Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing, rich and erudite, 18 Jul 2004
Creation takes the reader to a singular time in human history, when the Persian Empire of the Great Kings, the Indian kingdoms of the Ganges, Confucian China and Periclean Athens were simultaneously at their peak. Through the eyes of one man, a half-Persian, half-Greek, who travels for many years through these varied and brilliant empires, we experience worlds we have lost. He himself is the grandson of the Prophet Zoroastrus, and aide to the Great King Darius, and as Persia's roving ambassador, encounters legendary Greek figures, three generations of Persian kings, marries into the Indian royal house soon to conquer the Gangetic plains, meets the Buddha and encounters Confucius. This vast and ambitious work is simultaneously a fictional autobiography, an exploration of a sublime and fascinating era and its civilisations, and a story of one man's ceaseless inquiry into the nature of existence, truth and human origins. The title of the book is the focus of this ceaseless quest, and through this sweeping, exciting novel, the reader will find himself educated - without realising it - on the differing views of civilisations whose existence has ended, but whose ideas have lived on. Gore Vidal's painstaking research grants him absolute mastery over his subject matter, and his skill as a writer make this a splendid, majesterial and moving work of fact-fiction.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An incredible trip to our cultural origins, 26 April 1999
By A Customer
This marvellous novel pick us to the beginnings of the Occidental Culture guided by Cyro Spitama, a supposed descendant of Zoroastro, the persian prophet. With him we visit the ancient Greece of the V century b.C. ( the Presocratic Greece), The magic India ( Budha, Janin) and the misterious China ( Lao tse, Confucius ). In his long life, Cyro will know all the inportant evens of this decisive century: the century in which the greatest empires were built.Leonardo Benito de Valle y Bermejo
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extraordinary combination of erudition and creativity, 23 Oct 2001
By A Customer
Vidal demonstrates an uncanny ability to grasp the finer details of ancient cultures and bring them to life. I come to this conclusion because of my own familiarity with one of the philosophical sytems and cultures covered - and here he achieves an extraordinary versimilitude with regard to the day to day life of the teacher and his followers, and the political intrigues surrounding the ruling aristocracy. A wonderful book with a strong narrative thread and for much of the time with the authors tongue firmly in cheek.
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