What book are you currently reading?

[Plotinus]

Satan brought Imperium by Robert Harris to me for Christmas. I read it and liked, it was untypical for a historical novel, as it wasn't just a run through famous events, but rather like ordinary novel that just happened to be about Cicero.

I'm going to read other parts too, but was wondering about Harris' other works. The Germany-thing sounds good, and I'm going to read it (please don't spoil), but what about Enigma and Ghost Writer? Are they good fiction even if you're not interested about the topics?

As it happens I just started Lustrum, the sequel to Imperium, this morning. Seems like more of the same, which is a good thing.

I've read all the Harris novels you mention and one or two more. They seem to me uniformly excellent. Fatherland is extremely good - I know that "what if Hitler had won" is a dreadfully overused idea, but I can't imagine it being done better than this. Aside from anything else, it doesn't sensationalise. (It's not giving much away to say that Hitler himself doesn't actually appear, for example.) It's the kind of alt history that's really about the real world, which is why it works so well. Enigma is good too, though I'd say not quite as interesting, and The Ghost is quite fun though I think rather slight compared to his other novels - and the agenda is a bit too obvious with that one (i.e. a fictionalising of Tony Blair - which is also part of the agenda with the Cicero novels too, but in a more subtle way). But it's still worth a read. I believe he wrote it as a bit of light relief while working on the Cicero series. I'm not interested in any of the settings or subject areas of these books and I still liked them all, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Pompeii is a very good book too. In general Harris seems to choose his subjects very judiciously and treat them with great skill.

 

[Atticus]

Great! I was afraid that The Ghost would make no sense if the reader doesn't know much about British politics or isn't interested about Tony Blair. It was treated so purely as political novel when it came out.

Luckily I didn't notice anything referring to Blair in The Imperium. Being political rarely does anything good for a writer.

 

[cardgame]

Just recently finished Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy and also The Pact by Jodi Piccoult, both excellent books.

 

[Plotinus]

Great! I was afraid that The Ghost would make no sense if the reader doesn't know much about British politics or isn't interested about Tony Blair. It was treated so purely as political novel when it came out.

Luckily I didn't notice anything referring to Blair in The Imperium. Being political rarely does anything good for a writer.

Well, I think it's fairly clear that he's modelling Cicero on Blair - or, perhaps more subtly, choosing to write about Cicero because of the similarities to Blair. The whole plotline of the pirate attacks, and the way Pompey and his allies use it as an excuse to enhance their own power, is surely meant to parallel 9/11 and Bush's subsequent actions. Whether that means he's modelling Pompey, whom he presents as a bit simple and childish, on Bush, I'm not sure! I think that rather than having each character in the novel map precisely onto one in our own day, he's taking the overall story of the whole period - a republic obsessed with politics and elections which somehow allows itself to be subverted by unscrupulous characters and turned into a dictatorship - as a cautionary tale for our own. And a smooth-talking lawyer like Cicero is unable to prevent it from happening, for all his ability and his genuine virtues and his concern for the safety of the republic - because his main concern is with his own career, and he will ally with the men who will bring down the republic where it helps his own cause. So there's a clear parallel to Blair there, or at least, to one interpretation of Blair.

Remember that Harris had quite close links to the Labour party and knew Blair, but became very disillusioned with New Labour, above all over Iraq. So I think that concern is a big influence on his writing. That's what makes his historical novels very contemporary. But at the same time he doesn't let it get in the way; you can enjoy them just as stories without picking up on the contemporary subtext. In the case of The Ghost the references to Blair are far, far more obvious, but it's still a good story and a clever thriller even if you're not interested in that stuff.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Don't we have this exact thread in OT?

Moderator Action: No, we don't. The posts are not identical. No, I'm not going to merge them. Now please carry on, everybody. Sorry for the interruption.

 

[warpus]

Right now I'm reading

Godel, Escher, Bach
4 hour workweek
The Algebraist

I wasn't really planning on reading all 3 at the same time but ..

 

[sophie]

I finally finished Pride and Prejudice, and now I'm getting started on Mansfield Park.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You read that... on purpose? Or was it assigned for a course? It was on my English curriculum in college, but I couldn't get through it.

I'm currently re-reading Hastur Lord by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Deborah J. Ross. It's the most recent Darkover novel.

 

[sophie]

You read that... on purpose? Or was it assigned for a course? It was on my English curriculum in college, but I couldn't get through it.

I'm currently re-reading Hastur Lord by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Deborah J. Ross. It's the most recent Darkover novel.

I'm reading them for fun. They're wickedly funny books, those.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I finally finished Pride and Prejudice, and now I'm getting started on Mansfield Park.

Excellent! Are you going through the entirety of her collection?

 

[Azale]

Dilemmas of Victory, a series of essays about the first few years of the PRC's existence. It ranges from topics like the Sino-Soviet relationship in Dalian to the teaching of evolution to the impact of PRC rural policy on midwives.

 

[cardgame]

Just finished The Pact by Jodi Piccoult

Crazy book, couldn't put it down.

Nothing else doin' for now.

 

[sophie]

Excellent! Are you going through the entirety of her collection?

Indeed I am. Progress has been slow on Mansfield though, as I've been busy as all heah with midterms

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Mansfield Park is more fun after reading something like Dracula or The Castle of Otranto.

 

[sophie]

Mansfield Park is more fun after reading something like Dracula or The Castle of Otranto.

Good thing I've read Dracula then!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Then you will surely enjoy that Gothic parody.

 

[Love]

Gomorrah by robert Saviano.

Makes you hate italians.

 

[Dachs]

Paul W. Schroeder - Systems, Stability, and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern Europe

Schroeder is converting me into one of his slavish adherents and I'm loathing myself for it.

 

[Plotinus]

I'm reading Ivanhoe at the moment. It's a lot less exciting than I thought it would be, but I've somehow reached a stage of not minding the dreadful faux-archaic speech (especially jarring given that Scott goes on in the preface about how he's tried to avoid doing that) and the antisemitism, and am now vaguely interested in what's going to happen, which means I probably will be finishing it after all.

 

[SuperJay]

I'm reading Ivanhoe at the moment. It's a lot less exciting than I thought it would be, but I've somehow reached a stage of not minding the dreadful faux-archaic speech (especially jarring given that Scott goes on in the preface about how he's tried to avoid doing that) and the antisemitism, and am now vaguely interested in what's going to happen, which means I probably will be finishing it after all.

Then you're a stronger man than I. Caved about halfway through it, never went back, feel vague literary guilt for abandoning it (like I do about Beowulf) but I don't think I'll ever try it again.