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The Vengeance of Rome (Between the Wars)
 
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The Vengeance of Rome (Between the Wars) (Hardcover)

by Michael Moorcock (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £17.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 600 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (5 Jan 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0224031198
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224031196
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.4 x 4.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 615,116 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Reviewed by James Smart

'It is a thrilling, ungainly epic; a shaggy dog with a sting in its tail'


Product Description

"Byzantium Endures", the first volume of Michael Moorcock's legendary "Pyat Quartet", appeared in 1981. "The Laughter of Carthage" (1984) and "Jerusalem Commands" (1992) followed. Now the quartet is complete. Pyat keeps his appointment with the age's worst nightmare. Born in Ukraine on the first day of the century, a Jewish anti-Semite, Pyat careered through three decades like a runaway train. Bisexual, cocaine-loving engineer/inventor/spy, he enthusiastically embraces Fascism. Hero-worshipping Mussolini, he enters the dictator's circle, enjoys a close friendship with Mussolini's wife and is sent by the Duce on a secret mission to Munich, becoming intimate with Ernst Rohm, the homosexual Stormtrooper leader. His crucial role in the Nazi Party's struggle for power has him performing perverted sex acts with 'Alf', as the Fuhrer's friends call him. Pyat's extraordinary luck leaves him after he witnesses Hitler's massacre of Rohm and the SA. At last he is swallowed up in Dachau concentration camp. Thirty years later, having survived the Spanish civil war, he is living in Portobello Road and telling his tale to a writer called Moorcock.
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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Even better than expected, 16 Feb 2006
By A Customer
To be honest I didn't think he could pull the ending of this off. Not only does he do it, he does it in an unexpected but totally appropriate way. The Hitler scenes have inevitably been mentioned in all the press reviews, but they are completely appropriate and seem (as no doubt Moorcock intended, because the sense of design, energy and control doesn't flag). I've read a lot about Hitler and the Holocaust and Moorcock's understanding of the pre-war period is thorough.
One shouldn't fail to mention how funny this book is. All the books have this mixture of horror and humour which we haven't seen, dare I say, since Dickens. The novel is far from dead. It is alive, kicking and engrossing. A word to new readers, however -- you really do need to start at the beginning with Byzantium Endures. You won't regret it. These novels take in almost the entire 20th century in a way no other sequence has done. This is the great English novel!
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Deflated, 20 May 2006
By Pilgrim (Scotland) - See all my reviews
Whilst this is streets ahead of anything else published recently in English, it is clear that the author couldn't wait to be finished and rid of Pyat, the vile central character. It is less dense than the preceding three books of the quartet, runs out of steam, does little to tackle the horrors of the camps, and finishes in an unsatisfactory way. What should have been a shock denoument and ultimate act of betrayal had been flagged so openly earlier in the series that it went off like a damp squib.

You could almost imagine that Mr Moorcock was leaving the way open for a fifth volume covering Pyat's life through the post-war years and up to his death. But I doubt that is the case. He has lived with this character for decades and must surely want to be cleansed of his filth.

Despite the criticism, Moorcock (even in this book) is still, by far, the best novelist in the English language working today. He outstrips the literati with his invention, his assured language, skilled plotting, and willingness to tackle issues that affect us all. His keen political eye spots hypocrisy wherever it is manifest and shreds it with deft words. His humanity gives us characters that are both Dickensian in their portraiture whilst remaining real; characters we can know, love and sympathise with. Even Pyat, vile in so many ways, evokes compassion.

And yes, this is the Michael Moorcock who also wrote science fiction and fantasy. This does not mean he is not a good writer (although many sf and fantasy writers turn out the most atrocious recycled garbage). He is the best and I hope that he has more of his gems to offer us to help us survive in a world that needs insightful interpreters and a world of literature that needs skilled practitioners.
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