Customer Reviews

The Ten Thousand

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I read the Anabasis, the narrative by the Greek historian Xenophon, upon which this book is based, many years back and, when I saw this book, I was pleasantly surprised that someone had actually taken a crack at novelizing it.

The original text of the Anabasis essentially records the vicissitudes of a troop of Greek mercenaries who got stuck in the middle of the Persian empire, far from their native Hellenic hills, on the wrong side of a civil war between two Persian bluebloods. With their leader and employer taking an untimely powder in the midst of the critical battle, they are left without a patron, ten thousand against a hundred thousand or more, and no way out across a vast inhospitable desert lying between them and their Mediterranean road home, while being shadowed by a treacherous Persian general.

How they pull it together in the face of incredible hardships and fight their way home again is the crux of this tale . . . and it's a rousing one. Still, having read Xenophon, I was faced with the fact that there was little suspense for me in this adventure since I already knew how the basic narrative would work itself out. Worse, the interior sub-plots were all too easy to second guess, while the characters were not as sharply drawn as I'd have liked and so not as compelling, for their part, as they might have been.

More, there was a rather distant, abstractness to the writing itself that tended to leave me a trifle cold. It did not engage me as much as Pressfield's GATES OF FIRE had, the novel about the Spartan stand against Xerxes' invading Persians, roughly a generation or so before the events which Xenophon recorded. In fact, Pressfield's book's success probably inspired the decision to publish this one, though that, by itself, is not necessarily an adverse comment on this work. This tale is, in fact, nicely written and a well-wrought tribute to the Anabasis, despite my carping above. It is, despite its flaws, a vivid and convincing recreation of the ancient world in the time of the Greek Golden Age and that mighty Persian empire with which the Greeks alternately fought and dickered. Although the philosophizing built into the narrator's voice left me a trifle cold, as it seemed to be more for effect (to mimic the Greek penchant for reflecting deeply), than to really present a coherent and insightful world view . . . or to raise great questions . . . I found the narrator's "voice" reasonably convincing despite the modern tone it set.

I did find a few irritating errors, however, the most annoying being the reference to the upper Euphrates River near the end when a glance at the map on the inside cover clearly shows the upper Tigris to have been meant (unless that map got it wrong -- I don't know, myself, since I didn't go back to check my atlas).

Oh and one rather clever maneuver kind of stuck out for me: a quote attributed to the Gallic Yourcenar, a personage with which I am entirely unfamiliar, though I note the author thanks a colleague of the SAME last name in his afterword! A clever ploy indeed.

On balance, I really did like this one since it brought Xenophon's narrative to life in a somewhat modern idiom which still manages to sucessfully evoke the ancient world from which it was sprung. And, if it was not wholly satisfying for lack of suspense and vivid characters, well, at the least, it did its job in breathing life into the ancient text. I looked for more from this book than I got. But, in truth, I got enough. If you like ancient worlds and fascinating adventure, this true life tale reported by Xenophon and novelized by Mr. Ford, is worth the money and the time!

SWM
author of The King of Vinland's Saga

As someone who reads mostly science fiction and fantasy, this book represented a nice change of pace. Similar subject matter to what I typically read, but with the added spin of reality. Michael Ford gets high marks for conveying a very real world. Yes, I know it is a real world, but presumably Mr. Ford wasn't around when the actual events took place. Based on the detail that he included in the story from the marching and camp conditions, politics, geography, etc., he obviously did an excellent job of researching his topic and really bringing ancient Greece to life.

Having said that, I have to say that the story left me somewhat flat. Its a heroic tale by anyone's definition, but the characters didn't really come to life for me. Maybe its because I'm used to a fictional tale, but I can't say that I cared overly much about Xenophon nor did I feel like I really knew him.

Despite my vague dissatisfaction upon completion of the book, I do have to say that it kept my interest and was a pretty quick read. I also feel like I learned something from reading the book and would recommend it to friends.

Xenophon's Anabais is one of the great historic adventures of the ancient world. It recounts the extraordinary epic of ten thousand Greek mercenaries abandoned around eastern Iraq who fought and marched across modern Turkey against overwhelming odds and returned to Greece by way of the Black Sea.

This novel is a sound first novel, openly based on Xenophon's work, and a good introduction to the challenges faced by Xenophon both in the failing Greece in which Athens had been defeated by the Peloponnesian Wars and the economy and society were both battered and in the long ordeal of first service and then a march of extraordinary endurance.

For anyone interested in thinking about the ancient world, the degree to which cultures have clashed, and the process of survival this is a thought-provoking book.

Michael Curtis Ford's historical novel The Ten Thousand is a faithful and exquisitely written modern-day reworking of one of the most enduring adventure stories from the ancient Greek world, Xenophon's Anabasis. The original work by the renegade Athenian cavalry warrior Xenophon is his personal record of his (purportedly) single-handed rescue of a straggling army of ten thousand Greek soldiers stranded deep within the territory of Persia. They came to be so stranded because their leader, the Persian rebel Cyrus who wished to overthrow his brother the King of Persia, fell in battle at Cunaxa, and the Greek generals were subsequently butchered through an act of treachery by the Persian leader Tissaphernes.

Imagine finding yourself in such a state. The year is 401 B.C. You are a wealthy Athenian aristocrat, a hardened equestrian, under the age of thirty. Conditions at home are politically untenable and personally unbearable for you in the aftermath of Athens' defeat in a long war with her adversary the city of Sparta. Consequently, at the insistent appeal of your cousin and childhood friend, you have left your home city to join in the riskiest of operations: a rebellion against none other than the Persian King himself.

But now the uprising has failed. The army is trapped behind enemy lines, ringed by powerful enemies, leaderless, disorganized, demoralized, disconsolate, starving, injured, dying. Suddenly you, up to now a mere spectator, receive a vision that inspires you to take charge of your fellow men and bring them out of Persia and back home to Greece. You are still too young to be a general. But take charge you must - yourself.

This was Xenophon's state, and according to him, writing under the pseudonym of Themistogenes, he did rise to the occasion and lead the Greeks back to the Black Sea.

Mr. Ford has taken the name of Themistogenes to refer to Theo, a slave of Xenophon's father Gryllus, who is charged with the care of the young boy, nicknamed Aedon ("nightingale") for his singing ability. Theo becomes Aedon's (later the grown-up Xenophon's) close confidant who accompanies him to Persia and back, and the events unfold before us in the book in his narrative voice.

Denizens of the ancient world as well as adventure spirits of all kinds will take immense pleasure in this extraordinarily profound and vivid work, with its linguistic undulations of mood and tone; its gripping, often lurid, descriptions of battle scenes and other crises; and its constant level of suspense. There is a burning romance between the narrator and a (sometimes naked) lady of uniquely alluring independent spirit, and all throughout the reader feels the power of friendship ebb and flow, in frequent combat with the forces of military enmity and personal resentment and hostility.

Mr. Ford may justifiably take on a new epithet: either "the second Xenophon" or "the second Themistogenes", whichever he prefers. My only criticism of the work is that it is long - in excess of 350 pages. Readers must apply Herculean efforts in the latter stages to persist through the book's seemingly random and disconnected final scenes. Nonetheless, when they at last prevail to the strikingly unexpected conclusion - as they inevitably will do - their grandiose achievement in reading the book will be manifest.

So readers, beware when purchasing Michael Curtis Ford's The Ten Thousand. You must equip yourselves - with numerous bedtime or late-night snacks or what-have-you - to prepare for an odyssey of epic proportions - one unconditionally worthwhile upon its completion.

I normally don't write reviews, but I just finished this incredible book, and when I looked it up on Amazon I was astounded to see the weird conclusions being drawn by a previous reviewer. Tissaphernes a woman?! Holy cow, the text makes it quite clear that the woman was the Persian general's daughter, not the general himself! The story ended halfway through!? The reviewer admittedly draws his information from some high school term paper dredged from the Web. Yikes. Some facts need to be set straight here, and since I loved this book, as well as the original material it was drawn from, I guess I'll do it.

This book is a tremendous novel--a readaption and fictionalization of the Anabasis, Xenophon's recounting of the march of 10,000 Greek soldiers against the most powerful army on earth, and of their struggle for survival after their defeat. Ford accurately, even poetically, describes the bulk of this historic journey, ending only when the Greeks have made their way to safe haven. His rendering covers the original story up to its climax. He thankfully omitted the rest of Xenophon's original work, which is much less novel-worthy. Ford's work is a brilliant effort, and part of its brilliance is in knowing just when to stop. In fact, in an endnote, the author recommends that readers look up the original account.

This book is a great achievement, one that IMHO surpasses even Gates of Fire in its pacing and battle scenes. Don't let bizarre reviews dissuade you from what will definitely become a classic in historical fiction.

OK, here is an example. This is not even HALF of the paragraph: "As I walked, my chest constricted with a long suppressed shudder, and I breathed deeply, taking in the redolent night air. Of all the scents most capable of eliciting emotion and memory - the smoke of a wood fire, a woman's sleep-warm body under a blanket, chalk on a child's tablet- there is perhaps none so simultaneously comforting and threatening as the scent of the moon. The scent of the moon. I ask the reader to reflect, to turn inward and carefully, slowly, inhale the still night air: One cannot help but notice that the night's scent is different by moonlight..." And on and on and on...

I found myself skipping paragraph after paragraph, then went on to skip page after page. This is a former slave narrating, yet you think you are reading a philosophy book. Then he speaks and says, "Yes."

As others have pointed out in their reviews, you really just don't care about the characters and the long-windedness (Did I just make up a word?) of the narrator gets very tiresome. It takes three paragraphs to describe the sun coming up and then something interesting, like a battle, is described like, "After so many battles, it is enough to say we were victorious."

I don't know how this book got an average of four stars.

Xenophon's march? Fictionalized? Boy, as a lover of ancient history and historical fiction, I can tell you it took me less than three seconds to decide to pick this one up. But unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. The narrative is dreadfully stale, and worse, there is a surprise ending which will leave you in disbelief.

The historical event that Mr. Ford chooses to weave his tale around is the famous march of the 10,000, or Xenophon's march, in 401 B. C. What happened was, a group of about 10,000 Greek mercenaries were enlisted in the army of Cyrus, the Persian prince, whose goal was to forcefully take the throne from his father in order to become king of this mighty empire. But at the great battle of Cunaxa, his army was defeated and he was killed. The Greeks suddenly found themselves surrounded by enemies, bereft of friends, and thousands of miles from home. They could not go back the way they had come--through the desert--so instead marched and fought their way north, to the Black Sea, a journey in excess of seven hundred miles. It is a fascinating story.

Mr. Ford chooses to relate it through the first person narrative of Xenophon's slave, Themistogenes, who grew up with him. And therein lies the problem. We, as readers, understand that Mr. Ford is not writing a history; he is writing fiction. We are therefore disposed to let him do whatever he wants--as long as he sticks to the known facts--with his fictional characters. Indeed, we want him to do something with them; that is why we are reading this kind of fiction. Make them interesting! Fun, even! He does not.

Instead, Themistogenes merely follows his master around and slavishly records events. Even with the exciting subject matter, this often becomes monotonous. Oh, the lost opportunity! How much better could this have been! For example, we know he grew up in Greece: what are his opinions about the Persians? What does he think of their military discipline? Their arms? The fact that they bring their slaves and harem girls and treasures with them on campaigns? We know from an historical standpoint that this is true, but what does our narrator, as a more disciplined Greek, think of this? He meets several Persian women and in fact falls in love with one. How are Greek and Persian women different? In fact, how are Greek and Persian women different from women of today? Of course, Themistogenes does not live in the twenty-first century, but the author does. It seems that there are many ways in which he could have brought little things like this out more. Again, Themistogenes is a fictional character. How about, in the context of what we know, a controversial or illuminating opinion?

And Themistogenes' personal story--the fictional one--is so totally sublimated by that of Xenophon's--the historical one--that it is practically non-existent. Give him a life! Yes, I did mention that he falls in love, but there is so little of this, and with characters so bland, that it never even remotely catches fire. There is just not enough here of the little daily things that go on in a soldier's life--that go on in all our lives--to make for compelling fiction. How did he feel, for example, when it appeared Xenophon doubted him? When his lover apparently rejected him? When he had a headache and didn't feel like getting up one morning? We never really get much of this. Nope, like the good, little historian he is, he merely reports things, in his careful, meticulous and plodding way.

Okay, he is a good reporter. The battlefield descriptions are good, and the journey is recalled in great detail. I have no doubt that all of this occurred exactly as Mr. Ford relates it, and despite himself, some of this is interesting. He also takes the risk of allowing his narrator to occasionally toss out some philosophical commentary: life, death, war, love, etc. In my opinion, this succeeds.

But he drops a bombshell on us at the end--a bizarre revelation--which to me wrecked what little good feeling I had about this. It is completely out of the blue and unsupported by anything that went on before. And I know--believe me, I riffled back through dozens of chapters--that I didn't miss anything. Reading this book is like getting lulled to sleep by a hypnotist, who, without telling you beforehand, wakes you up by dropping a load of rotten tomatoes on your head. Perhaps you didn't mind the half-falling asleep--you even kind of enjoyed it--but the tomatoes will always remind you that it was, in the end, an unpleasant experience.

When it comes to history, I'm more a fan of Roman/Byzantine studies than ancient Greece. That said, I was happy to give this book a try as it dealt with an incident in Greek history with which I am not intimately familiar. Unfortunately, the writing of The Ten Thousand left me fairly cold and turned what could have been a good piece of historical fiction into the framework for a lousy HBO miniseries.

First off, the author uses a colloquial style that, while it may have been comfortable for him, utterly fails to transport the reader back to ancient Greece. Spartan generals of 2400 years ago dropping the F-bomb over and over again is about as convincing as Brad Pitt playing the role of Achilles. No doubt, ancient soldiers used salty language. But there are certainly more artful and effective ways of getting that across. This also makes the book completely unsuitable for kids under age 16 or so.

Second, the characters all seemed flat, neither well developed nor memorable, particularly that of Xenophon himself. Third, the segments which were supposed to be profound did not affect me as such. Granted, that could be a failing on my part, though Ford seems somewhat conscious of his own shortcomings and attempts to use a poetic device to apologize for it. His first person narrator is supposed to be an unsophisticated freedman, not well-versed in writing and one gets the impression that Ford himself is making the apology through his narrator. While this may be somewhat clever, it only tended to call the artistic deficiencies of the text repeatedly to mind.

And finally, the romantic aspect of the book was confusing and seemed tacked on, when it wasn't just silly.

Reading the book wasn't a total loss, however. It did make me want to seek out the Anabasis and read it, if only to see what Ford got right and wrong in the way of general historical accuracy. Overall, a disappointing but smooth read.

I read the mixed reviews prior to purchasing this book and decided to depend on the many positive ones. Mistake!

Like many others, I could have cared less about Xenophon by the end of the story. He seemed more petty and manipulated by his circumstances than heroic and driven by a higher purpose. There were hints that a personal climax was ahead for Theo when he narrated the widening a gap between himself and Xenophon. However this never occured. At the end, Theo (who was said earlier in the book to be older than Xenophon) ended up taking care of him in his dotage by whiping his backside and taking care of every other need of his senility. Theo was a freedman - why did he stay if he felt removed from Xenophon? Xenophon was wealthy, why didn't he have slaves to do this for him? We're never told.

I was surprised that no other reviewer mentioned the vulgarity in the book. The F-word is used very liberally. It's possibly forgivable to allow the Spartan generals to swear with the best modern drill sargeant since that keeps it in context. But it extends to Theo's narrative description of f***ing rivers, etc. Completely unnecessary and distracting.

If Mr. Ford is such a student of the ancient Greek, it would have been more powerful for him to use colloquial oaths of the time rather than trudge through the gutter with modern profanity.

This book was a complete disappointed.

This book seems to be extremely popular with Graeco - Roman fans, but I have to say that I didn't like it at all. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even finish the last 75 pages or so. I had two main complaints with this book, the writing and Ford's take on the "Anabasis." First, Ford's writing simply doesn't flow very smoothly. His prose is stilted and dry; very hard to read. The characters are one dimensional and I wound up caring very little for any of them. Plus I felt that the story never really found its focus. Second, Ford's take on Xenophon's Anabasis feels like a cheesy melodrama from the late 60's, probably starring Richard Burton with Tony Curtis as Cyrus. The Anabasis is one of the world's greatest treatises on leadership and the art of war, but Ford turns the story into a Hallmark Romance novel, inserting mysterious Eastern princesses and loyal but doomed servants. Usually, I can find some redeeming quality in almost any book, especially in this genre, but that isn't the case here. This book gets a big thumbs down from me.