PositiveThe Arts DeskHerrin is an historian, not a scholar of art, and her straightforward prose has another objective – to make clear the imperial tergiversations which surround the survival of this one-time capital of the western Roman empire ... Herrin’s problem is the loss of so much vital documentation: what few vignettes there are of everyday life in Ravenna quickly lose the reader’s interest.The advantage of not being burdened by too much source material is that her history can rove the Byzantine world and unpick the tribal surges, always returning to harbour in Ravenna, \'the first European city\'.
Elena Ferrante
PositiveThe Arts DeskFor Gianni, as for Lenù in My Brilliant Friend, comes a recognition, an epiphany almost, that the ugly, distorted natures of her parents’ generation may impose themselves ... The teenage years are also...under the microscope, less trammelled by any specific time; the story, despite its many points of contact with My Brilliant Friend, feels unique. The characters are memorable: parents, friends, above all the fiercely hating and loving aunt ... Ann Goldstein’s translations would seem to do [the novels\'] full justice. The Lying Life of Adults simply enriches a magnificent canon ... There’s not a weak page, let alone a weak novel, among the eight to date.
Hilary Mantel
RaveThe Arts DeskNever, surely, has a greater novel deserved such a fanfaring blaze of publicity. ... Chronological events might make it difficult for a novelist, as opposed to an historian, to structure and shape the final years. Mantel does so with her familiar literary dramatist\'s gift ... Masterly as always are the meetings with the slippery king, inside whose head as divine regent we are briefly allowed to enter ... There are passages of lyrical reflection in between all the doing and being done by: I know of no more perfect writing in a novel than the paragraphs on reflection in twilight which begin \'Don\'t look back, he had told the king\' (pages 249-251) ... Yes, reader, I shed a tear. And it\'s so typical of this writer\'s imaginative precision that even the epigraph, \'author\'s note\' on the aftermath and acnowledgments are utterly original. Beautifully produced and proofread (I spotted only one typo), the hardback may be hard to hold but it\'s a physical pleasure to read.
