When the Pope dies, a Conclave is called to select the next Pope. Led by Jacopo Lomeli, the Dean of College, one hundred and eighteen Cardinals gather to decide who amongst them is best suited to obtain the Keys of Saint Peter. With an unexpected Cardinal appearing, and secrets abounding about some of the top contenders, how long will the Conclave last, and will they in end elect the best choice?
I had seen the movie this book inspired before reading it, so I went in figuring I would have a pretty good idea where this was going. And I was absolutely right; Conclave joins To Kill A Mockingbird and Hogfather in being basically page-to-screen, so if you’ve seen the movie you know the book and vice versa. Small changes; Lomeli instead of Lawrence, Cardinal Vincent Benítez, the Archbishop of Baghdad being in his sixties instead of mid-fifties, a lot more violence, Lomeli walking to the Conclave most days, and no Papal turtles.
What I got from the book mostly is the amount of backstabbing and glad-handing that possibly goes into a Conclave according to Harris. Or maybe actually does go on, as he claims he spoke to a Cardinal who has attended a Conclave, so maybe this is just how they are. Which is a slightly frightening thought; that the decision to elect a leader for one of the world’s foremost religions in the end has all the energy of Miss America, or a student council election at a particularly catty high school.
Backstabbing, sniping, betrayals; how anyone in this book will manage to actually talk to anyone else when it’s all over is I think the true miracle of Roman Catholicism. Even people who if you asked them before it all starts would say they were friends turn on each other; Conclave truly brings truth to the saying, “The want for absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
It also shows how really, truly overlooked the nuns apparently are; in the book, they amount to nothing more than maids and cooks for the Conclave, and Lomeli spends half the book complaining about how bad the food is; because anyone can make gourmet meals when you’re cooking for over a hundred people with various dietary restrictions; though they apparently solve it by just serving never-ending Italian. Which I think is a shame, because the head nun, Sister Agnes, has the long-suffering slow-burn annoyance that a lot of women have dealing with men, and is one character that I am sorry there was not more of.
The big reveal at the end of the book is actually something that I kind of suspected from the beginning (of the film); in some ways it was obvious where it was all going, because in the end what would really set off the Roman Catholic Church?
I would have to say in summary that it’s a good book; not a great one, not a horrible one, just a good one.