred" but that may be completely wrong, I have no recollection of the author's name but am pretty sure it was a male.
The "hero" of the book, Manfred (if in fact that was his name) is part fairy as his mother was half fairy, his father human. He had at least 2 brothers who made their name in the world from acts of heroism or daring but Manfred was a scholarly type, very quiet and into conducting various experiments which his brothers couldn't see the point of and they looked down on him and thought of him as cowardly. I remember the one experiment he did over and over with variations whereby he had one brother drop a stone from the middle of a tower while he dropped one from the top of the tower and from the results of the experiment I think he devised a way of having water carried from the river up to the town. He was well into astronomy too. Anyway, he gets burnt to death in a fire in the monastery by the fault of one of his brothers.
His father was pretty powerful and rich, a nobleman of some sort.
The only other main point I remember is that his mother left his father because he accidentally broke a solemn promise he made to her which I believe was that he would never attempt to see what she did at night when she went off on her own to a cottage in the woods. He looked in the window and saw her changing from a human back into fairy form.
I really enjoyed the book, it was well written and quite informative on a scientific level too and I'd love to reread it but in a fit of tidiness once I gave it away telling myself that if I hadn't had the inclination to reread it up to then, I probably never would. How wrong I was!!