For readers searching for something new about Italian castrati, this is a very disappointing story.

There is a long (too long!) introduction about the beauty of the little boy's voice, and what a sinful waste it would be to lose it. We've had all this before, and none has done it better than Kingsley Amis in "The Alteration".

The story's one-and-only high spot is the encounter with a beggar with a high voice, a reminder that for every boy whose operation was followed by a glittering career onthe operatic stage, there were hundreds who did not.

Following the conversation piece between the boy's mother and the priest (well-constructed if rather dull) it is as if the writer's pen ran away with him. The account of the little boy's operation occupies a single, very long, indigestible paragraph that seems to have been written more for effect than with any regard for historical fact. There is very little on record about how these children were operated on, so there seems no justification at all for describing an operation in which the "patient's" spermatic cords were burned out with red-hot irons.

Following this paragraph the story ends in mid-air, apart from saying that the barber-surgeon fed the child's testicles to his dog, which is merely sick.

C van D

...merely sick...?

I'd call it EXQUISITELY SICK...

...but WE DO know all about some priests and little boys, don't we?

...not to mention the "Barber Of De Vil" ... figure, tho...

Ignoring the last comment (priests and small boys &c) I should like to refer to an email I had, which found my review "negative".

I don't agree I said too much. If anything I said too little. My chief criticism is that the piece tails off. A good start "It won't hurt, will it" asked little Francesco" isn't followed up in that hurried final paragraph.

Well, DID it hurt? In Mary Renault's immortal "The Persian Boy" Bagoas leaves us in no doubt. (Quotation barely necessary) In many stories the boy "moans pitifully" while 9-year-old Carlo Broschi, in one account, reportedly screamed so loudly that he could be heard at the other end of the village.

And afterwards, did little Francesco weep at discovering his loss? Did anyone explain he was on the threshold of a new life as a boy-eunuch and what this would mean?

So many opportunities lost.

C van D

I think the level of "hurt" would depend on if they dosed the child with opium and how much, i understand some got ODed and died. In my first accident, at 8, my scrotum was torn and my testicle was punctured with barbwire. I screamed so loud my adopted grandfather half a mile a way heard it and came. I passed out from the pain, then came too, then was given a local that mom (a nurse practitioner) kept in her lab coat because the hospital practiced atraumatic care (ie, give a little lidocaine before IVs and such). I had passed out again from the pain and didn't wake till well after i was in the dr's office. Well the rest of is in my bio. The question is did it hurt, if my experience is anything like what these boys went though, HELL YA!

C van D (imported) wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2008 1:34 am Ignoring the last comment (priests and small boys &c) I should like to refer to an email I had, which found my review "negative".

I don't agree I said too much. If anything I said too little. My chief criticism is that the piece tails off. A good start "It won't hurt, will it" asked little Francesco" isn't followed up in that hurried final paragraph.

Well, DID it hurt? In Mary Renault's immortal "The Persian Boy" Bagoas leaves us in no doubt. (Quotation barely necessary) In many stories the boy "moans pitifully" while 9-year-old Carlo Broschi, in one account, reportedly screamed so loudly that he could be heard at the other end of the village.

And afterwards, did little Francesco weep at discovering his loss? Did anyone explain he was on the threshold of a new life as a boy-eunuch and what this would mean?

So many opportunities lost.

C van D

YOU are right, C Van D.

To the authors:

DO not hold back. All need to realize how terrible this subject is, especially for a child. Imagine how messed up some of the molested choir boys were if they had been castrated to boot.

If not sick, it certainly is sensitive subject. However, hiding it and glossing over details will not make it go away.

The only way to heal a wound, physical OR psychic, is to open it up and let the poison drain out.

I had a look at this one, since we seldom see negative comments on stories - or much less comments at all - most of the time.

I have to agree with CvanD, and while I have never flat out told an contributor the Archive, "This sucks," well, for all things there is a first time.

This story is atrocious.

The thing is, it COULD have been so much more - and it wasn't.

I don't even a therapeutic benefit that one could have gotten from writing this.

Read this one:

http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/P/ea_4753pilgrima.htm

The Journey of Tommaso Pinetti by Il Musico.

http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/P/ea_4753pilgrima.htm

That'll take some of the sting out.

This story, while lengthy, is well crafted and tells a good story.

Paolo, as usual, goes right to the point, and how much I have valued his support and encouragement down the years.

At the risk of being repetitive, this story fails in a number of respects. The opening reads in a very derivative way (and I know how Paolo feels about plagiarism). Secondly the research is poor. The scenario is rural 18th century Italy, and the reference to opium candles sounds more like The Return of Dr Fu Manchu. In that terrible last paragraph the author seems desperate to give us a blow-by-blow description of emasculating the little boy, and subsequent to this, the whole human side of the story (NOT whether it hurt physically, we can take that as read) is ignored - how the little boy reacted to discovering he was now a eunuch, whether he had to leave his home and parents, whether he was a success in later years - all this is potentially good story material, and it isn't even attempted.

C van D (PhD)

PS. Paolo recommends comparison with "The Journey of Tommaso Pinetti". This doesn't appear in the story index either under "J" or "T". I believe its title in the index is "Pilgrimage to Norcia"/