Product Description

'Masterful' Sunday Times

Ancient Rome is the setting for the stunning new novel from Robert Harris, the number one bestselling author of Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel and Pompeii.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27171 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-04
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Allan Massie, Sunday Telegraph
`Harris's best so far, rapid and compelling in narrative…
thoroughly researched but also, which is more important, thoroughly
imagined… Irresistible'

Tom Holland, Guardian
`Genres ancient and modern have rarely been so skilfully
synthesised… Gripping and accomplished.'

Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
`Fascinating… Imperium masterfully dramatises issues not only
pertinent to a vanished world but to our own.'

Customer Reviews

Plodding
How this book garnered so many excellent reviews is beyond belief. It is a plodding story of what should be a vibrant episode in Roman times. It is flat, the characters never leave the page. How can anyone give it 5 stars??

History for the layman
This is my first Robert Harris book and I was not disappointed. Those who love history written in layman's prose would enjoy this book. I loved that he chose to write the story from the perspective of Tiro as it improved the writing style. Although the book is about Cicero I ended up liking Tiro better. The book started slow and it took me a couple of days to really start off. The tempo eventually rose and I couldnt wait to get towards the end of the book. It also made me understand politics a lot better. Based on the reviews I have read I guess I wll try fatherland. For once I found a book not bogged down by unnecessary sex and violence.

Hard to Categorise
Its taken me a while to get around to reading Imperium. Partly this was because there were other more appealing reads available to me, and partly because I was unsure how much I would actually enjoy Robert Harris' portrayal of the Roman politician/orator/lawyer Cicero.

Having read all of Harris' previous novels, including his latest 'The Ghost', plus a number of his comment pieces in various newspapers and magazines, I knew he was was a talented writer even if I hadn't been truly blown away by any of his fictional works since Fatherland. My worries however, were that even a writer of his talents would struggle to make the intricacies and intrigues of pre-Imperial Roman politics clear to the lay reader and that he would try too hard to draw overt parallels with contemporary politics instead of simply recounting history.

As it turns out I need not have worried. Harris manages to present a clear picture of the politics of the Roman republic whilst maintaining a quick narrative pace that holds the reader's attention. He also avoids laying on the contemporary parallels too overtly and refrains from trying to twist events just for the sake of making comparisons with modern politics.

Despite his successful approach however, Imperium remains a very difficult book to categorise. A work of 'faction' (fact mixed with fiction), it is neither a straight history lesson nor an outright historical thriller. There are the elements of both to be found within it. Readers will come away with a reasonable understanding of politics towards the end of the Roman republic and there are thriller like elements to be found too; especially in the last third of the book. Overall however, it is hard to work out exactly what Harris was trying to achieve in writing this book.

It certainly wasn't a biography of Cicero. For a start Imperium only deals with a very short period of his life and even then it does so in an episodic manner. Moreover Harris is not a biographer and characterisation as a whole is not his strongest suit. None of the individuals on display here, from Tiro the narrator, to supporting characters such as Pompey, Crassus and Julius Ceasar to Cicero himself really feel like proper 'Romans'. That's not to say that they lack any depth, but just that their attitudes and behaviour on the whole feel far too contemporary.

So its not a political or legal thriller, its not a biography, its not an allegory of contemporary politics, its not a sword and sandals epic and its not a straight history lesson. By not clearly falling definitely within any one genre some readers, like me, may be put off picking it up. If so then they are missing out on an interesting, well written book
that takes a fresh and accessible look at a brilliant man living through interesting and turbulent times. A curates egg Imperium may be, but its one worth cracking in to.