SOURCE: “The Tale of a Not-So-Heroic Hero,” in The Christian Science Monitor, October 6, 1992, p. 13.

In the following review of Bay of Arrows, Rubin describes Parini's novel as “unobjectionable” but “less profound than it pretends to be.”

Apart from a small, but persistent, scholarly dispute as to whether he, Leif Ericson, or someone else ought to be credited with discovering the New World, Christopher Columbus enjoyed a fairly glorious reputation for most of the five centuries following his famous voyage.

Honored for his courage in braving the unknown, his contribution to proving that the earth really was round, and his role in opening the New World to the Old, he seemed a conveniently nonpartisan hero whom all Americans—North, South, Caribbean, and Central—would admire.

In recent years, however, the enterprising Genoese sailor has been subjected to severe revisionist scrutiny.

Columbus the discoverer is now viewed by some as...