Ford brings an interesting, fictively personal outlook to one of the classics. Inspired and highly informed, The Ten...
Xenophon’s Anabasis provides the model for this epic first novel of Greek mercenaries stranded in the heart of the Persian empire during the late fifth century
When Xenophon composed the Anabasis he used the pseudonym Themistogenes of Syracuse, but here, Ford brings Themistogenes—Theo—to the foreground as narrator and protagonist. Xenophon’s lifelong companion, Theo is initially a slave, later a freedman, and now serving as aide-de-camp. It’s through Theo’s eyes that we see Xenophon’s growth from a rather delicate and pampered boy to the questioning young scholar who sits at the feet of Socrates, to the soldier of fortune. The main action takes place after Athens’ defeat by Sparta and the subsequent reign of the Thirty Tyrants. Xenophon is lured to the mercenary life, against his father’s wishes, by a cousin, Proxenus, who is in the command of Cyrus the Younger, half-brother to the Persian king Artaxerses and pretender to the Persian throne. When Cyrus is killed in battle, the entire Greek command, ten thousand strong, is left to fend for itself in hostile territory. Later, when the Greek commanders, including Proxenus, are treacherously murdered by the Persians, Xenophon leads them through Asia Minor and Armenia to the Black Sea. Having Theo narrate is a nice touch, as he can move freely through the army’s strata. His observations and comments are sharp, the way we have come to expect a person of his rank to behave in literature. With the exception of Socrates, he spares no one, and is pointedly critical of Thucydides, historian of the Peloponnesian War. The descriptive language throughout is heroic, at times echoing the Iliad.
Ford brings an interesting, fictively personal outlook to one of the classics. Inspired and highly informed, The Ten Thousand may lead many readers back to the original.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26946-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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