The Dream of Scipio

I just finished reading The Dream of Scipio, by Iain Pears. Wow. I picked it up from the library book sale a while back, read the first few pages, discounted it as some sort of clever literary mystery, and put it back on the shelf for several months. So wrong - it’s really good.

It is partly a meditation on what truly defines civilization from barbarism, and how that translates to the personal values of friendship, loyalty, kindness, and honor. It’s also a complex and sprawling narrative, braiding together three storylines from the fall of the Roman empire, the spread of the black plague, and World War II. It’s one of those stories that’s much more about the journey than the destination, full of rich and engaging details and tangents, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to put it down once you hit the last 80 pages or so.

I think it’s actually better than An Instance of the Fingerpost, for which he is better known. That, while very entertaining, doesn’t give you quite as much to chew on. Scipio makes you want to sit down and have a good, hard look at your life, and then go out and do something: Write, paint, argue politics and philosophy until the sun comes up, and tell all your friends that you love them.

Yes, I’m sober. Shut up, it’s really cool.