The Splendor of Antiquity (Le splendor de l'antiquité) [Paperback]

Cheryl Anne Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2007

Blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy - Will love win the day as a man and a woman discover just how deep their bond lies, and how some dreams are meant to be. Antiquity follows French Archeologists Jol?ete Deneauve and Olivier Botton, as they grapple with the mystic implications of a discovery hidden deep within the Siberian mountains. As Joliette pursues her obsession, she becomes bewitched by the spirit of a long dead God-King, and torn with despair, her grip on reality is tested. With careful research and the apparent cooperation of Botton, Joliette begins to unravel the mysteries of a strange burial rite as well as the mysteries of her own life. Olivier helps Joliette acknowledge the lingering effects of her painful memories, even if he refuses to believe in the spell that has brought them together and could destroy them both. But as Olivier helps Joliette, will she learn to trust him again.or will they slip farther away from one another into the abyss and beyond.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Le splendor de l'antiquite" is a love story not to be missed. -- Readerviews.com

"The Splendor of Antiquity" is an intricate though eerie story laced with a subtle but lucid romance [...] exquisitely multifaceted without the conventional angst. -- Podpeep.blogspot.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 68 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (April 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430314125
• ISBN-13: 978-1430314127
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,340,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cheryl Anne Gardner is a writer of dark, often disturbing art-house literary novellas and abstract flash fiction. She is an advocate for independent film, music, and books, and when at all possible prefers to read and review out-of-the-mainstream indie published works, foreign translations, and a bit of philosophy. Her love of literature began at an early age with Bram Stoker's Dracula. Captivated by the Gothic and Dark Romantic stylings of Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, and de Sade, her passion for the macabre manifests itself throughout her own work to this day. She lives with her husband and ferrets on the east coast USA, is an enthusiastic gardener, and her micro-flash can be found at Apocrypha and Abstractions Literary Journal where she is a contributing editor. Her flash fiction has been published at Dustbin, Dark Chaos, Carnage Conservatory, Pure Slush, Negative Suck, Danse Macabre, and at The Molotov Cocktail among others. When she isn't writing, she likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Words To Be Savored, March 25, 2011

By 

BookAddict (FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Splendor of Antiquity (Paperback)

I loved everything about this book. The narrator is a dead Babylonian king. Joliette, the main character, is an archeologist who grapples with love and trust and her strong attraction toward digging up dead things. The characters and the plot are unique and utterly captivating.

A line Ms. Gardner wrote within this book captured how I felt about much of it: "... silken words draped over sorrow." The beauty of the words often had me stopping to re-read sentences. This is not a long book but it is one to be savored.

4.0 out of 5 stars Cheryl Gardner always delivers, June 7, 2011

By 

Brandy N. Hunt "A'tuinsails" (GA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Splendor of Antiquity (Kindle Edition)

I think I finally know why Gardner's work fascinates me so. It combines my love of the bump in the dark with prose that reminds me of Jane Austen, you know if Jane Austen had liked to wear black and smoke unfiltered cigarettes.

Yeah, kind of like that. Excellent book, completely unexpected ending. As always, Cheryl delivers.

4.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes What You Believe Is All That Matters, January 10, 2010

By 

Shannon L. Yarbrough "Shannon L. Yarbrough" (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Splendor of Antiquity (Paperback)

"It is ironic, is it not, how everything seems so poetic in death, yet we rarely see the poetry in life?"

I couldn't think of a more truer statement than this, spoken by a God-like king on the first page of Cheryl Anne Gardner's book, The Splendor of Antiquity. True, we'd expect our Gods to say such profound things and the narrator of this book does not disappoint with such expectations. After all, he has been dead for centuries and our lead female, an archaeologists named Joliette Deneauve, is about to dig him up.

Gardner has magnificently given the book a theme about faith. The reader will know that right from the start. But this is also a book about passion, and there are two kinds here. First the passion, both physical and emotional, felt between two people. This is evident between Joliette and her fellow archaeologist named Olivier Botton. But then there's the feeling of passion that one has when they find themselves so truly captivated by some thing that also steals their heart away. For many, this second passion is the love and faith one feels for God, or should I say a God. And so Joliette finds herself torn between the two. She struggles against her connection with Olivier and is overcome with passion for the dead king she discovers deep in the Siberian mountains.

Tittering on the brink of fantasy, Gardner presented herself with quite a challenge when writing this book. Olivier and Joliette are both human so conversation between the two would obviously come quite naturally. However, remember this book is narrated by the dead king. Though he speaks to the reader, he cannot verbally speak to Joliette. But the one sided conversations Joliette has with his skull will send shivers up your spine. In Chapter 5, Joliette uses technology to sculpt a model of what the king might have looked like, a beautiful metaphor for God breathing life into each of us, but held at bay by the fact Joliette uses technology, science, to recreate the features of the king:

"In the simplest and most poetic of terms, she believed, devoutly in her heart, that a thing, once created, should never die. "Doesn't matter what that thing is: flesh, stone, or bone," she said. "Even the idea that sparked the courage to create in the first place has merit beyond the moment and should never fade from the world. Neither the memory nor the emotion behind it should ever be cast away and forgotten as if it had never existed, as if it had meant nothing." Everything means something in a metaphysical sense, even the trivial things. At least they did to Joliette. Restoring to me my face, my name, and my honor was the least trivial of all."

I loved the fact that this book was also not too philosophical despite the boundaries of both religion and science that are explored. Yes, Joliette is consumed with her work as a scientist and shows great passion for her work, but her obsession with the king and with finding out who he is also consumes her. Just as churchgoers long to be closer to God but denounce the scientific explanations behind who we are or how we got here, there's always that boundary between stories. Joliette never sways in either direction. We are a culture of secrets and history. Gardner reminds us that societies long before us bury their secrets, their sadness, and their past, only to have later societies dig them up all over again:

"Over the course of a lifetime, one might never be able to calculate how many tears could be shed on account of death."

When Olivier reveals that their research has not brought them any closer to the real identity of the king, Joliette vows to return to the dig site in an attempt to learn more, growing even more obsessed with the unnamed king. The king tells us he's already been haunting her dreams, but Joliette returning to his grave is the chance he needs to finally reveal himself to her. Joliette's fate is oddly revealed to the reader early on in Chapter 2:

"As the passing of the world slips down through fractures in the muck-covered gravel of time, everything is absorbed into everything else. Every bit of matter, whether it be rock, stone, or bone becomes a part of antiquity. Mist, magic, or trembling lips, everything transcends in an elemental eclipse

Everything.

Every atom, every slight or obtuse particle of dust, and every swirling cloud of detritus will eventually posses the memory of everything else, etched into its core."

And so it's not about having to choose between what we believe and what we know is real. Joliette simply accepts her fate and succumbs to it, but not before her and the king share a secret that Joliette chooses to keep to herself. Despite research, despite science, despite the opportunity to be known for something great, sometimes it is just about faith and that which we hold so dear inside ourselves.