A crusade to save the world

The year is 1666. Because 666 is the number of the Beast -- the Antichrist prophesied in the Book of the Apocalypse -- the whole Christian world trembles. Even Jews and Muslims fear that the end of the world may be at hand. Signs and portents abound, from the rise of false Messiahs in Ottoman Turkey to the Great Fire that devastates London.

It’s a time not so different from our own. Lest we look back too smugly on the ignorance and superstition of the 17th century, we should remember our recent Y2K jitters and our insatiable appetite for the “Left Behind” novels by Tim LaHaye and Larry B. Jenkins, which exploit the same apocalyptic fervor. Then as now, nothing is rarer than a sense of proportion, a voice of reason.

Just such a voice is provided by Balthasar Embriaco, the narrator of Amin Maalouf’s latest novel, “Balthasar’s Odyssey.” He is a wealthy, middle-age merchant -- a dealer in curios and rare books -- whose family came from Genoa, though it has lived in the Levant for generations. A Catholic in a Muslim country, a businessman in contact with learned people of all nations, Balthasar is skeptical of religious dogmas and willing to befriend foreigners who share his interests. He exhibits, in short, the spirit Maalouf applauds in his best-known nonfiction work, “In the Name of Identity,” whose message can be summed up this way: To assume an identity -- to proclaim that one belongs to a particular religion or country or ethnic group -- all too often means rejecting and stigmatizing those who don’t belong. “I’m convinced of it,” the novel’s hero reflects, “that trade is the only respectable activity and those engaged in it the only people who are civilized. The scoundrels Jesus drove out of the Temple must have been not merchants, but soldiers and priests!”

In the course of this picaresque tale, in which Balthasar journeys by land and sea to Constantinople, Smyrna, Genoa, Tangier, Lisbon, Amsterdam, London and Paris, his commitment to reason is sorely tested. He is traveling, in fact, on a dubious errand to begin with: to retrieve a book that reveals the 100th name of God, in addition to the 99 listed in the Koran. Knowing this ultimate name, it is widely believed, could save the world from its impending doom.

Balthasar doubts this -- but not entirely. He has briefly possessed the book but sold it unread. One of his sons, caught up in Apocalypse fever, persuades him to chase after the new owner, a French envoy to the Ottoman court. A fellow traveler, a woman, complicates matters. She seeks a death certificate for her thuggish husband, who has disappeared, so that she can remarry. And Balthasar, a widower, is attracted to her.

A picaresque novel is propelled by the sequence of events. Balthasar must survive storms and plagues, bandits and corrupt officials, swindlers of every stripe, and a deranged ship captain who steers an erratic course to evade “winged demons,” sea gulls. He also must decide what to do when his newfound love, Marta, discovers that her husband is still alive.

But the real story is Balthasar’s struggle to remain skeptical in a world given over to the clash of fierce absolutes. “I can’t go on shutting myself up night and day in the citadel of my reason,” he says, “with my eyes shut and my hands over my ears, telling myself it’s all untrue, the whole world has got it wrong.” To do so would require superhuman strength, and Balthasar is only human.

It’s in telling this story that Maalouf, despite his historical knowledge and his flowing style, lets us down a little. Balthasar is a good guy but a ditherer, and his dithering takes up too many of these pages. And the book he seeks may be truly magical; a strange darkness descends on Balthasar whenever he tries to read it. Is he simply afraid to learn the 100th name? This doesn’t fit what we’ve learned of his character. But if the book is magic, then what’s the value in his skepticism? Either way, it’s a miscalculation.