Review: "Act of Oblivion," Robert Harris

 

By Paul Carrier 

The English Civil War claimed the life of King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649. Various forms of government followed until the monarchy was restored in 1660 under Charles II, son of the late king. That year, Parliament pardoned many criminals for their actions during and after the Civil War, but not the so-called “regicides’ who had been directly involved in the death of Charles I.

In Act of Oblivion, prolific author Robert Harris fictionalizes the story of two real-life regicides, Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, William Goffe, who had fought with Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians in their war against the Royalists.

With the monarchy’s return, Whalley and Goffe fled to New England, where they were hounded by Royalists determined to ship them off to England for what would assuredly be a gruesome execution.

Anyone can easily determine, online, whether the king’s men succeeded in tracking down their prey. But no matter. Harris tells the tale with such gusto, nuanced characterizations and impressive period detail that Act of Oblivion is a compelling read even for those already familiar with the denouement.

Harris sticks to the historical record regarding key players, dates and events, but this is fiction, after all, and some speculative liberties are taken.

Review: "Conspirata," Robert Harris

 

 By Paul Carrier

Marcus Tullius Cicero, possibly the greatest orator in the history of the Roman Republic, rose to power in Robert Harris’ Imperium, the first novel in a trilogy that recounts the statesman’s life and times in the Republic’s waning years. That volume drew to a close with Cicero’s election as consul, the highest political office in republican Rome.

In Conspirata, the second book in the series, Cicero uncovers and exposes a plot in 63 B.C. to overthrow the Republic, for which he wins the fulsome gratitude of the Senate and the love of the Roman people.

But such devotion proves short-lived. Rome’s democracy teeters on the verge of collapse as ambitious generals and unscrupulous politicians vie for complete control of the government.

In fact, the highly readable Conspirata ends with Cicero being forced into exile at 48. Will he reclaim his former prominence in the years to come? Dictator, Harris' final entry on this legendary figure, will tell the tale.

Review: "Imperium," Robert Harris

 

 By Paul Carrier 

Some 15 years ago (better late than never on my part), British author Robert Harris released a novel entitled Imperium. It was the first book in a trilogy that fictionalizes the life of the lawyer, statesman, philosopher and prolific writer who may well have been ancient Rome’s greatest orator: Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Imperium covers Cicero’s rise in the final years of the Roman Republic, culminating in his election as consul, the pinnacle of power in republican Rome. Harris has said he did extensive research before writing his trilogy, and it certainly shows in this first volume. But this is fiction, after all, and liberties had to be taken.

Imperium is narrated by Tiro, Cicero’s real-life slave, secretary and, eventually, freedman. Tiro developed a form of shorthand and he actually wrote a biography of Cicero, but it was lost after the fall of the Roman Empire. Most of the events in Imperium happened, Harris writes in an author’s note, and the rest “at least could have . . . .”

Review: "The Second Sleep," Robert Harris

 By Paul Carrier 

At first blush, The Second Sleep appears to be historical fiction. Christopher Fairfax, a young, intellectually curious priest from the English cathedral city of Exeter, travels by horseback to the hamlet of Addicott St. George in 1468 to bury Father Lacy, a recently deceased clergyman.

But all is not as it seems. When Fairfax spots the sturdy village church for the first time, he speculates that it might be 1,500 years old, which is patently impossible in the 15th century. What gives? It turns out this is not “our” 1468. It is the future.

Society as we know it collapsed in 2025, possibly due to cyber warfare, ushering in a “dark age” and the medieval-like period of The Second Sleep. A despotic church that views science and the study of “the ancients” (i.e., us) as heretical has assumed control. Its post-apocalyptic numbering system begins with the year 666, the “number of the beast” from the Bible’s Book of Revelation. So the fact that it is 1468 when the novel opens means some 800 years have passed since the demise of civilization in the 21st century.

Was Lacy murdered for his “heretical” interests? Can Fairfax and an obsessive scholar evade the iron thumb of the church and uncover more of the forbidden past? Perhaps Harris’ dystopian vision of the future should provide food for thought in our own time.

Review: "An Officer and a Spy," Robert Harris

By Paul Carrier

Alfred Dreyfus

It’s debatable whether the Dreyfus Affair was, as British novelist Robert Harris asserts in An Officer and a Spy, “the greatest political scandal and miscarriage of justice in history.” But it’s certainly right up there, and Harris offers a vivid retelling of the remarkable tale in this historical thriller.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), a native of Alsace, was a French army officer of Jewish descent who was convicted of treason in 1894 for providing military secrets to the German Empire. He was sentenced to life in prison and shipped to Devil’s Island in French Guiana.

Dreyfus was innocent, a victim of rampant anti-Semitism, inept counterespionage, corrupt legal proceedings and, after his conviction, a botched cover-up. The case against him began to unravel in 1896 when evidence pointed to a major named Charles Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real spy. 

The Dreyfus Affair took a series of sensational twists and turns after that, including a second trial for Dreyfus, sharply dividing France and drawing international attention. Dreyfus’ innocence was proven over time, and he was cleared on all counts in 1906. Reinstated in the army as a major, he eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Colonel Georges Picquart, a real-life army intelligence officer, narrates An Officer and a Spy, which is largely his story. History has given Harris a colorful supporting cast to work with here, including disreputable military commanders, craven army underlings, a crusading defense lawyer, a duplicitous handwriting expert and a forger whose luck runs out.

Georges Picquart

Initially convinced of Dreyfus’ guilt, Picquart discovers Esterhazy’s treason. Only later does Picquart come to realize that Esterhazy is not a second spy. He is the spy. Later still, he learns that the army is so determined to prevent this miscarriage of justice from being exposed that it will do virtually anything to maintain the illusion of Dreyfus’ guilt.

Exiled and reviled by the army brass before being drummed out of the service that he loves, Picquart sets out to prove Dreyfus’ innocence. As that campaign gathers momentum, an already intriguing novel becomes almost impossible to put down. Harris combines high drama with telling, scene-setting detail.

Although the army command seems to have the upper hand at the outset, the conspirators underestimate Picquart. And they fail to reckon with the determination of other Dreyfusards, as Dreyfus’ supporters were called, including the writer Émile Zola. His sensational open letter to the president of France exposing the truth is splashed across the entire front page of the newspaper L’Aurore in 1898 under the blaring headline “J’Accuse . . . !” (I accuse.)

In Harris’ account, Dreyfus made a convenient target because he was disliked within the army for a variety of reasons, but primarily because of his ethnicity. Cold and arrogant with officers of equal rank but obsequious with superiors, Dreyfus flaunted his wealth and hailed from a German-speaking family with roots in what was then German-occupied Alsace. That made his loyalties all the more suspect in the minds of senior French commanders, once they learned they had a spy in their midst who was feeding military secrets to the Germans.

Émile Zola

Readers unfamiliar with the facts of the Dreyfus Affair may find An Officer and a Spy especially compelling, thanks to the suspense of not knowing how the story unfolds. But Picquart and the other key players are so well-drawn, and the personal and national implications of the scandal so mesmerizing, that even those with a working knowledge of the case will be swept along by Harris’ gripping account.

An Officer and a Spy successfully fictionalizes an all-too-real outrage that tore France asunder, pitting conservative military leaders and their traditionalist allies in the Catholic Church against progressives, intellectuals and secularists, whom Zola came to epitomize.

“The truth is on the march and nothing shall stop it,” Zola said as the tide began to turn in Dreyfus’ favor. It’s a lesson that later government schemers in other countries also ignored at their peril while trying to hide their misdeeds.

Review: "Conspirata," Robert Harris

By Paul Carrier

Every literate political junkie is familiar with those you-are-there tomes specializing in fly-on-the-wall anecdotes about who said what to whom at some critical juncture in an election campaign or a presidential administration.

But how many books apply that appealingly gossipy approach to the maneuverings of politicians in ancient Rome? That’s what Robert Harris has done in Conspirata, a novel set in the Roman Republic during and after the period when the famed lawyer and orator Cicero was consul in 63 B.C.

In fact, Conspirata, a sequel to Imperium, is Cicero’s story - or part of it, anyway. Cicero’s real-life slave and secretary, Tiro, who wrote a lengthy but now-lost biography of his master, narrates Conspirata, which Harris describes as an attempted “re-creation of Tiro’s vanished work.”

Yet Conspirata is not hagiography. Harris gives us Cicero in all his complexity: a stuttering but eloquent statesman and patriot with a biting wit, a skeptic who dismissed augury as silly superstition, an egotist who occasionally engaged in extortion and other underhanded schemes.

In Harris’ hands, Tiro tells his tale in a conversational style that immerses the reader in the life of the republic as it existed only a few years before Julius Caesar effectively killed it, paving the way for the creation of the Roman Empire and its all-powerful emperors.

The untested Caesar initially appears in these pages as a rising star who had yet to secure his greatest accomplishments, including the conquest of Gaul. Here too is Pompey the Great, the military leader and politician who would, over time, abandon his friend Cicero and join forces with Caesar in crushing the republic.

The result is storytelling at its best - a real page-turner that makes for a quick read because of its breezy style. Conspirata is peopled by a veritable who’s who of ancient Rome, as Tiro introduces us to the republic’s noble leaders, would-be dictators, influential women, and political hacks whose reach far exceeds both their grasp and their abilities.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

That last group gives Tiro a chance to display his sense of humor, and that of his master. For example, Lentulus Sura, former consul and urban praetor (a judge second in rank to the republic’s two consuls), is described as “a man of great ambition and boundless stupidity, two qualities which in politics often go together.”

Tiro also offers up telling and vivid descriptions of key players on the Roman political scene, such as the stern and incorruptible Cato the Younger, who makes this entrance during a session of the Senate: “He came down the gangway barefoot and stood in the aisle, that harsh and remorseless voice grating away like a blade on a grindstone.”

Harris (as Tiro) is especially compelling when he describes episodes of high drama, such as Cicero’s pivotal role in quashing a conspiracy launched by Lucius Sergius Catilina to overthrow the republic. What follows later is even more chilling - the beginning of the republic’s demise when Caesar, Pompey and Crassus effectively stage a coup d’état.

It is a credit to Harris’ skill that reading about the republic’s death throes is so moving. As flawed and corrupt as it was, the Roman Republic remained a democracy of sorts. The eventual rise of an oligarchy that gradually but permanently strangled republican principles makes for a powerfully disheartening tale.

In Harris’ telling, no one laments the crumbling of the republic more than Cicero, as befits one of its greatest champions. No one, that is, except Tiro and his audience . . . the readers of Conspirata.