Product Description

The hero is Eupolis, weary, cynical and believing only in comedy. The heroine is Athens, at the height of her schizophrenic glory. A startling mixture of comedy and tragedy, THE WALLED ORCHARD is the poignant, charming story of their turbulent relationship.

With unforgettable characters and a powerful and moving story, THE WALLED ORCHARD is a wonderful evocation of life in Ancient Greece in the fifth century BC.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79547 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 591 pages

WASHINGTON POST
'Read THE WALLED ORCHARD so you can tell your descendants, "I was there when the historical novel started holding its head up with the rest of literature"'

Synopsis
The hero is Eupolis, weary, cynical and believing only in comedy. The heroine is Athens, at the height of her schizophrenic glory. A startling mixture of comedy and tragedy, THE WALLED ORCHARD is the poignant, charming story of their turbulent relationship. With unforgettable characters and a powerful and moving story, THE WALLED ORCHARD is a wonderful evocation of life in Ancient Greece in the fifth century BC. For information on this and other Orbit titles visit the Orbit website at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

About the Author
Tom Holt is the acclaimed author of a bestselling series of comic fantasy and historical novels. He lives in Chard, Somerset.

Customer Reviews

Ancient Athens without the rose tint!
Amalgamating both the military and literary events of the Peloponnesian war period of Classical Athens this witty and surprising novel is a very satisfying read. The playwrite Eupolis, the books narrator, has experience of the politics of both war and drama and pointedly exposes the all to human falibility of the Athenians in both. 'Democracy' in its birth place is far from eulogised but on the contrary is savaged and portrayed as a ravenous beast devouring its own creators.
A long book, two in one almost, but nicely structured with enough pace and variety to keep the reader interested.

A wonderfull tour of Ancient Athens and its great and disasterous Democratic system
There are many ways to understand in detail the history and everyday life in classical ancient Athens. Tom Holt provides one of the best , through wit, sarcasm and intrigue . Classical history of the 5th century becomes alive and easily understood through the life and adventures of Evpolis, a historical figure of a successful comedy writer, whose plays unfortunately are lost - much the delight , one can assume, of Aristophanes, his bitter theatrical rival .Highly recommended not only to anyone interested in that period, but anyone curious on how our strange and wondrous political system of Democracy worked in its birthplace of Athens and in our modern societies. A description not idealized as we were taught about it in school, but complete with all of its disastrous shortcomings that plague Democracy to our days and contributed to the fall of Athens.

Interesting experiment that nearly works
Tom Holt has written a series of books based around historical Greece. They are humourous "docu-dramas" - basing the story on an extrapolation of a few facts to give an author's insight into a world gone by. Tom tries to give an insight into the thought processes and the society of the Greeks through a life story of a playwright and his battle with maintaining his position in the regimented Athenian society.

The reason I suggest that the books nearly work is that Tom Holt has a quirky, slapstic approach to his leading character. I have a lot of sympathy with the idea of the lead being a flawed character, but the first person narrative of this character does grate after a while. It is not something he does in his mainstream books, but his historical novels all use this approach and all are the less satisfying for it.

It is also difficult to know whether you have been educated or mislead. From reading Tom's mainstream humorous fantasy, (which I love), I can see he is a widely-read, intelligent author, but I am not sure what I have gained from reading this.

I think Robert Harris's Pompeii works far better in this respect. Both stories are imaginary, but with Pompeii you feel you could read around and find the background to the story, whereas after this, you have been entertained, but you don't really feel that you are any more confident that you have a sound idea of what life was like.

To give a recommendation, I'd say this is a worthwhile read if the Greek world intrigues you. Pick it up with reasonable expectations and you may be pleasantly surprised.