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Summary: Homeric!
Review: Pressfeld's book was splendid and inspiring. I began reading it as I was shipping out for an Army exercise. My girlfriend had broken up with me the night before and I was in low morale, to say the least. I read this book before going out into the field, and it raised my morale very high. I felt Leonidas and Dieniekes watching me from Elysium as I trained, and I won a medal for my performance.We owe so much to King Leonidas and his valiant warriors. Democracy would surely have died at the hands of the absolutist Persian regime. Pressfeld brings to life the Spartan culture and the true love they had for their country and for each other. History generally portrays the Spartans as ignorant fascists, and that is what they wanted you to think. Pressfeld explores the cult of Phobos, fear. The Spartans wanted you to think they were pitiless fiends who loved to beat their children. It made people fear them. And they knew that half the battle was lost already if the enemy feared. Pressfeld pulls away the mask of fear in which Sparta is buried. He shows the humanity of the Spartans. This book is a must read for anyone who is a true warrior and anyone who loves democracy. Bravo, Pressfeld, they should have made this book, and not Bagger Vance, into a movie.
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Summary: Gripping with sympathetic characters...
Review: I bought the book initially for my husband, an avid history aficionado who's online name is Spartan. I assumed he would find it right up his alley. Before he returned home from abroad I idly picked it up to skim through and found myself compelled to read it from start to finish. So much for presents! I love historical fiction, not usually so much about war but more of biography and sociology. I found this to be an interesting mix of sociology as the Spartans were a warlike society and thus I was entertained by the backdrop presented. The dipiction of battle was gritty but not gratutiously done. I found it honest and raw in it's clarity. Pressfield's characters are sympathetic and his storytelling is vivid. Personally, I do not have the interest in reading about specific troop movements and thus he lost me at times. However, he did not lose me so much so that I lost interest in the novel. I doggedly trudged through those parts, picking out what I could find of interest. All in all, the book was not a waste of money but I found far more enjoyment from the first half than the latter which focused more on war than society.
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Summary: phonybaloney
Review: dear Readers, thus site censors reviews. Plus, any realistic review is offset by three phony positive reviews. Any reviews doctored.
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Summary: HomerisnotjustatowninAlaska
Review: Oh my brothers, Is this the best we can do,..................................... we happy few?................................................... Mr Pressfield, if such a person exists, has a lot of............ 'splainin' to do................................................ Mr Donald Hall, the poet-laureate of New Hampshire, once wrote that each person has " a thousand books inside us". I suspect he was not kidding. Now that Mr Pressfield has written this mind-numbing, stupe- fying, ridiculous pretense of a novel, he should shoot straight upwards in terms of quality, diction, character development, sensitivity, intelligence, and in general, a more kind-demeanor towards his readers, who resist the unrelenting insult that exists on every page of this novel. The Law of Averages suggests Mr Pressfield has much better books in him. I am being grandmotherly kind in my assumption that this is the worst Mr Pressfield can do. Only 499 books to go, Stevie-baby, till you raise yourself up to mediocrity. Or maybe your Next book. Math is kind, you know. The problem I have with this book is larger than the gargantuan stupidity it foists upon the American People. This book, by its popularity, suggests that we Americans are unspeakably sad little toads. This book says to all the world we haven't the sense to reject Oprah, and embrace Homer. You already knew that.
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Summary: War is Hell
Review: When the Spartan troops lowered their lances and the phanlanx moved out to do battle, I got goosebumps. The descriptive language of this engagement brought me into the scene with all it's gore, adrenalin, pride and fear. An excellent read.
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Summary: Outstanding fictional account of Thermopylae......
Review: Steven Pressfield has done a remarkable job in telling the story of the Spartan Three Hundred who stood against the massive Persian-led force at the Hot Gates in the 5th century BC. Told from the perspective of the squire Xenios in retrospect, a captive of the Persian horde as it advances on Athens, the tale recounts the heroism of Leonidas, the Spartans, and their allies. We learn of the life of Xenios prior to Thermopylae and, thereby, are exposed to the culture and customs of Sparta. The tale culminates in Xerxes naval defeat at Salamis as Xenios quietly expires from his wounds received in the final, furious stand behind the Phocian Wall. Pressfield has managed to pull the reader into the martial comradery of the Spartans. We share their courage in the face of certain death, their rare moments of fraility and, so, we quickly become enamored of the characters Pressfield so exquisitely develops. He spares no sensitivities in his violent depiction of warfare and ancient Greek life. He offers a frank, engaging, deeply enjoyable narration of one of the epic battles of all time.
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Summary: people just don't understand...
Review: I'm using this space not only to recognize a wonderful accomplishment of historical fiction but to attempt to rationalize the feelings of those who felt this book was undeserving of its praise. Furthermore, I wish to warn those who might be put off from reading this novel as a result of its superficial censure. Among the most numerous of complaints is the author's glorification of war as well as the crude manner of Spartan lifestyle. However, what those readers need to realize is that Pressfield, as a proclaimed writer of historical fiction, is, in fact, composing from a base of history. In other words, because the Spartan civilization glorified war, so does, and certainly should, the book. It is sad that a writer who attempts to maintain some form of historical fact, is severely attacked for such. All too often today do novels of "historical fiction" stray from historical fact in order to maintain political correctness or avoid the same denigration Steven Pressfield has been subject to. This novel is not perfect. Read it, enjoy it, appreciate it for its commitment to history, and try to ignore its coarse depictions. An excellent book if merely for its military competence, GATES OF FIRE is a definite recommendation.
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Summary: True to Date
Review: Herodotus and Plutarch immortalized Spartan society in their histories; but today, little is left of the ancient city or the social structure of this momentous culture. One of the few antiquarian marks of the civilization that has survived lies scores of miles away from Sparta, at a narrow Greek mountain pass called Thermopylae.It was there that three hundred of Sparta's finest warriors held back the invading millions of the Persian empire and valiantly gave their lives in the selfless service of democracy and freedom. A simple engraved stone markstheir burial ground.Inspired by this stone and intrigued by the lore of Sparta, author Steven Pressfield has brilliantly combined scholarship with storytelling. Narrated by the sole survivor of the epic battle--a squire in the Spartan heavy infantry--Gates of Fire is a mesmerizing depiction of one man's indoctrination into the Spartan way of life and death, and of the legendary men and women who gave the culture an immortal gravity.Culminating in the electrifying and horrifying epic battle, Gates of Fire weaves history, mystery, and heartbreaking romance into a literary page-turner that brings the Homeric tradition into the twenty-first century. The tale is not plotted in any formal sense but proceeds in flashback, a hackneyed but effective mechanism here as we see the story unfold, both on the level of a life remembered and through the eyes of the Persian court in the midst of their final Greek campaign. The battle scenes are redolent with the misery and gore of real warfare, too, yet reverberate with the mystery of transcendency -- the real stuff of living and, of course, of dying. There is both an earthiness and a metaphysical element to this finely told tale of heroism in the face of overwhelming odds in a place and time which changed the flow of history as we know it. The characters are as real to us as the flesh and blood we see burning and wallowing in death upon the fields of Thermopile. And we care about them, which, in the end, is what a book like this must be about. This is a must read!
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Summary: A gripping historical tale for a modern audience
Review: What the Battle of the Alamo is to American tradition, the Battle of Thermopylae is to Greek-based Western tradition. In 480 B.C., during the attempted invasion of Greece by the Persian empire ruled by Xerxes, an outnumbered force led by the Spartan King Leonidas fell defending the pass of Thermopylae in northeastern Greece against vastly greater numbers of elite Persian troops. Needless to say, the Spartans did not turn the Persians back. But the courage of Leonidas and his outnumbered troops has never been forgotten. In "Gates of Fire," Steven Pressfield takes on the task of retelling this ancient story for a modern audience. An author of historical fiction has to avoid certain traps. A major one is anachronism, which usually takes the form of creating premodern characters with modern attitudes. A good example of this would be the racially integrated American frontier depicted by the politically corrected Hollywood. Pressfield avoids this lie, thank goodness. His Greeks and Persians come across as the real thing, not as Hollywood historical revisionism. The need for exposition presents another challenge. In a historical novel (and in fantasy and science fiction as well) the writer must create a world, as well as a set of characters. But the temptation to lecture must be avoided. Pressfield cleverly manages to solve the problems of exposition and point of view with the same device: The novel is presented as testimony of an interrogated Spartan prisoner of war, Xeones, supplemented by official documents of Persian officials. Xeones is a type familiar in historical fiction -- the minor character who witnesses the deeds of the great. The need for the captured Greek to explain Hellenic customs to the Persian king provides Pressfield with an excuse for the necessary exposition. Perhaps the ultimate test of an epic historical fiction is the description of warfare. In particular, the climactic conflict has to be worth the price of the book. Unlike most of his characters, the narrator survives the Battle of Thermopylae and provides a plausible and exciting description of the desperate last stand of the Spartans. The subject is Homeric, and Pressfield concludes the battle with an elaborate Homeric simile that begins: "As when a hailstorm descends unseasonably from the mountains and hurls from the sky its icy pellets upon the husbandman's newly- sprouted crop, so did the bolts of the Persians in their myriads thunder down upon the Spartans and Thespians. . . ." All in all, "Gates of Fire" certainly makes for gripping reading.
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Summary: Simply Spectacular!
Review: Thank you Mr. Pressfield! What an amazing tale of valour and self-sacrifice... I will mostly focus on the emotions I felt after reading the book... I can not even explain the chills I got while reading this book through. It is a tribute to a society and culture we owe SO much to! The Greeks advanced humaity more than we can imagine, and in this book, 300 of them made the ultimate sacrifice, to Greece, civilisation, and humanity! I personally feel that the citizens of Greece today should each write a personal letter to Mr. Steven Pressfield thanking him for the tribute he made them andtheir ancestors. A truelly awe-inspiring feat by men who can rarely be found today. A truelly magnificent book on them and their values and morals. READ this book. I promise you, it will make you want to go all the way to Greece and pay your respects at the great man's (Leonidas, King of Sparta) statue! So, after reading this epic tale, I know very well that we should be gratefull for what we take for granted today! Thank you Leonidas. Thank you Greece. Thank you Mr. Pressfield.
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