Pompeii

Rating:
Summary: A lot of science, very little story
Review: Let me start out by saying that I REALLY wanted to like this book. I have never read Harris before but have an interest in history/thriller/mystery idea. Needless to say I was excited about reading the book. In the end I was pretty disappointed.

Pompeii chronicles the four days leading up to and including the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. While this backdrop is intriguing, I have to agree that the time limitations made the character development non-existent, the plot underdeveloped, etc. Marcus Attilius, aqueduct engineer from Rome stumbles across love, conspiracy, and heroism all within 96 hours. There are some interesting storylines here including the rebellion of young Corelia and the subsequent relationship with Attilius, the water conspiracy in Pompeii, the disappearance of Exomnius, etc. Nevertheless none of these storylines are grossly developed and in the end I felt that I really didn't care what happened to anyone.

The novel is at times hard to read and the character names hard to pronounce. All in all I was fairly disappointed and glad that the book was a mere 300 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Historical Thriller...with an Engineer as a Hero!
Review: Robert Harris has perhaps achieved the impossible: he has turned a civil engineer into a sexy, swashbuckling hero. For that reason alone, he deserves four stars.

Marcus Attilius, is the new "Aquarius", the engineer in charge of the aqueducts, in the Bay of Naples circa AD 79. He comes from a family of honest engineers who have helped make the Aqueducts of the Roman Empire, the engineering marvel of their times. The description of these aqueducts and their structures is actually fascinating.

However, Attilius has a lot more to think about than how to build the next aqueduct. His predecessor mysteriously disappeared, he has had a run-in with the former slave who now runs Pompeii in the manner of Tony Soprano, he has fallen in love with this individual's daughter, and the water in many places has slowed to a drip. And we're not even getting into the fact that Vesuvius will erupt in a day or two.

Harris writes a thriller that is both fast-paced (Attilius traveling all over the area in a matter of hours) and SLOW-paced (to his credit, he makes you feel the excruciating pain as the lava dried second by second by second on individuals). He mixes true historic figures-Pliny the Elder, the Admiral/Poet, who wrote about Pompeii before he too was killed in the disaster-and fictional characters.

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy the historical thriller genre and don't demand too much (e.g., fully developed characters). It's a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Will Vesuvius erupt? Tune in Tomorrow. . .
Review: Writing a thriller that has an ending we all know ahead of time had to have been a challenge. We're pretty sure Vesuvius is going to blow and bury Pompeii (unless there's a heck of a plot twist). So the suspense comes from questions such as "Will our hero realize what is about to happen in time to alert everyone else?", and "Will the heroic engineer be able to save the irreplaceable 120 plays of Sophocles in Pliny's library?" Hm, come to think of it, I guess we know the answers to these questions as well.

I liked Harris' Fatherland and Archangel, so I was looking forward to Pompeii, and to add to my anticipation, I had recently been at Pompeii to see the ruins. Pompeii, the book, was a little disappointing, and even though it was shorter than Harris' previous thrillers, it seemed to drag.

If I were to recommend a Robert Harris thriller, it would be Fatherland, not Pompeii.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: This book is excellent when it comes to the science of the eruption and aqueduct; not so great when it comes to people. As another reviewer mentioned, the characters are two dimensional. The villains are all-evil, (and of course get their comeuppance in suitable fashion). The hero is interesting but a little anachronistic for my taste (in his complete rejection of the religious beliefs of his time; his rejection of philosophers rings more true.)

What bothered me most was the unnecessary wallowing in grotesque and ugly imagery, not to do with the eruption, but with the lifestyles of the rich and powerful. It didn't add much depth or insight, and was simply unpleasant to read. It made me nostalgic for old historical epics like Quo Vadis, the Robe, Ben Hur. These writers/directors knew how to make villains without wallowing in ugly details. They also knew how to add depth to their characters. Quo Vadis in particular is a masterpiece.

Unlike another reader, I didn't find Exomnious' fate anticlimactic, but actually one of the more interesting moments of the novel. I did, however, have a little trouble with the hero going back to Pompeii during the eruption to rescue his girlfriend, not to mention a few questions about how he did it. Could they have survived, or would the water have been boiling?

The final image of the book is impressive, but unsatisfying from the "what happened next" point of view. The story ends abruptly, with the eruption. It could have used an afterword.

Bottom line: if you are a fan of this writer, or possibly of Pompeii, you will want this. For fans of historical fiction, I'd say, don't rush out to buy it.

Rating:
Summary: pompei
Review: Pompei, by Robert Harris, is terrible. It is written in a childish style like you used to get in the Weekly Reader in third grade. The plot is lighter that pumice. Do you think our hero, Attilius, will live through the eruption, go back to Pompei and find the girl? Do you think Exomnius was on the take and Ampliatus is behind it all? As soon as you meet these characters it is clear what is going to happen the writing is so bad. I was hoping that our hero would have to solve some intricate math in roman numerals, like in the Da Vinci Code, to add some interest. Don't buy this in hard cover, wait for the comic book. Even Russell Crowe would turn down this movie, the plot it is so dumb.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Satisfying Historical Thriller
Review: Young engineer Marcus Attilius is sent from Rome to wealthy and glamorous Pompeii to solve a pesky mystery: why has the aqueduct failed? It's his big chance to prove himself with the powers that be, and he's frustrated at every turn by heat, surly locals, and bureaucratic bungling and corruption. He can't even ask the former Aquarius of the Aqua Augusta for hints, because the man has simply disappeared without a trace.

We meet his main adversary, the rich and powerful former slave Ampliatus, just as he is throwing one of his own slaves to the moray eels. This poor man was charged with the care of red mullet in Ampliatus's fish farm, and the red mullets have all died. The slave's distraught mother enlists the help of Ampliatus's lovely daughter Corelia to spare the man. And Corelia, who hates her dissolute and cruel father, tracks down the new Aquarius to support the slave's charge that there is something wrong with the water.

Of course there is something wrong with the water: sulfur, although this information comes too late to save the unfortunate slave. And then there is no more water at all, at city after city up the coast. Attilius convinces the elderly Pliny to help him with ships and men, then get back to the spot where they have deduced the blockage must be.

Along the way Robert Harris spins a fast-paced mystery, and we learn much about life in Pompeii and the amazing engineering feat of the aqueduct itself. The decadence of the rich with their gorging and purging and young boyfriends is nicely counterbalanced against the practical, smart Attilius, who increasingly suspects an imminent disaster that is much bigger than a failure in the water supply. The impetuous young Corelia (who reminds Attilius of his beloved deceased wife) displays pluck and courage, spying on her scheming father and providing Attilius with information he needs to solve the puzzle. Human treachery and the forces of nature provide a spectacular finish.

Mr. Harris couldn't have chosen a more compelling period in a more compelling city than the four days leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Anyone who has visited the fascinating ruins there will be intrigued by this very satisfying historical thriller.

--- Reviewed by Eileen Zimmerman-Nicol

Rating:
Summary: DISAPPOINTING
Review: I won't go into the details of the plot itself. The professional and readers' reviews on this page do that. I want to comment on the flow of the plot and the characters which inhabit it. This book moves very slowly. There is very little tension. What does it matter if someone stole this or destroyed that? There can be no real resolution of these matters because the reader knows that virtually everyone in the town of Pompeii will soon die when the volcano erupts. The characters might have been able to carry the reader along if they had been interesting, exciting people. But, they are cliches. The completely evil villain; the sad, ever moral good guy. And they talk and talk and talk. Until the last third of the book, there is virtually no action in this supposed thriller. If you want a fast paced novel with vivid characters, you might want to look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: History overshadows characterization
Review: Everybody thinks they know about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii--79 AD . . .rivers of bubbling magma . . .citizens immortalized in pleading poses for all eternity by ash . . .the heedless rich getting their comeuppance from nature. Those basics are true, but Robert Harris reminds us that the eruption of Vesuvius was much more than that. It remains one of history's greatest and most dramatic disaster stories, and we know a great deal about it because one of the Roman Empire's greatest historians was there to write a blow-by-blow record of the destruction; and although Pliny did not survive, his report did.

Pompeii and Herculaneum were the Malibu and Santa Barbara of Rome. In the hot August of 79 AD, tourists were swarming to the cool coast to enjoy the luxury accommodations, crystal swimming pools, and elegant spas of the bayside resorts. Marcus Attilius is there too, but he's not there to enjoy the occasional cool breeze, he's there to work as the new aquarius of the Aqua Augusta--the new water engineer in charge of the enormous aqueduct that brings endless water flowing to the nine towns around the Bay o Naples. Springs are failing for the first time in centuries and the flow of water is being disrupted to hundreds of thousands of people. Attilius' family has worked on the great aqueducts for generations, but even he is bewildered by the cause of this crisis somewhere along the Aqua Augusta's sixty-mile line--a line that stretches along the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius.

The Roman aqueducts were an amazing feat, and Harris describes their workings in great detail. He does an excellent job of showing, not telling, and through Attilius and his crew he weaves an incredible amount of information into the narrative and it is fascinating. Also excellently done is his description of the various effects of the eruption--which lasted several days--where he uses Pliny's observation of the event of excellent effect. Pliny, historian and general, was also a very fat and cranky old man by 79 AD. He took one of his ships out into the bay to watch and record the devastation from what he thought was a safe distance. But too soon the ships in the bay were in danger from the roiling waves and huge chunks of pumice flying down off the mountain. Pliny had his scribes don helmets and take down his descriptions as clods of pumice bounced off the old general's uncovered head--"The pumice is less like rock than airy fragments of a frozen cloud." he dictates. "It floats on the surface of the sea like lumps of ice. Extraordinary!" Eventually it would clog the bay and begin to crush ships. Pliny knew he was too heavy and unsteady to escape the final firestorm from Vesuvius and ordered his scribes to save themselves and his precious reportage. Fortunately they did, and Robert Harris puts Pliny's observation to fine use in this novel.

Harris is a workmanlike writer with the gift of being able to integrate complicated information into a believable narrative. That's what made "Enigma" and "Fatherland" so interesting, and what works for "Pompeii." The characters are take second place to the setting, and are not particularly exciting. However, they respond to the extraordinary circumstances around them in ways that are completely consistent with their characterizations. It is the same with Harris' establishment of place. He offers no special explanations of Rome, but builds it all into the action. As a result the Roman world seems very immediate and almost modern.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent historical thriller
Review: Harris, author of the acclaimed thriller's Fatherland and Archangel, has a hard task here: He must eke out suspense in a tale to which the final outcome will be known by every reader. Pompeii could well fall flat on its face, but instead it is a remarkable triumph. It straddled the bestseller lists in the UK for about 4 weeks, and should garner a similar reaction across the pond.

Its high summer along the Bay of Naples. The merchants are trading, the tourists are visiting, and the rich are lounging in their villas by the ocean. But all is not well...Recently installed Chief Engineer of the Aqua Augustus Maximus Atillius Primus senses trouble; springs have been failing for the first time in years, his predecessor remains missing, and fish have been dying in their pools. Everything indicates a problem with the aqueduct, a disruption somewhere on the sixty-mile mainline, on the Northern slopes of the great mountain Vesuvius. Then, one by one, the towns around the bay begin to loose their water supply...

One might think that because the reader automatically knows the outcome of the book (a horrendous eruption) it might be a little dull, but that is not true at all. Harris skirts the pitfalls presented by this potential lack of suspense by creating some great characters whose fates the reader cares about. Will they perish? Will they somehow escape? He also manages to weave in some excellent themes, most notably the slight shadowy parallels he draws between Rome, the superpower of the time, and modern-day America, and the subtle message that even a great power is irredeemably vulnerable when confronted by great unexpected destruction from within. In a way, he is warning us about complacency, but, more importantly, he is displaying how all the power in the world can not ensure our safety or complete peace-of-mind in this modern day-world, exactly as it could not then. It's rather clever how the book seems to reach across the years.

The historical detail is amazing, and the atmosphere - at first relaxed, then later full of fear - is built expertly. He makes everything so interesting. Certainly, I never would have believed I could enjoy reading about the workings of an ancient aqueduct! (Actually, there might be a little too much detail on the engineering ins-and-outs.) The pace is good, and the book is, often inexplicably - the beginning, the scene-setting, threatens to grow dull once or twice - a complete page-turner. It moves softly, until the final 100 pages, which are absolutely brilliant. Possibly the best final 100 pages I've read this year. Suddenly, the book explodes along with Vesuvius. The pace cracks like a whip and suddenly everything's full of electricity and terror as everyone flees and rushes about confused. Everything progresses in tense bursts and then aching graduality, with painfully slow descriptions of people trying to wade through thick ash, for example. It is a very effective juxtaposition.

Pompeii has everything: it is impeccably written, is crammed full of subtle historical information, it has death, destruction, undercurrents, mystery (the previous engineer went missing, remember) and even a little romance! As a thriller, I would recommend it highly. As an enjoyable education, I would recommend it unreservedly.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting attempt....
Review: Robert Harris' venture into the world of Imperial Rome provides a different slant on the usual historical method of fiction. More concerned with the engineering of the Aqua Augusta (the longest aqueduct in Italy at the time) seen through the eyes of its Aquarius - Marius Attilius Primus - the novel moves away from providing excitement through historical fictionalisation to a quiet retelling of one the ancient world's most famous cataclysms in a manner that touches on the style of a modern-day disaster novel.
I suspect that a Robert Harris fan and a Roman historical fan who has not read Harris before will review this offering rather differently. The only flaw I felt with this novel was that (approaching it as a historical fiction fan and being the first of Harris' books I have read) its 'new' style made it, initially, all the more intriguing and readable. Yet, by the end I felt that Harris had missed one of the tenets of historical fiction - namely to ensure its main protagonists are given a vibrancy and life that makes us want to read about them. Whilst several of the supporting actors, Ampliatus and Pliny to be precise, achieved this our main 'hero', for whom Harris goes to great lengths to stress his intellectual, honest and almost stoic mindset ends up being a character that we 'watch' rather than 'follow'. At a technical level the contrasting characterisations are excellent and clearly display Harris' class and ability to understand how to write a novel, but his literary expertise has meant the empathy with the main character is minimal at best. Simply put, the novel could have been so much more.
The story concerns the newly promoted Aquarius in charge of the aqueduct whom we find on the opening day searching for spring water and discovering very quickly that a breach in the aqueduct around the area of Vesuvius has both contaminated the water and then prevented its flow. In a humanising touch our erstwhile hero leaps to rescue a hapless slave who is being killed at Misenum's Villa Hortensia by the owner, freedman Numerius Popidius Ampliatus (who controls the surrounding areas through his plutocracy and also has the best line in the entire novel on page 134 of the hardback version: "there's no safer investment than property in Pompeii") after his prized red mullet fish are found floating in their pool. To complete the introduction we are offered a tantalising sub-plot love theme with the introduction of his eighteen year old daughter, Corelia, the usual struggle to assert himself over his new team with the oversee Corax leaping on every chance to undermine him, and a mystery in the disappearance of the previous Aquarius, Exomnius.
After explaining to the historical Pliny the Elder his beliefs, Marius sails at all speed to Pompeii to locate the fault in the Augusta and gets tied up in Ampliatus' obseqiuous and mendacious generosity whilst searching out the truth behind Exomnius' disappearance. This we eventually discover and a disappointing sense of anti-climax arrives when we discover how and why he has disappeared. Corelia runs away to tell Marius that her father wants him dead, leading to the inevitable showdown with Corax. So, after two thirds of the novel, we come to the eruption where Harris focuses on fictionalising the Younger Pliny's letters, following Pliny as he tries to save the people fleeing Herculaneum and Pompeii, eventually dying on the beach at Stabiae and then follows Marius' herculean efforts as he races to Pompeii to save Corelia which he does in neat fashion using the Aqua Augusta as a means of escaping.
I just felt that Harris' was more concerned with writing about the technical aspects of ancient engineering and vulcanology than giving due attention to character empathy. Given everyone knows the main plot then the focus (and thereby the interest) had to be on the sub plots which are a tad cliched and weak. It is particularly emphasized at the very end when the eruption ends and so does the book, somewhat abruptly.
So, extremely well written, historically and scientifically accurate, the characterisations are very good and precise, but....whilst what we are given character-wise is good, it is not enough and results in a lack of empathy from the reader. For any fan of Roman historical fiction this is worth reading as the quality of the author shines through and the narrative style is very different to the usual offerings...it is just that, by the end, it could have been a McCullough...but didn't aspire to those dizzy heights.