One of the best of the current crop of historical novels, and a career-making march forward for Durham.
The Second Punic War of the third century b.c., which pitted the republic of Rome against the African empire of Carthage, is the rich subject of Durham’s latest.
As in its predecessors, Gabriel’s Story (2000) and Walk Through Darkness (2002), racial contrast and conflict bulk large—particularly in the heart and mind of Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, who follows the example of his late father, Hamilcar, by waging ongoing war against a foe that has swallowed up innumerable lesser nations and tribes (“It is Rome’s actions I hate. It is the way Rome seeks to make slaves of all the world”). Durham’s sweeping narrative re-creates several years’ worth of crucial exploits, including Hannibal’s legendary passage through the Alps employing elephants as transport, major victories on a blood-soaked riverbank and at the pivotal battle of Cannae, strategic advances toward Rome through the territories of friendly (or conquered) peoples, and the climactic Roman triumph at Zama, conceived and led by young Roman general Publius Scipio, and followed by Hannibal’s return, emaciated and defeated, to an enfeebled Carthage. Durham has reimagined this vanished world in stunningly precise detail, and his lucid explanations of the give-and-take of military decision-making help the reader through some dauntingly complicated material. Nor is this novel merely a pageant: the author vividly portrays both Hannibal’s driven resolve and Scipio’s ruthless efficiency, as well as the conflicted emotions that rule several powerfully realized secondary figures. Among them are: Hannibal’s brothers and comrades-in-arms Hanno, Hasdrubal, and Mago; his gentle, stoical wife Imilce and stern, demanding older sister Sapanibal; Massyli (i.e., Numidian) prince Masinissa, impelled by his hopeless love for an unattainable woman to a perilous conflict of loyalties; and boyish Carthaginian soldier Imco Vaca, who finds his manhood on the battlefield, while losing the woman who (perhaps hopelessly) awaits his return, as the long story ends.
One of the best of the current crop of historical novels, and a career-making march forward for Durham.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-50603-1
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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