Pompeii
by Robert Harris
action
copyright 2003
read in February 2013
rated 6 out of 10: read to pass the time
Perhaps Harris is trying to tell us that corruption is timeless. What I see is Dallas in togas. With a list of Roman names which made me think of Asterix.
Harris has read -- and acknowledged -- plenty of reference books. And he has used the material...
A Roman feast with incredible food... presented with so little feeling that it's almost as though we are not really there. Names, places, graffiti, quoted but with no extra life. Some of it supports the story. Some is simply there to show that the author had done his background reading.
Though the colour of the burning sulphur had me searching Wikipedia. And finding a different colour to that described in the book. And Pliny's personification of Nature as a "she" seems odd... Didn't the Romans have gods and goddesses rather than a direct personification of nature?
Still, I've never read Pliny...
It's just one of the ways in which Pompeii reads as a modern book where the characters happen to wear togas. And perhaps that's exactly the way it was in ancient Rome.
The story is centred round the aqueduct engineer. That is possibly the most interesting aspect of the book. The engineers actions are unbelievable but at least they show signs of being based on the author's own imagination.
There is just one sentence which has stuck in my mind: "The Aqua Augusta continued to flow, as she would for centuries to come." Now that -- to me -- is amazing. Well worth a book about it. What a pity that it is just one throwaway sentence, near the end of a fairly average story.
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