THE ETRUSCAN

by Mika Waltari ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Is it heresy to say that with the memorable The Egyptian Waltari had written all his novels? There have been divergences, peripheral works, and now- in The Etruscan a book that would have been outstanding as a creative achievement- had he not written The Egyptian. Once again he has successfully recreated a lost civilization- one more completely lost, save to archaeologists, than in The Egyptian. Once again, he has used the device of an immortal figure, who lives successive lives (though here confined to a rising and a dying civilizaiton). Once again, there is a dominant character, though this time Turms is a warrior, rather than a philosopher. He excels all but the Spartan Dorieus, the Phoenician Dionysius -- and in some respects excels them. For Turms has powers of a god, to summon the winds, control the deities. There is an evocation of the ways of the Etruscans, there is much of the Greeks, the Persians, the advancing shadow of the Romans. There is a sense of frustration shared by the reader when human emotions come into conflict with the dominant control of the immortality which cloaks Turms. Waltari has achieved all this, but somehow- for this reader at least- he doesn't come to terms with his characters and his plot, so that one loses onesself. Rather one reads as if viewing a distant panorama of the sweep of ancient history, ancient peoples, ancient interlocking of human and divine, as the gods walk as men. The market could be that of a virtually new generation of readers, who did not know The Egyptian, readers more inured to techniques that shocked some readers when that book appeared. Certainly it is closer to that than any of the intervening books. And the lively interest in archaeological findings may stress new alertness to a novel rooted in those findings.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1956

Categories: FICTION