Robert Harris' 'Dictator: A Novel'

Claire Hopley offers a review of Robert Harris' Dictator: A Novel for the Washington Times.

“Dictator” is the final volume in Robert Harris‘ trilogy about the life of Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, whose political theories and prose style remained influential until at least the 19th century. “Imperium” (2006), the first volume, focused on Cicero’s rise to power. In the second volume “Lustrum” (2009), he is the consul who orders the execution of five members of the Catiline conspiracy that tried to overthrow the Roman republic in 63 B.C. “Dictator” picks up the story in 58 B.C. when Cicero is exiled for this supposedly illegal execution of Roman citizens. He settles unhappily in Thessalonica, accompanied only by his slave and amanuensis Tiro, until the Senate recalls him a year later.

Only one senator — Clodius — votes against rescinding Cicero’s exile, and he remains an unremitting enemy as Cicero tries alternately to re-establish himself as a political figure and to settle down to a life of philosophizing and writing. This is no easy choice. On the one hand, Cicero has no taste for the military; unlike many of his peers he cannot establish himself as a hero or a powerful commander of legions. He therefore often retires to his country villa, where he can write while “waiting and hoping for better times.”

On the other hand, many in Rome’s governing elite respect his acumen and oratory; others believe he owes them favors, so he is always being called back to political life. He responds because he believes that “politics is the most noble of all callings,” characterizing it as the function “in which human virtue approaches more closely the august function of the gods.” Yet as Tiro, who narrates the novel, explains, his path is never easy: he has to “Tiptoe between the three great men in the state [Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus], endeavoring to keep on good terms with all of them, doing their bidding, privately despairing of the future of the republic.”

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/6/book-review-dictator-a-novel-ancient-rome-trilogy/

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Robert Harris' first two novels in the Rome trilogy via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/04/on-crime-thrillers-conspirata-crime.html

Cat Stories: Tales Of Man's Second Best Friend

 

I'm a dog guy, basically, but since I took in a feral kitten who survived being poisoned like the other four kittens in her feral litter four years ago, I've grown to appreciate cats as well.

Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler, three of my favorite writers, loved cats and now I understand why.

My new appreciation of cats makes me want to read Cat Stories, a new book about cats that Claire Hopley reviewed for the Washington Times.

The thing about cats is that it’s not clear that we domesticated them. Humans colonized dogs and horses for hunting, guarding and transportation. They rounded up sheep and cows for wool and milk and meat. But cats can’t be rounded up and are not trained to give useful services. More likely, as settled dwellings attracted mice and rats, cats came a-hunting of their own volition. Perhaps at first they were merely tolerated for their part in keeping food supplies safe, but cats and people found they also could share companionship around a fire.

...Yes, there are dog stories featuring Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, and legendary dogs such as Cerberus, guardian of the Greek underworld, and Gelert, the Welsh dog who saved his master’s baby only to be mistakenly killed as the perpetrator of the attack. But cats feature more often in legends. Typical felines are clever, like Dick Whittington's cat and Puss in Boots, who manages to marry his impoverished master to the king’s daughter. Then, too, over the past couple of centuries, scores of writers have dabbled in cat stories. Nineteen of these have been collected, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell and published as “Cat Stories” in the Everyman Pocket Classics series.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/18/book-review-cat-stories/

You can also read about how I, a dog guy, came to adopt a feral kitten via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/06/kitten-killers-look-back-at-how-dog-guy.html

I love my cat, but I'm still a dog guy.