Kirjahaku

Rome's greatest poet was sent into exile for life and his works were consigned to damnatio memoriae -- eternal forgetting. But they weren't forgotten. Readers touched by their beauty preserved their precious volumes and copied them by hand so that the literature which had offended the government of Rome may yet live on forever. And it has.But who was Ovid? And what crime did he commit to bring down his punishment?This innovative novel presents the life of Ovid in a kind of live variety show, hosted by the narrator in the role of the emcee. The show features light-hearted sexy bits based on Ovid's erotic poems (including a striptease by the emperor's granddaughter), stress poetry, Emperor Augustus' internal monologues, political commentary, and a police investigation ("what crime did Ovid commit?"). The investigation device allows the author to present several original ideas as to the possible causes of the exile. And all of this dazzling structural innovation is couched in movingly beautiful prose.While the point isn't belabored, ultimately, like all of Bocheński's books, this too is a book about the individual's relationship to the ruling tyranny and the figure of Emperor Augustus looms large over the whole work. Because of its frank treatment of the topic of dictatorship, the book was eventually banned by the communist regime, and that "exile" forced its author into a new role: that of a prominent political dissident."It would be difficult to find a more brilliant fictional treatment of Ovid's life than this hilariously serious entertainment"--Theodore Ziolkowski, Ovid and the Moderns

Rome's greatest poet was sent into exile for life and his works were consigned to damnatio memoriae -- eternal forgetting. But they weren't forgotten. Readers touched by their beauty preserved their precious volumes and copied them by hand so that the literature which had offended the government of Rome may yet live on forever. And it has.But who was Ovid? And what crime did he commit to bring down his punishment?This innovative novel presents the life of Ovid in a kind of live variety show, hosted by the narrator in the role of the emcee. The show features light-hearted sexy bits based on Ovid's erotic poems (including a striptease by the emperor's granddaughter), stress poetry, Emperor Augustus' internal monologues, political commentary, and a police investigation ("what crime did Ovid commit?"). The investigation device allows the author to present several original ideas as to the possible causes of the exile. And all of this dazzling structural innovation is couched in movingly beautiful prose.While the point isn't belabored, ultimately, like all of Bocheński's books, this too is a book about the individual's relationship to the ruling tyranny and the figure of Emperor Augustus looms large over the whole work. Because of its frank treatment of the topic of dictatorship, the book was eventually banned by the communist regime, and that "exile" forced its author into a new role: that of a prominent political dissident."It would be difficult to find a more brilliant fictional treatment of Ovid's life than this hilariously serious entertainment"--Theodore Ziolkowski, Ovid and the ModernsGet your copy today

A great work of literature and a profound reflection on state terror from a man who spent forty years fighting one.Tiberius Caesar--a free standing work in its own right--completes Bocheński's Notorious Roman Trilogy--probably the most important literary work to come out of Eastern Europe since World War II.After the picaresque volume 1, Divine Julius (how to overthrow a republic in four easy steps) and the poetic volume 2, Naso the Poet (how, under tyranny, poetry can get you into trouble), comes volume three, Tiberius Caesar: a horrifying tale of the second emperor of Rome: the man who normalized political terror. A brilliant work of literature, with deeply moving passages of beautiful prose, many of which would stand as independent essays: how the police state hires its executionerswhat it is like to read--perhaps better said: to work through--Tacitus in his original Latinan evocative (and hilarious) description of a summer night on Capri in 1970an imaginary visit to a Roman bordello in AD 16a moving scene of Cocceius Nerva reading Cicero's On the LawsIf you enjoy the rich prose of writers like Kazuo Ishiguro or Orhan Pamuk, the style of this book will astonish and delight you..And if, in your pleasant and secure life in a Western, constitutional democracy you have grown complacent and bored with all the freedoms you take for granted--you should read this as a warning. Because you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. If you lose your democracy, this is what you will have.This is a very beautiful and a very important book. Don't miss it. Pick up your copy today.

A great work of literature and a profound reflection on state terror from a man who spent forty years fighting one.Tiberius Caesar--a free standing work in its own right--completes Bocheński's Notorious Roman Trilogy--probably the most important literary work to come out of Eastern Europe since World War II.After the picaresque volume 1, Divine Julius (how to overthrow a republic in four easy steps) and the poetic volume 2, Naso the Poet (how, under tyranny, poetry can get you into trouble), comes volume three, Tiberius Caesar: a horrifying tale of the second emperor of Rome: the man who normalized political terror. A moral, intellectual, emotional zero whose only skill in life was to grab power and hang onto it. At any cost.Tiberius Caesar is, on the one hand, a vertigo-inducing look into the great echo chamber of fear, an insight into the mediocrity who ruled, terrorized, and murdered all his betters because he could and because they made him do it.But the book is also a brilliant work of literature, with deeply moving passages of beautiful prose, many of which would stand as independent essays: how the police state hires its executionerswhat it is like to read--perhaps better said: to work through--Tacitus in his original Latinan evocative (and hilarious) description of a summer night on Capri in 1970an imaginary visit to a Roman bordello in AD 16a moving and stylistically astonishing scene of Cocceius Nerva reading Cicero's On the LawsIf you enjoy the rich prose of writers like Kazuo Ishiguro or Orhan Pamuk or Gabriel Garc a M rquez, the style of this book will astonish and delight you with its many pleasures.And if, in your pleasant and secure life in a Western, constitutional democracy you have grown complacent and bored with all the freedoms you take for granted--you should read this as a warning. Because you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. If you lose your democracy, this is what you will have.This is a very beautiful and a very important book. Don't miss it. Pick up your copy today.

"Would you like to become a god? This is perfectly doable."So starts this fascinating glimpse into the minds of Julius Caesar and his two great opponents, Cicero and Cato the Younger, written in the award winning brisk style imitating Caesar's own. A portrait of the overwhelming drive to power on the one hand and the heart-wrenching moral compromise on the other.A great critical success when it first appeared in 1961, the book was soon banned by the communist regime because it portrayed too accurately the techniques by which a dictatorship manufactures consent. Eventually published in a dozen languages, and on account of its style considered by many a modern classic, it appears in English only now.Pick up a copy today and see for yourself why some people may not want you to read it.