Pompeii: A Novel

POMPEII Robert Harris (Random House 2003) Here in "Pompeii", a novel, author Robert Harris has told the story of the eruption of Vesuvius (August 24-25 A.D.79) in verbal technicolor and has given us a cast of many characters from a clean cut young Roman engineer (Marcus Attilius) down to a couple of crafty villains (Corax and Ampliatus) who are almost stereotypically evil, one employed to kill Marcus, the other the employer. There is mystery, romance, adventure, fact and history aplenty in this great tale and it's a great read for everybody from the high school student to this writer who is past 90. But it's pretty much a guy's book. I read it when it was first published and have just reread it for the joy of reading a good story. The plot is simple. The Aqua Augusta, a 200 year old engineering miracle runs from the springs near Rome for a hundred miles south round the Bay of Naples behind Vesuvius and behind Pompeii to the Roman naval base of Misenum at a constant decline of one inch per hundred feet to deliver water by gravity flow to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Puteoli. But on August 22, two days before the eruption, Marcus Attilius, the young engineer just seconded by higher authority to take charge of the aqueduct, discovers two things. One, there is sulfur in the water. Two, somewhere up the line - past Pompeii but before Herculaneum the line is blocked and unless reopened in 24 hours half the population of Campania will have no water! The first 200 pages of this well researched novel set the stage for the eruption. You are in the naval base with Pliny the elder, the old general and avowed naturalist, now retired, run to fat but not to leisure. You are also there with Ampliatus, ex slave, cruel master, self-made millionaire with a beautiful daughter (Corelia), an ambitious politician and completely evil. You sail in the fast trireme with Pliny from Misenum to Pompeii where Atillius gathers his workmen and his supplies and goes out to find the stoppage; and you are with him while he finds and frees the obstruction just behind Vesuvius. In the meantime strange things are happening - waves on the sea, but no wind, flocks of birds where birds should not be flocking, vapor rising from the ground, wine shuddering in the wine glass - not much, but some, and more than intermittently. You are immersed in Roman culture, well and authoritatively set out by Mr. Harris; and you tend to recall your high school Latin (if you had it) The obstruction freed, Attilius, fascinated with the mountain, goes to the top of Vesuvius where justice done to Corax and you see the crater just about to erupt. Then on the way down he is flattened by the first explosion; and the last 75 pages of the book take you into the explosion, into Pompeii and into the ash. I had always thought that when Vesuvius erupted everything happened at once; people died instantly where they were and where they were embalmed for centuries until excavation stared in the 1800s. Not so. The eruption went on for 36 hours in various stages and included several things - a rain of pumice which covered the surface of the ocean to three feet and made it impossible for the rowers on the trireme to dip their oars, rocks raining - small ones, big ones - heat, vapor and the huge explosions accompanied by waves of heat (500 degrees centigrade) which brought instantaneous death and destruction. Some numbers: The original explosion released the energy of 100,000 Hiroshima atom bombs. 1.5 million tons of magma and lava exited the crater at a speed of Mach1 and reached a height of 35,000 meters before dissipating over hundreds of square miles of land and sea. All this is laid out in language which I have called verbal Technicolor. Great descriptive writing. When you are through with this great read - and, yes, Attilius and Coralia do escape the inferno - you know you have been treated to a really good book which took your mind off the troubles of our contemporary world. And that's eminently worth while!

Je l’ai lu d’une traite, transportée à Pompéi, tenue en haleine comme jamais.

Right, I just LOVED this book. The whole idea of building a story around this ancient Greek city is compelling and well, Robert Harris handles it brilliantly, mingling elements of inter city rivalry, water poisoning, politics and social inequality. The result: while you know that Vesuvius is ultimately going to explode and kill most people, you just wonder if the investigation into the quality of water will bear fruit before that time. There are historical characters here, including Pliny, who is shown describing the eruption, which in itself is perhaps the centrepoint of a whole book. My advice: buy this book - you will smell the sulphur in the air and feel ashes in your hair by the time you put it down and Vesuvius explodes!

Harris e` mio autore preferito e qui non si smente. Racconto fantastico con grande suspence...

Robert Harris dives once again into an area that has made him perhaps one of the most well-informed hobby historians of the ancient Roman era. The storylines are well-developed, but the true delight is Harris's usage of the foremost tool of his craft: the English language. He paints images in the reader's mind's eye that pulls you deeper and deeper into this time that is so alien to us today, making the people of that time flesh and blood to the reader. It's a true shame that the movie project was abandoned. With Harris's script, it could have only succeeded.