Gaspard, Melchior & Balthazar Reading Order

Gaspard, Melchior & Balthazar (The Four Wise Men, 1980) by Michel Tournier is a retelling of the story of the three Magi — the wise men from the East who follow the star to Bethlehem — that Tournier uses as the occasion for an elaborate philosophical meditation on beauty, wisdom, and the nature of divine love. Each of the three Magi is given a distinct philosophical orientation: Gaspard (the black king) is obsessed with blondness — with the beauty of a white-blond woman who does not love him — and his journey is driven by the need to understand the relationship between physical beauty and spiritual beauty; Melchior (the youngest) is a prince who has been deposed by his brother and who brings his usurped gold to the newborn king; Balthazar (the aesthete) is a collector of art who brings the finest product of his collection. Tournier adds a fourth figure, Taor, a wealthy young Indian prince who follows the Magi's route looking for the perfect rahat loukoum — the Turkish delight that he has heard is made in Bethlehem — but who arrives after the Nativity, is enslaved, and finally finds his way to a different divine meal (the Last Supper). The novel is one of Tournier's most accessible and formally various works — combining long philosophical chapters with short, tale-like episodes — and one of his most joyful.