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Title details for The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears - Available

The Dream of Scipio

by Iain Pears
ebook
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Three narratives, set in the fifth, fourteenth, and twentieth centuries, all revolving around an ancient text and each with a love story at its centre, are the elements of this brilliantly ingenious novel, a follow-up to the international bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost.
The centuries are the 5th (the final days of the Roman Empire); the 14th (the years of the Plague — the Black Death); and the 20th (World War II). The setting for each is the same — Provence — and each has at its heart a love story. The narratives intertwine seamlessly, and what joins them thematically is an ancient text — “The Dream of Scipio” — a work of neo-Platonism that poses timeless philosophical questions. What is the obligation of the individual in a society under siege? What is the role of learning when civilization itself is threatened, whether by acts of man or nature? Does virtue lie more in engagement or in neutrality? “Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless,” warns one of Pears’s characters.
The Dream of Scipio is a bona fide novel of ideas, a dazzling feat of storytelling, fiction for our times.
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Publisher: Knopf Canada

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780307370884
  • Release date: August 6, 2010

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780307370884
  • File size: 2256 KB
  • Release date: August 6, 2010
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Formats

OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Fiction Literature Mystery Historical Fiction

Languages

English

Three narratives, set in the fifth, fourteenth, and twentieth centuries, all revolving around an ancient text and each with a love story at its centre, are the elements of this brilliantly ingenious novel, a follow-up to the international bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost.
The centuries are the 5th (the final days of the Roman Empire); the 14th (the years of the Plague — the Black Death); and the 20th (World War II). The setting for each is the same — Provence — and each has at its heart a love story. The narratives intertwine seamlessly, and what joins them thematically is an ancient text — “The Dream of Scipio” — a work of neo-Platonism that poses timeless philosophical questions. What is the obligation of the individual in a society under siege? What is the role of learning when civilization itself is threatened, whether by acts of man or nature? Does virtue lie more in engagement or in neutrality? “Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless,” warns one of Pears’s characters.
The Dream of Scipio is a bona fide novel of ideas, a dazzling feat of storytelling, fiction for our times.
Expand title description text
Fiction Literature Mystery Historical Fiction
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