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"Pompeii" by Robert Harris
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I’m not sure at what point in this pandemic I began gravitating to disaster lit but I found myself reading novels about earthquakes, hurricanes, and a giant comet that is headed for Earth in Claire Holroyde’s new novel “The Effort.” Read it — it’s lively and convincing! But a couple of weeks ago, when I was adding my name to the library queue for Robert Harris’ new novel, “V2” I spotted “Pompeii,” the book Harris published in 2003.
How had I missed it? I became a volcano enthusiast years ago when I arrived in Costa Rica late one night, drew back the curtains of our lodge window, and witnessed Arenal in all of her seething, spewing, steaming glory. It was magnificent.
Harris captures the malevolent magnificence of Vesuvius as he opens the novel in August of A.D. 79, 48 tension-filled hours before the eruption that would destroy Pompeii. Each chapter opens with a scientific monograph that ushers us inside a volcano on the brink and then we enter the lives of the people who live in the path of that destruction: a young engineer who is trying to repair a huge Roman aqueduct, the wealthy and tyrannical slave-turned-politician who counsels the townspeople to ignore the warning signs, and his daughter, whom the engineer loves.
The novel is also dotted with real historical figures from the time like Pliny the Elder, the naturalist and philosopher who left a splendid, series of encyclopedic volumes about life in the ancient Roman Empire. His descriptions of the hours leading up to the eruption are remarkable.
So, my Thread Must-Read, Richard Harris’ “Pompeii,” will take you away from the difficult days still ahead of us in this pandemic to the coast of Ancient Rome where a world-changing volcano is about to blow. — Kerri Miller | MPR News | 