What makes this novel spectacular is not just its length; not just the invocation of hunger for the next sentence, the next page, the next chapter; and not just the web of characters who become suddenly connected although they have been that way all along; no, what makes this novel so spectacular, is Deborah Harkness’ use of the French language; deep knowledge of creatures outside the ordinary human species; the gut-wrenching, goosebump-inducing relationships; the historical wines and delicious descriptions of them; and, and, the unavoidable attention paid to art.