A Tale of Three Pogroms - book rec

[bellatrys]

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

Comments

[fledgist]

The Dream of Scipio is in Cicero's De re publica, I seem to recall.

You got it in one!

[bellatrys]

Cicero is not, however, required reading even in liberal arts colleges unless, (possibly), you are a Classics major; I've only read bits and pieces chanced across in the course of other self-directed Classics studies. In the book, "The Dream of Scipio" is actually the title of another, late-Classical/Age of Migrations work about Cicero's dream-vision, so there's a lot of internal commentary on the phenomenon of subsequent interpretation and commentary on literary works - all very meta! Thus I think it might properly be called a "deconstructionist novel", too.

Re: You got it in one!

[fledgist]

I'm not a classicist, but I do teach political theory, and Cicero makes an appearance.