I picked up a copy of The Friar and The Cipher by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone from a used book store called Recycled Books in Denton, TX over Thanksgiving weekend. Sometimes when I’m in a book store with that much personality I will find a book that fascinates me, I’ll pick it up, and I’ll read it all rather quickly. The last time I did that was with Surveillance. I enjoyed finding both of those books in their respective used book stores, and reading something unscheduled and totally off my radar is something I plan to do again in the future.
I finished reading The Friar and The Cipher in less than a week, but it’s taken me quite some time to write the review of it. I was interested in the book because I love cryptography and everything on the dust jacket of the book indicated that it was roughly half about the Voynich manuscript. The Voynich manuscript is one of the most interesting puzzles in cryptography and linguistics. It’s a 240 page book written in the early 15th century, and its contents remain a complete mystery. The script is not latin, arabic, or any other recognizable alphabet, but the arrangement and frequency of the characters appear to have many of the same characteristics of natural languages. Deciphering it would almost certainly become a world-wide story regardless of what it actually says.
However, having read the book, saying that The Friar and The Cipher is about the Voynich manuscript feels extremely misleading. Most of the book is about Roger Bacon, whom the authors believe is the author of the Voynich manuscript, and the history of science and the Catholic church. Although the book is extremely readable, chapter after chapter about Roger Bacon, Thomas Acquinas, and the early debate between science and religion was not what I expected. Luckily, I find those topics interesting as well. In fact, I’ve read quite a bit about the debate regarding the interplay of science and religion. If I didn’t have that background, I would have felt rather cheated.
Frankly, this book didn’t satisfy my desire to learn more about the Voynich manuscript, and I would only recommend it as a book about the Voynich manuscript because of the dearth of material covering that mystery. Still, you might be better served by picking randomly from the further reading list on its Wikipedia page.
photo credit: Lawrence OP
The authors don’t present material as unbiased journalists; they emphatically present their opinions that Roger Bacon has yet to receive proper recognition for his work and that Bacon is the most likely author of the Voynich manuscript. As a result, the book reads as rather one-sided. They lay much of the blame for this on the Catholic church, which may be justified, but they also seem willing to take shots at Christianity in general. They take the position that science and religion are completely incompatible as if there weren’t even a debate about it. They also make broad statements about “the church” as if they are fact even though they directly contradict other authors without even mentioning the other interpretation. (For examples, read the Amazon reviews. I won’t repeat their examples here.)
Books that purport to explore a mystery should at least attempt to be unbiased. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who wasn’t already familiar with both cryptography and the debate between science and religion. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about those topics with knowledgeable folks, then you will find it hard to discern between fact and opinion while reading The Friar and The Cipher. Still, the book was not irredeemably bad. I did learn a little bit more about church history, and it’s sparked my interest in reading more unbiased accounts of that time period. Besides, it was a quick read. There probably aren’t that many people who would be interested in The Friar and The Cipher, but it’s interesting if you consider yourself to fit that category.