****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
First, I want to be clear about which edition of "Quo Vadis" I am reviewing here: it is the edition from Hippocrene Books, ISBN 0781805503, translated by W.S. Kuniczak. I spell this out because I believe the translation is of great importance. Kuniczak already cut his teeth with a splendid version of Sienkiewicz's "trilogy."I really ordered this book out of curiosity. "Quo Vadis" was the generally-accepted American view of Nero's Rome and the rise of Christianity when I was a boy: the mammoth film spectacle was released in 1951. Yet it seems pretty certain that the "narrative" presented by "Quo Vadis" --- "Christianity good, Roman paganism bad" --- is pretty much dead in the water (or, even worse, a laughingstock) by the early years of the 21st century. I was also curious to look at one of the very first global best-sellers: "Quo Vadis" was translated into 40 languages, and sold millions of copies.What surprised me was that reading just the first five or ten pages really hooked me. The book starts out as a passionate love story: the patrician pagan Vinicius, by all accounts a phenomenally handsome man who lives at the top of the pagan status-heap, is stricken by a fatal love-at-first-sight for a girl he does not even know. A few more pages, and canny readers will understand that the girl, Lygia, is a secret Christian --- and then you start wondering how all this is going to work out.Besides that, the novel's most memorable character is Petronius, who is master of the revels for the megalomaniac Nero. He is at first scornful of Vinicius's "total love" for Lygia, but he is a very intelligent (if cynical) man who is finally forced to admit that, in this case (as in others) Aphrodite and Eros are the supreme gods guiding human affairs.And then Sienkiewicz begins raising the question --- sometimes gently, and sometimes forcefully --- a question which boils down to "which side are you on?" Despite all of our sentimentality about "the grandeur of Rome," is it not finally self-evident that Rome had to be destroyed, and replaced? If you doubt that, then reflect on the massive amount of slavery, tyranny, sadism, and cruelty which was the daily fare in Rome. Even if you have only seen "Gladiator," you have a good idea of what the Romans considered to be a good show --- men and beasts slaughtering one another to entertain the masses. Sienkiewicz also provides good insights into pagan philosophy (mostly via Petronius).On the other side, you meet the secret and persecuted community of Christians, along with memorable portraits of St. Peter and St. Paul.In sum: I found this to be a fascinating and very well researched historical novel. Biased? Of course it's biased. Everyone who picks this book up will probably be biased as well. But biased towards which side? :-)If you are a fan of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," this is probably a good volume to read at the same time.And it's a fascinating story.
