The Dream of Scipio Paperback by Iain Pears

Product Details

• Publisher: Vintage Canada (2003-05-13)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 400 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780676972924
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 8.22 x 5.55 x 1.06 cm

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.

About the Author

IAIN PEARS is the author of the bestsellers An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Dream of Scipio, and Stone's Fall, and a novella, The Portrait, as well as a series of acclaimed detective novels, a book of art history and countless articles on artistic, financial and historical subjects. He lives in Oxford, England.