Tag: literature

S. P. Somtow, Delicatus (Diplodocus Press 2023)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90588349-delicatus?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=01FLZSUME4&rank=1

The depravity of ancient Rome highlighted by the story of a beautiful boy

Beautiful catamite Sporus is passed on from Nero to Vitellius. He recounts his journey ‘from slave boy, to fellator of senators, to Empress of Rome, to Goddess of Spring, to Queen of the Dead’.
He can’t remember the scene of the original outrage—was it in the forest? Or in a palace? When his mother’s head was bashed in. Now Emperor Vitellius intends to use the boy in a reenactment of the Rape of Proserpina in the Circus.
It’s a tragic tale from the pages of history, but the characters had no voice. Somtow creates a fictional autobiography of one of history’s most famous catamites, and in the process we get up close and personal with the perversions and voluptuaries of Otho, Vitellius and other unworthies. It manages to convey the horror of the sexual abuse historians called ‘an abomination’ without being graphic.
Nero sings while Rome burns, an apt metaphor for the decaying and debauched ruling class, until Pontius Pilatus suggests blaming it all on the Christians.
An absolutely smashing first line: ‘…chains and the sea…’ This is how the story of his sexual abuse begins. The tale is beautifully written, told in first person, as if addressing the attendant, the ‘overpainted whore’ perfuming him for sacrifice.
I discovered this author from GetBooksReviewed, and this is the third book I’ve read.

Perry Zenon, As the Hurricane Winds Blow (Black Haired Raven Publishing 2024)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222103322-as-the-hurricane-winds-blow?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_27

A cozy collection of ghost stories for a dark and stormy night

A powerful hurricane rages on the banks of the Mississippi, and the Delaunay family hunkers down inside the family home to tell horror stories. As the wind howls, they pile up cushions in the living room, preparing to brave the storm.
This anthology comprises separate short stories with dark and/or supernatural themes. There is a haunted asylum beset by a series of mysterious deaths, and a vengeful spirit haunts a funhouse. One tells of a ‘mirror world’ inhabited by a sinister entity. A New Orleans detective uncovers a web of madness. A time traveller goes back in time to prevent a tragic event.
Common to all the stories is a focus on the darker side of human experience—fear, obsession, guilt. The family examines together the fine line between reality and the unknown and finds that by sticking together in the face of the storms of life, the human spirit survives.
The text is riven with quite a few clichés: ‘air thick with anticipation’, ‘news swept through the town like wind’, ‘vehicle shrouded in silence’, ‘nerves honed to a steely resolve’, ‘the tranquillity of her reserve was shattered’, ‘a trail of confusion and fear’. It could use a developmental edit and proofread.
The asylum story jumps too quickly to the accounts of the deaths—we’re not even sure what the protagonist is doing there. And the tension is thrown away by resorting to ‘then there were more deaths’. Other opportunities to build tension are thrown away, I thought—the enchanted mirror could be terrifying, for example, but we see it too soon.
The stories introduce great ideas that could potentially be scary, but better building of suspense is crucial for the ghost story genre. In several places, the stories could have been scarier if they were longer, with more attention on building suspense.
I could have done without the intercallary chapters about which family member is going to tell the next story. All except for the last one, which summarises the moral of the story for each one.
If you love ‘ghost stories’, sink your teeth into these.

Bruce Gordon, The Bible: A Global History (Basic Books 2024)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204593723-the-bible?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=9GKahtOSci&rank=1

The book goes through how the Bible became a book and how early Christian writers were inspired to proselytise. We see how the Gospels portrayed the person of the Christ, an aspect of early Christianity which remains shrouded in myth.
Then it works chronologically through the history of the Christian Bible, from the middle ages to Renaissance and Reformation, taking on the science versus religion argument. We follow the book as it champions the switch from scroll to codex format. The project of translating the Bible drove the invention of the Armenian (4th C) and Cyrillic (9th C) scripts. The book made its way to the New World, making its way to Africa and China. It has been translated into 698 languages.
Although it treats the Christian Bible (New Testament) only, it does touch upon Christian interpretations of Jewish Scriptures. I missed discussion of the Jewish history, and found discussion of the formation of canon a bit wanting. The dating of the gospels is a fascinating story, and I wish the book had gone into that a bit more. There are some colour photographs of famous Bibles throughout history, but a big book like this could have used more illustrations.
This is a prodigious work of scholarship extensive in scope.
I was given this book for Christmas.

Eirene S. Allen, The Epic Women of Homer: Exploring Women’s Roles in the Iliad and Odyssey (Pen and Sword History 2025)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/219296084-the-epic-women-of-homer

Homer (whoever he/they were) didn’t just tell the stories of both the Greeks and the Trojans.

Where most ancient literature barely mentioned slaves, captives or even wives, Homer’s women are fully formed. The grief and heartbreak of the Trojan women is vividly portrayed, and Helen, the captive queen who causes the war, is a complex protagonist. The victim of sexual violence (or was it love?), her fate depends on the outcome of battle between men. Still, she exercises agency, and in her voice is placed the final lament in the Iliad.

Allen concentrates on precise line by line translation of the Greek, which at first it may seem a bit pedantic to non-Greek readers. I majored in historical linguistics, however, so I find it fascinating. But we must stick through it, otherwise, we miss too much.

In some translations Telemachus’ scolding Penelope to return to ‘the loom and the distaff’ can sound like teenage misogyny, until we understand that Penelope is Odysseus’ histos, his loom and his mast, a weaving term with connotations of ship-building and of pillars that hold up the rooves of family and dynasty.

Allen studies women’s roles as queen, captive, goddess or heroine, a structure I found not the most systematic. For example, the same scene of Telemachus scolding his mother is discussed in several different places.

A woman’s status was defined in relation to the men in her life. The bard implies, though, that the roles are complementary—we couldn’t have had the heroes without the heroines; it is the women who sing the laments, tend the shrines and keep the legends alive.

What you won’t find anywhere else is the amazing appendix featuring nuanced and insightful discussions on words and phrases (such as histos) within the cultural context of Homer’s age.

This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.