A Tale of Three Pogroms - book rec
As a fan of murder mysteries, I was familiar with the whimsical and vividly-drawn series by Ian Pears about Italian art cop Flavia and her buddy the British art dealer Jonathan Argyll, but they didn't adequately prepare me for the masterpiece that was An Instance of the Fingerpost, which I have rec'd here before. Because of that, when I recently found The Dream of Scipio* for a couple of dollars at the used bookstore, I snagged it up at once.
While not the monumental Experience that the earlier novel was, not as "rich and strange" imo, it is something else quite fascinating in its own right - a Neoplatonic novel about Neoplatonists (and others) across the ages, in one small section of what was once the province of Gaul. There is also a different sort of "multiple viewpoints/unreliable narrators" thing going on, so it may very well count as a Deconstructionist novel, too. It's also about theocracy, sexism, ethno-religious bigotry and the good men who do nothing (ed. --as well as the good men who do evil so that good may come/in the defense of Western Civilization™), so it's not all that different from AIOTF on a profound level, but in some ways it's even more apropos to our current clime of the [Pat]Riot Act and In Defense of Internment (altho' in other ways AIOTF is more relevant, what with the context of explicit state endorsement and imposition of certain approved strains of Christianity.) The problem of whitewashed history specifically in the formerly-Vichy France is something which also came up in one of the Flavia & Jonathan books, (sorry I don't recall which at the moment) so there's a kind of convergence in the novel. I won't give any spoilers, but it follows the Beau Geste model of having the denouement at the beginning and all the suspense in finding out how the character got there, and you knowing their fate all along, and (quasi-spoiler I suppose) it's kind of reminiscent of Conrad's Victory, but with a much broader and sharper social consciousness.
And it was only published in 2001, which means the writing and the tale precedes our present difficulties by a measure, making it prescient as well...
--Yeah, it's worth reading. Tolle, lege!
* I also wouldn't have ever known that the "Dream-vision" genre came out of the Classical Roman tradition, this being curiously omitted in both religious and academic discussions of "The Pearl" &c. A translation of the original referenced in the title may be here, for other non-Classicists unfamiliar with it.
While not the monumental Experience that the earlier novel was, not as "rich and strange" imo, it is something else quite fascinating in its own right - a Neoplatonic novel about Neoplatonists (and others) across the ages, in one small section of what was once the province of Gaul. There is also a different sort of "multiple viewpoints/unreliable narrators" thing going on, so it may very well count as a Deconstructionist novel, too. It's also about theocracy, sexism, ethno-religious bigotry and the good men who do nothing (ed. --as well as the good men who do evil so that good may come/in the defense of Western Civilization™), so it's not all that different from AIOTF on a profound level, but in some ways it's even more apropos to our current clime of the [Pat]Riot Act and In Defense of Internment (altho' in other ways AIOTF is more relevant, what with the context of explicit state endorsement and imposition of certain approved strains of Christianity.) The problem of whitewashed history specifically in the formerly-Vichy France is something which also came up in one of the Flavia & Jonathan books, (sorry I don't recall which at the moment) so there's a kind of convergence in the novel. I won't give any spoilers, but it follows the Beau Geste model of having the denouement at the beginning and all the suspense in finding out how the character got there, and you knowing their fate all along, and (quasi-spoiler I suppose) it's kind of reminiscent of Conrad's Victory, but with a much broader and sharper social consciousness.
And it was only published in 2001, which means the writing and the tale precedes our present difficulties by a measure, making it prescient as well...
--Yeah, it's worth reading. Tolle, lege!
* I also wouldn't have ever known that the "Dream-vision" genre came out of the Classical Roman tradition, this being curiously omitted in both religious and academic discussions of "The Pearl" &c. A translation of the original referenced in the title may be here, for other non-Classicists unfamiliar with it.