A eunuch in the Eastern Roman Empire rises from slavery to power by devious means in this deeply researched historical novel.
Webb, a retired teacher, instructs readers on the oft-overlooked Eastern Roman Empire of late antiquity. She charts roughly 30 years in the harsh life of Eutropius Foot, including a confusingly large (but historically accurate) cast of emperors, generals, bishops and the two bears for whom the book is named. In a helpful appendix that lists historical facts as well as a glossary, Webb indicates that she based her main character on the real Eutropius, immortalized by the poet Claudian in a scathing diatribe. Webb’s Eutropius is born to an unmarried wanderer somewhere near Constantinopolis. His mother dies shortly after childbirth but not before bestowing his odd name. A soft-hearted, impoverished shepherd finds Eutropius next to his dead mother in a field and takes him home to raise as his own until he can sell him into slavery, castrating him so he will bring more money. This betrayal sends Eutropius on a gradual descent into wretchedness. Because there’s a eunuch for a main character, some readers might assume this to be a somewhat sexless tale, but they would be mistaken. Rather, Webb dallies too long in detailing the vulgar sexual acts performed by slaves and prostitutes; even the kind mistress Sophie, a young woman to whom Eutropius is presented as a dowry gift, commands him to pleasure her. Corrupted, Eutropius begins a thankless career as a pimp for a succession of powerful, lusty politicians. While not charismatic, kind or particularly compelling, Eutropius is imbued with insatiable ambition; he worms his way into the graces of a feeble emperor, using deceit and cruelty to affect momentous historical changes until his arrogance causes a satisfying downfall. Eutropius’ tragicomic story is told amid the battle between emerging Christians and the still-present polytheists, whom Webb details with sharp humor. Many, like Eutropius, convert purely for political reasons, and their fumbles with the new religion’s rules make this unlikable protagonist’s tale easier to follow. Moral ambiguity casts a cynical shadow on this unvarnished, detailed glimpse into the formation of Western civilization.
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-1609113407
Page Count: 466
Publisher: Eloquent Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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