Resumen
Resumen de El escudo nebulado
Para quién es
Readers who enjoy cathedral towns, shadowy family secrets, gentle comedy about clergy and gossips, and old buildings that seem to speak. Fans of Victorian mystery and brooding atmosphere will feel at home.
De qué trata este libro
The Nebuly Coat is a Gothic mystery by John Meade Falkner, an English novelist who also wrote Moonfleet. It is set in the decaying seaport of Cullerne, where a great Norman church stands over a sleepy market square. The book follows a young architect sent to oversee repairs, and the secrets that surround a wavy green and silver shield painted in a church window.
The story begins with a rainy arrival, a pompous rector, and four stone arches under the church tower that seem to cry out in the architect's mind. It grows into a tale of poverty, drink, family pride and a lifelong search for a missing name. Along the way you meet an organist haunted by fear, a landlady who counts every penny, and a lord nobody has seen for twenty years.
If you like atmosphere, odd and funny characters, and a plot that tightens slowly, this book gives you all three. Here is what the summary covers, without giving away the ending. First, we go to Cullerne on a wet afternoon.
En este resumen
- 1A cracked tower and a wet arrivalFree
- 2A shabby house and a fearful organist
- 3The sexton's tale and a puzzling offer
- 4A stranger in the Fording stall
- 5Fear, drink and a promise to a bishop
- 6A crack in the wall and a sleepless night
- 7A rejected suitor and a town that talks
- 8Inheritance, class and the weight of the past
- 9How the story is told
Idea clave 1 de 9
A cracked tower and a wet arrival
The book opens with Sir George Farquhar, a busy London architect, sending his junior Westray to oversee repairs at Cullerne Minster. Sir George is more worried about critics than about the building. He admits there is old trouble in the central tower, but there is no money to deal with it, so he tells Westray to say nothing.
Westray arrives by a branch line on a drenched afternoon. Cullerne was once a proud port that sent ships against the Armada, but its river silted up and the sea moved away. The town now lives on sheep from the salt marshes and on memories. The great church of Saint Sepulchre fills one side of the market square and looms through the rain far larger than the plans had led him to expect.
Inside, he is met by Canon Parkyn, the rector, who is vain and fond of repeating a joke about Sir George waiting for his fees until the tower falls. With him are the doctor, the organist, and the churchwarden Joliffe, who is a pork butcher. The rector praises the Norman nave and the wide arches that hold up the tower. Westray looks up at a jagged crack running down the south side and hears the four arches speak in his imagination. The arch never sleeps, they say, because a burden too heavy has been laid on them.
The clerk, old Janaway, adds an unwelcome story. Forty years earlier the bells were rung for a wedding, and a man ran in to say he had seen the tower rock, so the peal was stopped and the bells were never rung again. The rector brushes this off, but Westray resolves to report it and to inspect the tower himself. The story also brings in the Blandamer family, who own the town and have been buried in the south transept for generations. The present lord has been abroad for years and has ignored every request for money.
As dusk falls, the organist Sharnall points to the great window in the south transept, where a silver shield crossed by wavy green bars glows in the glass. That is the nebuly coat, he says. He adds that he wishes he knew nothing about it. Westray notices the sadness in his voice, and the reader senses that this shield is the center of the book.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about El escudo nebulado
What is The Nebuly Coat about?
It follows a young architect sent to repair the failing tower of a church in the decaying seaport of Cullerne. He gets drawn into the secrets of a local family, a missing name, and a shield painted in a church window.
What does nebuly mean?
Nebuly is a term from heraldry for wavy, cloud-like lines dividing a shield. In the novel, the nebuly coat is the Blandamer family's green and silver shield, which appears throughout the town.
Is Cullerne a real place?
No. Cullerne and its great minster are invented, though Falkner based the church and town on the real English cathedral towns he knew. The book was written in the early twentieth century and set in the Victorian period.
Is The Nebuly Coat a mystery or a love story?
It is both, and also a comedy of small-town manners. A mystery about a lost name and a death runs beside a story about love, pride and poverty, all set within an old church's shadow.
Why does the tower keep being mentioned?
The cracked central tower is the book's main symbol and its main worry. Westray hears the arches speak, and the structural trouble reflects the weight of secrets pressing on every character in the town.