| The Rule Of Four (book) |
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The book is set on the Princeton campus during the weekend of Good Friday , 1999 . The story involves four Princeton seniors, friends and roommates, getting ready for graduation. Two of the students, Tom and Paul, are trying to solve the mystery contained within an extremely rare, beautifully decorated and very mysterious (real) book— the '' Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ''. Tom, the narrator is the son of a professor who had dedicated his life to the ''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili''. Throughout the novel, he struggles between being fascinated by the book and trying to pull away from the obsession that drew a rift between his father and his mother and is now causing discord between him and his girlfriend, Katie. His roommate, Paul Harris, is a brilliant young scholar who is writing his undergraduate thesis on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. He has spent all four of his undergraduate years studying the book and is close to a breakthrough. Charlie, the roommate who acts as the parent of the four friends and Gil, heir to a wealthy East-Coast banking family are supporting characters to Tom and Paul's project. The novel charts the relationship between the four roommates and how obsession can be both a boon and a burden. It is a story about growing up as much as solving the mystery of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The disciplines of Renaissance science, history, architecture, and art are drawn upon to solve the mystery. |
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