The narrator is a fictional character, Nikeratos, who was born to the theater and lives his life as a traveling actor. His success is closely linked to Dion of Syracuse, brother-in-law to the tyrant Dionysios and friend to Plato. Dion is charismatic, honorable and educated: to the eyes of Plato and his Academy, as well as Nikeratos himself, he is the embodiment of the philosopher-king ideal. Dion’s chance to implement the principles of Plato’s political philosophy comes when Dionysios dies and his son, Dionysios the Younger, takes the throne. Plato is invited to Syracuse and wins the favor of the young ruler; unfortunately, the intention to influence the tyrant to institute rule of law is sabotaged by power struggles and Dionysios’ own jealousy of Dion.

I emphasize the politics, but what drew me into the story was Nikeratos’ everyday life in the theater. The aesthetics of Greek theater seem rather alien to my modern eyes: there’s a point when Nikeratos and his fellow actors learn that the Etruscans put on performances without wearing any masks, and they think the idea is radical and even a little obscene. Three actors share the burden of multiple roles in the play, with the help of extras (who don’t speak) and the chorus. The actors, while not being considered entirely respectable, do take their profession quite seriously, and performing a play is in a way a religious ritual. The devotion that Nikeratos shows towards theater is his guiding moral code, and his faith in the power and demands of his art is symbolized in the eponymous mask.

As Nikeratos observes the drama that unfolds around Dion, Plato and the young Dionysios, he brings an actor’s psychological insight that these characters lack. Dion, Plato and the other philosophers of the Academy believe in promoting their ideas through rational argument; Nikeratos knows however that the best way to move an audience is through emotional appeal. Plato and Dion debate the morality of an art form that shows gods and men at their worst—as bestial slaves to their passions—while also acknowledging that theater also shows men as heroes, ideals to which the ordinary man can aspire. Nikeratos though knows better: the dualism is at the heart of theater itself, and it is perhaps Plato and Dion’s inability to recognize human weakness that becomes their own downfall in the end.

The tragedy of this novel is also dual. First, there is Dion himself, who as tragic hero succumbs to the fatal flaw of his pride. Then secondly, the perhaps more poignant tragedy comes at the end, when Nikeratos meets Alexander, many years after Plato’s death, and recognizes in the boy the potential for the philosopher-king that Plato hoped for. The novel ends by saying, “No one will ever make a tragedy—and that is as well, for one could not bear it—whose grief is that the principals never met.” And I think indeed, Renault succeeded in writing that tragedy: Plato and Dion as heroes who are undone by the failure of their ideals, bringing personal disaster to them both, with Nikeratos’ role as chorus and commentator.

The volume also included Beckett’s Act Without Words, which indeed has no dialogue. The whole pantomime seems rather like a post-existentialist satire of Camus’ assertion that the only philosophical question of any importance is the question of suicide. The lone actor, in confronting the futility of his actions, tries to commit suicide but even this option is denied him. Camus at least gives us the will to choose suicide if we so wished, but Beckett seems to be saying that we aren’t even permitted that escape. The actor ends up on the floor, paralyzed and unresponsive. What I would dub the modern nightmare.

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, by David Shenk: The book calls itself a history of chess, but it doesn’t simply relate the development of the board game alone but frames it in the context of why people have obsessed over this game for centuries. Chess as metaphor, chess as cultural phenomenon, chess as a mirror of sociopolitical and intellectual history (e.g. the rise of “courtly love” under Eleanor of Aquitaine, the French Enlightenment and subsequent revolutions), chess as rational system. The book describes myths and legends associated with chess (the caliph who did not evacuate his burning palace because he was engrossed in a game of chess), as well as famous games (the “Immortal Game” of the title describes a match between Anderssen and Kieseritzky in the nineteenth century) and grandmasters (the personal history of Bobby Fischer). It also talks about the evolution of game rules and strategy over time–I was fascinated by the four historical “stages” in chess style–and the appearance of chess in literature and computer science. All in all, an excellently written book. Shenk likes to dwell on the implications of chess as a game representing the power of free will (versus games of chance, like backgammon) and by extension, the triumph of civilization and rational thought, which he freely admits carries a personal meaning for him in the wake of 9/11. I’m not sure if the more memoirist parts of the book strengthen or weaken it (after all, he also talks about how the obsession with chess can be all-consuming and how chess geniuses lose their sanity), but I did like reading about his own attempts to improve his chess game.

Vita Brevis: A Letter to Saint Augustine, by Jostein Gaarder (trans. Anne Born): In the introduction, Gaarder purports to have found and translated a letter written to Augustine from the “concubine” whom he mentions in his Confessions. I actually took him at his word at first, but if you read the book, it becomes clear that the letter is a fictional vehicle in which Gaarder can criticize Augustine and his influence on Christian theology. Despite Gaarder’s conceit of including “footnotes” citing the original Latin phrases, it’s clear that Floria, the supposed letter writer, sounds like Gaarder (or at least like Gaarder’s usual English translator) and has surprisingly modern ideas that coincide nicely with Western liberal opinions largely held today. I’m no classics expert, but I doubt that a letter originally written in Latin would ever “translate” into the style that Floria adopts. I suppose I’m annoyed because if Gaarder was going to make the pretense of having found a letter to Augustine as some sort of metafictional device, he could have done a much better job of it. It would have been brilliant if he executed the writing well enough to really make the reader believe his framing story of buying the manuscript at a book fair in Argentina. (Choice of country a nod to Borges?) As it is, all it becomes is a tiresome rant on Augustine’s extreme Platonism. Floria basically says (over and over again, while quoting extensively from Confessions) that believing in a Creator God who loved his creation means not denying the physical world and the facts of our physical existence; in fact, it is as much a sin to hate the world as it is to love it too well. Chesterton made the same point in his biography of Aquinas much more eloquently and with much more subtlety. Also, like most poor arguments, the whole book started making me sympathize with Augustine. I mean, I think Augustine’s conception of religion as divorcing oneself completely from the material world as much as possible is a little ridiculous, but I also think that he was genuinely trying, in his own fashion, to devote himself completely to God. And honestly, do we really need to blame all the excesses and mistakes of the Church on Augustine? As Chesterton points out, there are historical reasons for why Augustine’s brand of Platonic Christianity had such great appeal. Then again, I suppose we don’t like to accept that theology can have relativity without being untrue. (Oh, the poststructuralist paradox.)

The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity, by Martin Palmer: The subject matter of the book is quite fascinating since it traces the history of early Christianity in China centuries before any Jesuit missions. It describes a Christian tradition that developed separately in the Middle East, India and central Asia and is hence not continuous with the history of Catholic church (and subsequent Protestant denominations) in the West. It’s unfortunate though that the writing wasn’t very compelling and used phrases like “the Church of the East”, which implied an orientalist attitude that grated on my nerves. I think the book was also extremely disorganized: Palmer kept jumping from his personal account of discovering the ruins of an indigenous Christian monastery in Western China, to recounting the history of how Christianity entered China and merged with Taoist and Buddhist doctrines, to summarizing and translating the “Jesus Sutras” (Chinese texts that refer to Christian scripture and liturgy) without providing an overarching flow to his argument. I wish he had chosen a more academic tone and stripped the personal commentary from his book. I also wish he didn’t analyze the Sutras prior to providing the translated text; it seems to be dodgy academic practice to try to bias the mind of your reader with a particular interpretation of a text (given that he can’t exactly assume that his reader is already familiar with the texts in question). Mostly, what I found most irritating was that he built up my expectations with his claims that the Sutras were an important contribution to spiritual literature. Granted, I have no idea how the original Chinese reads, but the English translation sounded awkward and uninspiring to me. Also, I didn’t find the blending of Christian theology with Buddhist and Taoist (more Buddhist than Taoist, in my opinion, despite the title) philosophy to be all that radical. It’s easy to find common points among all religious doctrines; the question is at which point do you end up generalizing so much that you end up becoming nondenominational. If Palmer had seriously addressed whether or not this “adulteration” of Christian theology can still be called Christian, I would have liked the book a lot more. (Are you still Christian if you diminish the historical existence of Christ and turn him into an abstract Savior? Conversely, are you still Christian if you emphasize the humanity of Christ and overlook his divinity? I don’t know the answer. To be honest, I don’t think I’m capable of grasping the dual nature of Christ; instead I slip into the fallacy of believing in two different Christs, one human and one divine.)

I should add that of course, one could say that Catholicism (and the Protestant sects which it spawned) is the adulterated form–and I think to a certain extent, that is Palmer’s contention. The Christian message has become distorted and politicized in “the West”, and hence we ought to look to “the East” to revive Christian spirituality and return to a more original form. But I find that whole attitude aggravating: Buddhism and Taoism have been equally subject to distortion, and I would presume a “Taoist Christianity” would be no different. No matter where you go, religion has been a tool for power.

Mike at Wrykyn, by P.G. Wodehouse: The prequel to Mike and Psmith, although I don’t know if it can rightly be called a prequel since I believe the two books were originally published together as Mike. The book talks about Mike’s first year at Wrykyn as he makes his mark through his superlative cricket skills, while juggling relations with his brother, an overbearing head of house, his roommate (an upperclassman known for getting into trouble) and the Wrykyn cricket captain. Schoolboy pranks included, although not as many as I expected, since the book is in fact mostly about cricket. I wish I knew more about cricket but the book is still enjoyable without any knowledge of the sport.

Leave It to Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse: Switched from reading about Jeeves and Wooster to reading about Psmith, who is absurdly and delightfully verbose. He is able to get away with anything by simply never losing his composure; in the stickiest situation, he always makes everyone else feel that he has the upper hand. That’s the charm of a thoroughly arrogant character, of course. I suppose the trick is that he never irritates the reader with his arrogance, although other characters certainly find it infuriating. I liked that Wodehouse also finally created a strong female character, who is assertive and independent, without including any criticisms that come off as subtly sexist. (Female characters that are as spunky as Eve in the Jeeves and Wooster books come off as irresponsibly mischievous or domineering or scheming to entrap Bertie in marriage. Along the same lines, the weepy poetic female character in this story turned out to be a thief, whereas in a Jeeves and Wooster book, she would simply have remained soppy all the way through.) I also hadn’t realized that Freddie Threepwood was such an idiot; I read a later Blandings short story where he becomes much more competent.

But once I’d managed to get my bearings, the book became one of those compelling reads that keep you up late into the night because you simply can’t put it down. Dunnett’s prose is intricate and dense but beautifully descriptive; I’ve read few authors who could write such detailed action scenes while preserving the suspense. (The swordfight between Lymond and his brother, for example.) Her characters are vivid, almost to the point of being larger-than-life, and speak with an eloquence that probably would only have worked in historical fiction. E.g. Lymond, on patriotism:

Into the silence, the Master spoke gently. “These are not patriots, but martyrs, dying in cheerful self-interest as the Christians died in the pleasant conviction of grace, leaving their example by chance to brood beneath the water and rise, miraculously, to refresh the centuries. The cry is raised: Our land is glorious under the sun. I have a need to believe it, they say. It is a virtue to believe it; and therefore I shall wring from this unassuming clod a passion and a power and a selflessness that otherwise would be laid unquickened in the grave.” [...]

“And who shall say they are wrong,” said Lymond. “There are those who will always cleave to the living country, and who with their uprooted imaginations might well make of it an instrument for good. Is it quite beyond us in this land? Is there no one will take up this priceless thing and say, Here is a nation, with such a soul; with such talents; with these failings and this native worth? In what fashion can this one people be brought to live in full vigour and serenity, and who, in their compassion and wisdom, will take it and lead it into the path?”

Would you see such gifts of oratory in a modern-day character? It’s not just Lymond’s gifted tongue that moves the stage to silence either; Mary de Guise’s heartfelt speech in the last chapter was also amazing.

Lymond does edge dangerously close to being a little too ideal: he is charismatic and accomplished, speaks at least a half-dozen languages, is gifted with the sword and bow, charms women, possesses an ironic wit, is both a debauched scoundrel and a man of honor. But I still ended up liking his character nonetheless (six years ago, I would have fallen in love with him). Perhaps I’m just weak to protagonists who can quote at the drop of a hat. Lymond speaks in quotes as much as Wimsey does, although I recognize far fewer of his sources.

I’m no expert on this historical period of course, but Dunnett does seem to have done her research thoroughly. I did notice a few anachronisms, such as a reference to Shahrazad from 1001 Nights, which (Wikipedia confirms) was not translated into any Western European language until the eighteenth century. (Or perhaps we are to assume Lymond read it in the original Arabic? But then why would other characters even recognize the reference?) But these anachronisms are only occasional, and given the length and scope of this book, I think a few mistakes are entirely forgivable.

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver): I received this book as a graduation gift from the post-doc who supervised my senior thesis. It’s been on my reading list for a while, especially after I read and enjoyed Foucault’s Pendulum. Eco won me over right away by drawing parallels between his protagonist, the Franciscan monk and ex-inquisitor, William of Baskerville, and Sherlock Holmes, what with the physical description, the style of deductive reasoning, and the tendency to slip into periods of lassitude while intaking certain herbs. And of course, Adso, the first-person narrator, sounds rather like Watson, not only in name but in their admiration of their respective detective companions. The solution to the crimes was a little disappointing, although I do think as a nemesis, Jorge is similar to Moriarty in that he only really dirties his own hands at the very end. That final confrontation with both William and Jorge loathing each other as much as they admired each other rather reminded me of the Holmes-Moriarty dynamic. I was surprised though because I had suspected Jorge at times through the novel and had discarded the possibility as being too obvious. In any case, The Name of the Rose isn’t a very satisfying mystery, but it’s still a brilliant book. I liked the intentional anachronistic moments—William’s justification of democracy through theological arguments, the “quotations” in Adso’s writing that would of course only be apparent to a modern reader—and I also thought Eco was very clever in the whole layout of the library. I managed to get through the untranslated Latin without too much trouble as well, although I hope I didn’t miss anything essential in some of the longer passages. I was surprised to discover how much it had in common with Foucault’s Pendulum: in fact, I would say that it is even more “metafictional” than Foucault’s Pendulum, being after all, about books. I could also identify with William, even in his less strictly Holmesian aspect: in the end, for me, the central question of the book was whether it was possible to be both a person of faith and a rationalist…and whether it was even possible to be just one without the other, as paradoxical as that seems. William’s belief in the importance of making knowledge accessible, his desperation to save the forbidden book and the rest of the library (to the point of allowing Jorge to die), and most of all, his crisis of faith after the library has burned down. The whole story tied together well, what with all the philosophical discussions about laughter and comedy, the masses versus the educated elite, heresy as the other side of holy mysticism, the theological question of poverty…I suppose I found the theological arguments in the book easier to read through because of my own Catholic background, although I still found some of the political in-fighting between the orders and the Pope a little difficult to get through.

A tangent: William Weaver seems to be responsible for translating both Eco and Calvino. I wonder if he’s some sort of master translator for contemporary Italian authors.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling: I don’t consider Rowling to be a great author, which may be why I was able to enjoy this last book so much without feeling any disappointment. People have been complaining about the epilogue, the treatment of Slytherins, and various “out-of-character” scenes, but I was actually surprised by how well-written the rest of the book was. I liked the quest for the Horcruxes, the temptation of the Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore’s backstory, and most of all, the way Harry ended up defeating Voldemort. I probably have a much higher tolerance for derivative adventure fantasy than I do for derivative boarding-school stories, but I think she’s also improved in her writing. The pacing was a little rushed sometimes, but at no point did it stall, which I thought was a relief. The only real complaint I have is that I completely missed the fact that Lupin and Tonks were dead until Harry saw Lupin’s spirit when using the Resurrection Stone. Surely it’s not asking too much to devote more than a sentence to a supporting character’s death. Also, Neville is awesome.

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace: Wallace is one of those authors who walk perilously close to the line of being a little too clever, which is probably why he gets slapped with the label of being pretentious from those who are fed up with postmodernist (post-postmodernist?) literature. Of course, since Wallace was the first postmodern author I’ve ever read, I think he’s quite brilliant, so I didn’t exactly bring an objective perspective to this novel: I went in prepared to like the book. I also rather like Wallace’s stylistic flourishes (excesses?)—his love of footnotes, his verbose and overly technical jargon, the way his narrative streams-of-consciousness skip and start and circle back (much the way minds actually think)—and authorial voice. But my bias aside, I really do think that Wallace shouldn’t be dismissed as pretentious because he (1) is clearly self-aware of exactly what he’s doing to a microscopic level, (2) has a brilliant and absurd sense of humor, and (3) writes emotion sincerely, despite knowing that it isn’t fashionable anymore to be genuinely emotional.

Infinite Jest is strangely epic in scope, although its subject matter is really (yet again) the spectrum of dysfunctional and neurotic individuals in modern America. It’s told chronologically out-of-order and jumps around from place to place and from character to character, although it seems to focus primarily on Hal Incandenza (junior tennis champion and lexical prodigy) and Don Gately (recovering narcotics addict). Both live in Enfield, which is located on the outskirts of Boston, and having just spent the last four years in Cambridge, the whole setting felt disturbingly familiar. The characters are often walking through neighborhoods that I’ve physically visited; I’m so used to simply imagining places in books that it felt almost surreal to be reading about places I actually knew. What’s interesting is that Wallace wrote the book ten years ago and set it in the post-millennial future, which means that the book is roughly taking place around now. The future he imagined is clearly meant to be unrealistic and ridiculous—what with NATO being dismantled and replaced with an Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.), whole U.S. Northeast being forcefully given to Canada to serve as a waste-dumping ground, cable and broadcast TV being replaced by a new system of customizable mass entertainment monopolized by a company called InterLace—but it’s a little disconcerting to realize that some parts ring surprisingly true, including anti-American terrorism and a rather idiotic president who may or may not be a lame duck. (Well at least Bush isn’t a former lounge singer.) Of course, there are some things that have changed in the past ten years that Wallace wasn’t able to predict, such as the degree to which the Internet has taken over our lives.

I’m a little disconcerted by the ending. We never find out what happens chronologically after the first scene of the novel, and Hal was the character I felt the most invested in reading about. Probably because I could relate to the whole experience of attending a high-pressure school. I keep wondering if the ending is supposed to leave you feeling at a loss—it really seems to just cut off, as if someone flipped a switch on the television—or if Wallace just ran out of steam after a thousand pages. Despite how fragmented the narrative is, the novel is incredibly coherent (even the most seemingly inconsequential details turn up again, if you are an attentive reader, which is why I recommend reading the novel in a continuous stretch if possible). And as silly as it sounds, I really did find the novel meaningful, what it said (or what I thought it said) about freedom and compulsion, pleasure versus happiness, addictions. There are accounts of abuse and dysfunctional family relations, not to mention a thousand ways in which people ruin their lives and reach new points of psychological and physical degradation, all of which I find to be repulsive and depressing in most other contemporary American novels but not this one. I never felt mired, so to speak, in the “filth” of the book, perhaps because Wallace treats all of his characters, even the unsympathetic ones, with a sort of honesty that is kinder than compassion. It’s not a cheerful book but still a funny one. I mean, who wouldn’t laugh at the idea of a militant Quebec separatist group called the Wheelchair Assassins?

Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding: I’ve seen Bridget Jones referenced obliquely so many times—in magazine articles, in the Very Secret Diaries, in passing conversations—that reading the actual book was somewhat of an anticlimax. I suppose it also didn’t help that I had watched the movie with Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth before I ever read the book. It was a light-hearted and enjoyable read but somehow unexciting. I suppose the problem is that I don’t think—or write—like Bridget at all, so the book’s appeal to me was more a matter of anthropological curiosity than any sense of identification.

The Club Dumas, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (trans. Sonia Soto): Sometimes a book is so perfectly fitted to one’s tastes that discovering it feels almost like an astrological convergence, an incredible coincidence and yet also an act of fate. Excuse my melodrama. I came across this book while combing the fiction shelves of the small bookstore at LAX, where I had been waiting several hours for my flight back to Boston. (I arrived at the airport at half past two in the afternoon, and the flight was scheduled for nine that evening.) I wonder if I would have ever come across the book otherwise and am thankful that I did. How could there be a book more custom-tailored to my guilty pleasures? The combination of Dumas and The Three Musketeers (a book that I had near memorized when I was ten), neurotic bibliophiles and book-forgers, an intriguing mystery with a cynical sleuth, occult rituals, a suspenseful plot, an unreliable and probably egomaniacal narrator…what more could I ask for? In fact, the neurotic bibliophilia alone would have been enough to appeal to me; in the end, this book for me was a book about the inseparable dangers and pleasures of reading. I am still not sure what exactly the girl was supposed to be—I suspect Pérez-Reverte may have been a little too ambitious in his storytelling since that plotline was resolved rather sloppily—but I adored the major plot twist in the book and the fanaticism of the characters. To love a book is to let it possess you.

The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal (trans. Richard Howard): There are two elements to The Charterhouse of Parma that make it such an enjoyable book. First, of course, is the romance. Not only romance in the sense of the forbidden love affair that is the crux of the story, but also the romance of youthful and impetuous idealism, a rosy-colored vision of the world where men are brave and gallant, love is always true, and heroes and heroines remain picturesque even in tragedy. Think Italy. Think Napoleon. The other element of course, which makes this novel something more than a romance, is Stendhal’s French skepticism and deft ironic commentary on the story. Against Fabrizio’s dreams of valiant battle, you have the absurd reality of getting lost in the middle of the battle and being taken for an enemy by the very soldiers he came to aid. Side by side with Fabrizio’s amorous adventures in Parma, you have Count Mosca and Duchess Sanseverina maneuvering for for political dominance at the Prince’s court, an exercise that revolves around the careful flattery of the monarch’s ego. Stendhal is not contemptuous but he does write condescendingly of the Italians, who are quick to emotion and far too caught up in their romanticism. (The French of course are too cynical and sophisticated to embarrass themselves in such a fashion.) His narrative voice is essential to this novel; ironically, it makes Fabrizio and Clelia’s love story seem more poignant and pure.

The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer: I think the letter format in Sorcery and Cecelia was more engaging than the diary entries and testimony in this sequel. But it was charming to see the four interacting. There is less prickliness and almost a sort of sweetness between Kate and Thomas…Cecelia however retains a matter-of-fact pragmatism. I read a review of the first book that criticized the two authors for giving their narrators such similar voices, and I have to acknowledge that the two are much more distinguishable in the sequel than they were before. Kate is more obviously insecure, while Cecelia is confident about everything. I must admit that I had no idea which author had written which character until I read this book.

The Devil in Music, by Kate Ross: Maybe it’s because I read this last book a month later than the first three, or perhaps it’s a function of the setting, but The Devil in Music seems to stand apart from the rest of the series. We are given more to the story and yet not enough, we hear more about Julian’s past than ever before, there are politics and music involved, and most of all, Julian is in Italy, not England. I’m glad I read The Charterhouse of Parma before this book because I had a better sense for the passions of the place. Julian falls in love more intensely than he does in previous novels (which may be why the emotion seems more convincing). The novel is more interesting for the music (and the Carbonaro conspiracies) than the mystery itself. All the new characters are vivid and fascinating, and I was particularly moved by the story of Valeriano, the castrato singer.

Conrad’s Fate, by Diana Wynne Jones: Chrestomanci is such an insufferable teenager, but he is still my favorite part of this book. I don’t know whether it was because I was reading the text on-screen rather than in print, but I found the pacing more uneven than usual. The usual untangling of the plot as all is revealed at the end felt more rushed than ever, and truth be told, I wasn’t all that interested by Conrad as a character. He was a bit nebulous, I thought. I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say the book was unsatisfying, but it felt like a permutation of previous storylines, which I found odd because DWJ likes to try out new things. The real highlight of the book was seeing Christopher before he actually became Chrestomanci and also getting a glimpse of his relationship with Millie. Prior to this book, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to attempt Chrestomanci fanfiction, but now I have a better handle on his character.

Claudius the God, by Robert Graves: I’ve been meaning to read Claudius the God ever since I finished I, Claudius two years ago, and finally I’ve gotten around to borrowing it from Lamont. I realized, upon finishing it, that this whole story of Claudius has been structured to be a classical tragedy, in which our unlikely hero, Tiberius Claudius, sets out to rule with the best of intentions only to be done in by his fatal flaw, his blind love for Messalina. A little less superficially, Claudius’ tragedy represents the tragedy of the Republic, the final death toll as it were, and his decision to throw Rome to the dogs by appointing Nero as his successor was a quintessential tragic ending. It’s not an especially emotional book, but I felt like I was emerging from a funeral once I finished it. By the way, Graves really does his research. I mean, I had unconsciously assumed that Claudius’ army of bureaucrats was partly fictionalized, but as one can see from some of the passages given at the end of the book, even the names of all the individuals were taken from historical sources. I also liked the Herod Agrippa subplot—a more glamorous version of a tragic hero—although it took me a while to see the thematic connections between Herod and Claudius. The book does tend at first to feel like a chronicle of events, but Graves ties up everything into a coherent whole, which does not fail to impress me.

Shadow of the Giant, by Orson Scott Card: Much better than the prequel, if only for the fact that Card is too busy tying up the plot to lecture us on his grand philosophy of life (get married and have children, if one wants to be sarcastic about it). Bean continues to rather annoy me as a character, and I definitely did not expect the Virlomi and Alai plot twist. Also disappointed at Card’s decision to reverse his opinion and denounce the Muslim world as forever at the mercy of religious fanatics. But despite my quibbles and despite the fact that Card’s prose is simply not as compelling as it once was, I really enjoyed the story of Peter consolidating his power. It’s an idealistic vision, I think, but I think Card managed to pull it off in spite of his instinct to polemicize. I also really like the idea of the Hundred Worlds being rooted in a great Jeesh diaspora, haha. There’s a major plot thread left unresolved (w/r/t one of Bean and Petra’s children), so perhaps that rumor that Card is planning to write a novel that connects the Shadow arc with the Lusitania arc (set after Children of the Mind) is true. I’m also very glad that Card ends with Ender (no pun intended); one gets a final sense of reconciliation that one hadn’t even known was necessary.

Dreams Made Flesh, by Anne Bishop: A collection of short stories set in the Black Jewels universe. I must say, I wouldn’t even have known that this anthology existed if my dear friend and blockmate didn’t tell me about it. Some of the stories were better than others. (The first story was an example of why some writers should not attempt the “mythic” style. Also, Hekatah is unconvincingly vicious.) My favorite is the one about how Lucivar and Marian met, although I wish Anne Bishop would occasionally write about females from, well, normal families. (That might be expecting too much of the Blood though, since they are all mentally unstable in one way or another.) I also liked the way she resolved Jaenelle and the matter of Twilight’s Dawn, although the little drama surrounding her relationship with Daemon was a bit forced.

The Paths of the Dead, by Steven Brust: I must say that Piro & co. are nowhere near as interesting as Khaavren and his friends, but the book does provide the backstory that I’d been waiting for, namely how Zerika got the Orb back from the eponymous Paths of the Dead. Also, we get to see Morrolan’s origins, which are hilarious (I shall spare potential readers any spoilers, but nonetheless, I couldn’t stop laughing).

Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer: I think this book impressed on me more than ever just how difficult it is to write an epistolary novel. The problem is balancing exposition and action while remaining true to the constraints of the letter form, and Wrede and Stevermer more or less succeed at it, although there are points when they are clearly hampered a bit by having to tell everything in retrospect. One reviewer said that the love interests are more interesting than the two letter-writers, who are hard to distinguish voice-wise, and I can see their point, although I think that’s kind of inevitable given the genre. I mean, “spunky girl meets aloof, sarcastic man and falls in love after much snarking” dates all the way back to Pride and Prejudice. The fact that I still enjoyed the story and still thought that the romantic relationships were cute says a lot for Wrede and Stevermer’s ability to keep things fresh.

Dear Enemy, by Jean Webster: I didn’t even know that Daddy-Long-Legs, a childhood favorite of mine, had a sequel. But it does! I suppose it doesn’t have the piquancy of its predecessor, but I liked it nonetheless. Yet another epistolary novel, by the way, and like Daddy-Long-Legs, we only see one-half of the correspondence. Of course, in Daddy-Long-Legs, Judy never expected a reply, but in Dear Enemy, Sallie (Judy’s best friend from college) does in fact receive answers to her letters. She also writes them to more than one person. To pull this kind of writing stunt off and still tell the story vividly is no ordinary feat. Sallie’s tone changes subtly with the person to whom she’s writing; that kind of attention to detail always makes me happy. Oh, and it’s both disturbing and yet fascinating to see the early American views on eugenics and race being discussed here. (Jean Webster wrote Dear Enemy in 1910s, I believe.) Sallie has the sense to see that one can “fight” heredity with the proper environment and loving care, but it is a tad disconcerting to see how easily people accept the idea that negative personality traits, such as drunkenness or idlery or insanity, are determined entirely by genetics. (I speak as someone who hopes to be a geneticist: phenotype isn’t that simple.) The book is available on Project Gutenberg, by the way, which is how I read it, staying up until past 2 in the morning.

The Lord of Castle Black, by Steven Brust: More laughter at Morrolan as a young Dragaeran, small mysteries finally answered (e.g. the identity of Zerika’s Eastern lover). The Lord of Castle Black is the second volume in The Viscount of Adrilankha, which in turn is the third “book” in the Khaavren Romances, and I think it suffers somewhat from not being published as part of a larger volume. I didn’t know that the Duke of Kana was going to turn out to be such a major part of the plot (although I supppose I shouldn’t have been surprised; nothing Brust mentions is entirely superfluous); if I had, I would have paid closer attention in the last book. Piro’s choice of romantic interest is startling and kind of random, but then again, Brust likes to play these jokes, and it’s not entirely inconceivable considering Piro’s (relative) age.

Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers: First published as The Dawson Pedigree. I much preferred this mystery to Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, and upon considering why, I concluded it’s because Wimsey is much more morbid although still flippant as he ever is. In other words, Wimsey is just more Wimsey. There is this particularly excellent scene when Inspector Parker asks him just why he’s so interested in the Dawson case, and Wimsey talks of the perfect crime, so flawless and so inconsequential that no one even knows that it was a crime to begin with. He says that there is no conceivable way of knowing just how many of these crimes happen, since after all, a crime that is detected as a crime is by nature a failure. I wish I hadn’t returned the book so that I can quote this scene exactly, but this passage is exactly why I like Sayers’ writing so much. I also enjoyed the story for its own sake; it’s not a particularly flamboyant mystery since Wimsey’s suspect from the beginning turns out to be the culprit in the end. But the psychology of the culprit!—not clinically sociopathic, entirely sane, but nonetheless amoral. Sends shivers down my spine exactly because I know people who are like that. The means by which the crime was committed is so simple, yet I spent the whole book wondering about it. Also Miss Climpson! I would have adored the book for Miss Climpson’s letters alone.

So yes, the plan is that if I suddenly and irrevocably decide to give up science forever, I’ll study ancient history. (That reminds me, I really want to reread The Three Kingdoms, although that’s ancient history for an entirely different region of the world.)