Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio (USA 2003)

From the Publisher:
-- One of the Year's Best -- The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor
"Complex, surprising and thought-provoking, a dream of a novel in more senses than one. -- The Wall Street Journal

In The Dream of Scipio, "Pears's finest book yet" (The Boston Globe), the acclaimed author of An Instance of the Fingerpost intertwines three intellectual mysteries, three love stories and three of the darkest moments of human history. United by a clas- sical text called "The Dream of Scipio," three men struggle to find refuge for their hearts and minds from the madness that surrounds them... in the final days of the Roman Empire, in the grim years of the Black Death, and in the direst hours of World War II.

An ALA Booklist Editors' Choice
"Braiding together parallel plots of romance and political intrigue set in Provence during three dark eras, The Dream of Scipio is a murder mystery on the grandest le... [Pears] invests his complex story with piquancy, irony, and humor. There is much to ponder here, from Neoplatonic philosophy to anti-Semitism to public duty... Eye-opening." -- People

"An adventure and an achievement to match An Instance of the Fingerpost." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"An entirely satisfying symphony of story and substance... ingeniously imagined." -- The Washington Post

"Pears builds a multilayered tale of moral choice, love, danger and loss. Like an archae- ologist, he uncovers worlds beneath worlds in a few square miles of Provençal earth." -- The New York Times Book Review

"[An] ambitious, heartfelt and thought-provoking book, one that should find a home in the heart of every thinking reader." -- The Portland Oregonian

"Timeless... erudite..Pears makes you think and want to learn more." -- USA Today

"A dazzling triptych of love and ideas... Pears leaves us with a dream, not only of destruction, but of immense and unexpected heroism." -- The Boston Globe

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio. Riverhead Books, ISBN: 1573229865 (June, 2003), 398 p., $14.00.

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio (UK 2003)

From the Publisher:
'IRRESISTIBLY SEIZES THE IMAGINATION' -- EVENING STANDARD
'Combining the visceral pleasures of a thriller with the more intellectual excitements of a novel of ideas... Beautifully constructed... never less than engrossing' -- SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Set in Provence at three different critical moments of Western Civilisation - the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the Black Death in the fourteenth, and the Second World War in the twentieth - The Dream of Scipio follows the fortunes of three men, Manlius Hippomanes, a Gallic aristocrat obsessed with the preservation of Roman civilisation, Olivier de Noyen, a poet, and Julien Barneuve, an intellectual who joins the Vichy government.

The story of each man is woven through the narrative, linked by the classical text that gives the book its title, and by each man's love for an extraordinary woman. Dense, dark, erudite and yet, like An Instance of the Fingerpost utterly compelling, The Dream of Scipio confirms lain Pears as one of Britain's most imaginative novelists.

'Vivid, admirably imagined, ultimately very moving... This is a novel of the very highest ambition... Immediate, sensuous, beautiful' -- ALLAN MASSIE, SCOTSMAN

'Combines dazzling erudition with assured narrative skills to offer glimpses of some of history's darkest corners' -- INDEPENDENT OM SUNDAY

'Illumined by a fizzing passion for the recondite' -- DAILY TELEGRAPH

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio. Vintage, ISBN: 0099284588 (April, 2003), 393 p., £6.99.

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
In The Dream of Scipio, "Pears's finest book yet" (The Boston Globe), the acclaimed author of An Instance of the Fingerpost intertwines three intellectual mysteries, three love stories -- and three of the darkest moments in human history. United by a classical text called "The Dream of Scipio," three men struggle to find refuge for their hearts and minds from the madness that surrounds them... in the final days of the Roman Empire, in the grim years of the Black Death, and in the direst hours of World War II.

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio. Riverhead Books, ISBN: 157322202X (June, 2002), 398 p., $25.95.

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio (UK 2002)

From the Publisher:
The Dream of Scipio, lain Pears' first mainstream novel since An Instance of the Fingerpost, is a work of astonishing ambition that appeals equally to the head and heart. It is set in Provence at three different critical moments of Western Civilisation - the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the Black Death in the fourteenth, and the Second World War in the twentieth - and follows the fortunes of three men, Manlius Hippomenes, a Gallic aristocrat obsessed with the preservation of Roman civilisation, Guilaume Noyen, a poet, and Julien Barneuve, an intellectual who joins the Vichy government.

The story of each man is woven through the narrative, linked by the classical text that gives the book its title, and by each man's love for an extraordinary woman. Dense, dark, erudite and yet, like The Instance of the Fingerpost, utterly compelling, The Dream of Scipio confirms lain Pears as one of Britain's most imaginative novelists.

Iain Pears: The Dream Of Scipio. Jonathan Cape, ISBN: 0224060163 (April, 2002), 393 p., £17.99.