Pompeii
Robert Harris sells books by the truckload, but when it comes to it, he hasn't written all that many. And the only book that I'd previously read of his was Enigma - a book that I'd bought on the basis of the subject matter, before leaving on the shelves for some years, until finally reading it some time around the time of the film coming out.
So Pompeii is my second Harris novel, and a rip-roaring read it is too. I imagine that it's not the easiest thing in the world to set a novel against the backdrop of the volcanic explosion of Vesuvius, when everyone knows basically what's going to happen.
Since the explosion at the end is no massive surprise, the novel essentially tells you that it's four days out from the explosion right at the start, as we're introduced to our protagonist, Attilus, who's recently arrived from Rome to become the 'Aquarius' - the man in charge of keeping the aquaduct running smoothly. Things are not running smoothly as the aquaduct is very quickly damaged by tremors from the soon to erupt volcano.
The action largely follows Attilus, but we jump around a few other characters including both Pliny the Elder and his nephew, people who really did record the events of that cataclysmic time. Otherwise the action jumps around between the main players as you'd expect in a thriller, which is what this really is.
I don't know an awful lot about the true happenings at the time, but from what I've gathered from brief research on the internet, many of the characters named, really did live in those places at the time.
All in all, a good read them, although if you pick up the paperback, the several pages at the front pretty much attest to that themselves (I've never seen quite so many quotes from newspapers and magazines in the front of a book).
3 Comments
Twitter Latest
I liked Pompeii quite a lot, especially towards the end, where it really picked up pace (although not in the sense that I really wanted the acquarius to succeed in getting the girl, rather that Harris seemed to be having tremendous fun with the volcano) - but I thought it suffered from having an excessively modern, 20th century style central character. All the stuff about Roman gods, superstitions and sacrifices is fascinating, but because we have a rational narrator we don't get under the skin of being Rome. I think that was a shame. Pliny was a far better, more complex character, I though - but then Harris had the real-life Pliny for inspiration, I suppose. Still, it was a good book, I agree :-)
I agree that it was a shame we didn't get an insight into a character that believed in the kinds of things Romans believed in. Indeed, arguably none of the characters seemed to truly believe in any of the gods.
Ironically, for me what shines through in that book is that Harris got really interested in the aquaducts and that side of things, far more than he was fascinated by Roman culture. Seems an odd thing to get inspired by, but that part of the book is impressive, so... Actually, there's a similar story behind Matthew Kneale's 'Sweet Thames', which is a very good book, although not as good as his more recent 'English Passengers'...