History Literature / GrimpowTheInvisibleRoad

In the dark Europe of 1313, a thirteen years old urchin named Grimpow makes a grim discovery in the snow: the corpse of a nobleman carrying a mysterious red stone and a message pointing to the city of Strasbourg. After taking refuge along with his mentor Dúrlib in the neary abbey of Ullpens, the arrival of the always unexpected Catholic Inquisition shows Grimpow that there is a secret conspiracy behind his find. With Dúrlib out of his life, Grimpow will pass the next months studying with the old monks before becoming a squire to the knight Salietti di Staglia, which he will accompany in his travels to unveil the mystery.

** Baron Figueltach is oddly described as not having a beard. In medieval Europe, beards symbolized virility and honor, and were considered ''very'' SeriousBusiness. Being male and not having one meant that you were either a clergyman or too young to grow it, none of which is this case. In fact, considering what we get to see of Figueltach's personality and bravado, he should have be the most likely character to have cultivated a long, badass beard rather than the opposite.

** Although the names used in the novel are generally their own world, in real life "Salietti" would have been surname, not a given name. Ironically, surnames ending in -etti were typically found in Lombardia, while the character Salietti hails from Piemonte.

** Baron Figueltach is oddly described as not having a beard. In medieval Europe, beards symbolized virility and honor, and were considered ''very'' SeriousBusiness. Being male and not having one meant that you were either too young to grow it or a clergyman, none of which is this case. In fact, considering what we get to see of Figueltach's personality and bravado, he should have be the most likely character to have cultivated a long, badass beard rather than the opposite.

** In order to move a statue, Grimpow thinks to move it as in a Greco-Roman wrestling waist lock. This follows the popular belief that Greco-Roman wrestling and its signature waist-based ruleset are actually Greco-Roman, which would make it believable than people from the Middle Ages know it. However, despite what its name could make you think, Greco-Roman wrestling was invented in the 1840s and its rules don't actually resemble any known form of ancient wrestling (actual Greek wrestling was more similar to our modern Japanese Combat Wrestling, with groundwork, pins and submissions).

* AerithAndBob: Compared to the first book, this one is a huge improvement in this field, with most character names being real and relatively period-appropriate. Still, there are oddities like Sofí (a strange, modern Spanish spelling of the correct name that would be Sophie).

** The novel follows the popular culture that burning witches at the stake was usual throughout the entire Middle Ages, as it is apparently a common eventuality in the year the novel is set. In real life, the Inquisition of the time was mostly focused on heresy, not witchcraft; the latter was very rarely prosecuted, and generally only when it came associated to the former. Witch hunts in its most classical shape wouldn't start until more than a century later.

* WorstAid: When Kense suffers a seizure, Rinaldo makes sure that he doesn't swallow his tongue by grabbing it with his own fingers. Tongue-swallowing is basically an urban legend in real life; people suffering a seizure can ''bite'' his tongue, though, which is exactly the reason why you must never stick your fingers in their mouth, as the uncontrolled force they can exert with their jaws might perfectly amputate them.

The novel was followed in 2007 by a DistantSequel set in modern times, ''Kôt'', and in 2009 by a more traditional sequel keeping on from the original's ending, ''Grimpow and the Witch of the Lineage''.

** Although the names used in the novel are generally their own world, in real life "Salietti" was a surname, not a given name. Ironically, surnames ending in -etti were popular in Lombardia, while the character Salietti hails from Piemonte.

** Baron Figueltach is oddly described as not having a beard. In medieval Europe, beards symbolized virility and honor, and were considered ''very'' SeriousBusiness. Being male and not having one meant either that you were too young to grow it or a clergyman, none of which is this case. In fact, considering what we get to see of Figueltach's personality and bravado, he might be the most likely character to have a long, badass beard rather than the opposite.

* SadlyMythtaken: The Santa Compaña, a wholly Spanish myth limited to Galicia, is mentioned here among characters living in France. It's possibly that this is just a TranslationConvention and the characters are meant to be talking about the Maisnie Hellequin or the Le Grand-Veneur, though.

** Historical character Guillaume de Nogaret is solely referred to as "Nogaret", which is a mistake in the vein of ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'': Nogaret was a French city, with the character's name meaning "William of Nogaret", so in the context of the story it would have been bizarre to call someone solely by his native city. Also, the real Guillaume died in 1313, while the story places his death in 1314, shortly before that of King Philp IV.

!!This work contains examples of:
* AerithAndBob: Many names of people and places in the novel follow the AsLongAsItSoundsForeign route. Few of them actually are or even resemble historical names of the setting ("Salietti" and "Junn" are pretty much the only ones among all the important characters), while the rest are made up and sound more like HighFantasy-esque gibberish ("Figueltach", "Valdigor", "Rhadoguil" or "Grimpow" itself).
* AnachronismStew:

** In order to move a statue, Grimpow thinks to move it as in a Greco-Roman wrestling waist lock. This follows the popular belief that Greco-Roman wrestling and its signature ruleset are actually Greco-Roman, which would make it believable than people from the Middle Ages know it. However, despite what its name could make you think, Greco-Roman wrestling was invented in the 1840s and its rules don't actually resemble any known form of ancient wrestling (actual Greek wrestling was more similar to modern Japanese Combat Wrestling, with groundwork, pins and submissions).
* PhilosophersStone: [[spoiler:What the stone turns out to be.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
** Many names of people and places in the novel follow the route AsLongAsItSoundsForeign, with few of them actually resembling historical names of the setting.
** The Tarot deck produced by Salietti is a AnachronismStew, as the first records of Tarot in Europe are from around 1450, almost a century and half after the time the novel is set.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Many names of people and places in the novel follow the route AsLongAsItSoundsForeign, with few of them actually resembling historical names of the setting.

In the dark Europe of 1313, a thirteen years old urchin named Grimpow makes a grim discovery in the snow: the corpse of a nobleman carrying a mysterious red stone and a message pointing to the city of Strasbourg. After taking refuge along with his mentor Dúrlib in the neary abbey of Ullpens, the arrival of the always unexpected Catholic Inquisition shows Grimpow that there is a secret conspiracy behind his find. With Dúrbil out of his life, Grimpow will pass the next months studying with the old monks before becoming a squire to the knight Salietti di Staglia, which he will accompany in his travels to unveil the mystery.

''Grimpow, the invisible road'' (''Grimpow, el camino invisible'') is a 2005 HistoricalFantasy children/young adult novel by Spanish author Rafael Ábalos. A major best-seller, it made Ábalos' name truly famous: it was translated to 25 languages and won the 2008 International Reading Association Children’s Book Award. Some critics called it "the ''[[Literature/TheNameOfTheRose Name of the Rose]]'' of young adult literature".

''Grimpow, the invisible road'' (''Grimpow, el camino invisible'') is a 2005 HistoricalFantasy young adult novel by Spanish author Rafael Ábalos. A major best-seller, it made Ábalos' name truly famous. It was translated to 25 languages and won the 2008 International Reading Association Children’s Book Award.