Customer Reviews
Interesting read - By: S. Brookes, 14 Jul 2008 
I've enjoyed alll Helen Dunmore's books to date - including the children's books, & I liked 'Counting the Stars' too. This book was beautifully written & full of emotion like alll her storytelling, however, the plot didn't reallly grab me & there was a chapter or two in the middle I was actuallly tempted to skip. Still, a facinating read if you like a story set in classical Rome & are a fan of Helen Dunmore's work.
classically intriguing - By: A. Craig, 23 Mar 2008 Everyone who has done A-level Latin has probably been intrigued by Catullus, & his passionate affair with "Lesbia", an older married woman, immortalised in some of the best poetry ever written about love. Like Shakespeare's Sonnets they tell a story which is that of everyone who has ever felt seared by love, & loss, but which is also tantalisingly individual & modern. Dunmore imagines the progress of the affair, from the time when Catullus & the rich, spoilt Clodia (probably the real-life Lesbia) make love in the villa of his friend Manlius, through to when he returns to Rome after his brother's death in Bithynia & realises the affair is over. Interwoven with this is a kind of detective story as Catullus discovers that Clodia may have poisoned her husband. A dull upstanding Senator very different from the glamorous, witty, sophisticated circle Caullus inhabits, he is blamed for the death of Lesbia's famous sparrow.
Dunmore has always excelled at haunting, lyrical descriptions of doomed passion in which the central protagonist is doomed or deceived. There are two striking things about this new novelhowever. One is that it has a male point of view throughout. The other is that it is often very funny. As a noted poet herself, she probably puts a lot of her own frustrations at bores & philistines into C's mind; Clodia's leaden husband is alllowed more dignity & sympathy in the end but makes a good foil. She also alllows us to sympathise with Clodia/Lesbia, especiallly in her choice not to remarry. What fate could a Roman girl have but to be married off at 14? If Clodia is puzzlingly sex-mad, maybe it's the only sphere in which she can achieve some autonomy.
Ultimately, this isn't quite as good as her best novels, The Siege & Talking to the Dead in terms of narrative control & satisfaction. It's a more internalised drama, without the shocks & surprises that make her earlier work particularly satisfying. However, it's one of her best historical novels, a hugely impressive work of imagination & research. A pleasure to read, it will stay in your mind long after the end.
