The Assyrian Empire burst onto the world historical scene by smashing the ancient Sumerians and their gods. Their brutality was surpassed only by their inability to govern on a sustained basis, and their empire expired, leaving the bone fragments of their kings buried beneath the tells of northern Iraq and neighboring regions.
Fifteen hundred years later, fictional British archeologist John Somerville diligently excavates the possible remnants of one of those bad old kings of Assyrian lore. The characters in Land of Marvels have a touch of fading imperial grandeur themselves, facing the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the onset of the Great War that would begin to transform Europe from the world's epicenter to the world's afterthought.
Land of Marvels is fiction, but it is deeply infused by history and is focused on characters who make a living studying history. This is enormously enjoyable for readers who have a thirst for knowledge. Readers who prefer straightforward adventure to a history lesson should look elsewhere.
That being said, this is no dry history book either. The characters are nuanced and warm, with both obvious and subtle motivations, secret desires and failings. Just ten pages of this book will give you a better "feel" for who the characters really are than some novels will give you in ten chapters.
The story seamlessly weaves together the archaeological excavation, the railway construction, and the oil search. The pace is fine and there are enough little twists to keep the pages turning. The conclusion is somewhat harsh--if you like happy endings, stop reading when you're about nine-tenths of the way through.
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Land of Marvels: A Novel Hardcover – Deckle Edge, January 6, 2009
by
Barry Unsworth
(Author)
| Barry Unsworth (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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Barry Unsworth, a writer with an “almost magical capacity for literary time travel” (New York Times Book Review) has the extraordinary ability to re-create the past and make it relevant to contemporary readers. In Land of Marvels, a thriller set in 1914, he brings to life the schemes and double-dealings of Western nations grappling for a foothold in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.
Somerville, a British archaeologist, is excavating a long-buried Assyrian palace. The site lies directly in the path of a new railroad to Baghdad, and he watches nervously as the construction progresses, threatening to destroy his discovery. The expedition party includes Somerville’s beautiful, bored wife, Edith; Patricia, a smart young graduate student; and Jehar, an Arab man-of-all-duties whose subservient manner belies his intelligence and ambitions. Posing as an archaeologist, an American geologist from an oil company arrives one day and insinuates himself into the group. But he’s not the only one working undercover to stake a claim on Iraq’s rich oil fields.
Historical fiction at its finest, Land of Marvels opens a window on the past and reveals its lasting impact.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNan A. Talese
- Publication dateJanuary 6, 2009
- Dimensions5.94 x 1.08 x 8.53 inches
- ISBN-100385520077
- ISBN-13978-0385520072
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Booker Prize-winning Unsworth (The Ruby in Her Navel) sets his intelligent and timely new book in Mesopotamia during the spring of 1914, just before the chaos of WWI. John Somerville, a British archeologist desperate for fame, worries that his new discovery, an ancient tomb, will be compromised by the construction--funded by Germany--of a new railway line. At the excavation site, Somerville's wife, Edith, wonders if her marriage has fizzled, especially after the arrival of Alex Elliott, a handsome American posing as a geologist but secretly searching for new sources of oil. Meanwhile, Jehar, an Arab confidence man, brings often fabricated messages to Somerville, warning him that the Germans are quickly approaching. The tension between the players--all eager to claim rights to what the land provides--builds toward a violent, unexpected finale. In elegantly modulated prose, Unsworth creates a tapestry of ambition and greed while, at the same time, foreshadowing the current conflict in the region. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
It is 1914, and, after three years in the deserts of Mesopotamia, the British archeologist John Somerville believes he is on the brink of a great discovery. Before he can uncover what he thinks was the residence of the last Assyrian king, Somerville must fight off plans for a railway that will encroach on his dig site, and thwart the efforts of Elliot, a charismatic, straight-talking American (in British historical novels there is rarely any other kind) who is bent on finding oil and on destroying what remains of Somerville�s marriage. There is something of E. M. Forster in Unsworth�s knowing depiction of a decaying empire run by upper-class incompetents, and in his generous and sympathetic portrayal of women caught between cultures, but he falters in the execution: the plot is that of a thriller, yet the story unfolds at the leisurely pace of a somewhat distracted teatime conversation.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Most critics praised this historical novel; differences in opinion centered on execution rather than subject matter. All agreed that Land of Marvelsoffers a compelling portrait of the Iraq of nearly a century ago, with reverberations for our own involvement in the region today. Unsworth expertly sets a scene and imbues his story with local color, drama, and impressive knowledge of archaeology and geology. However, some reviewers noted the unevenness of Unsworth's characters—the relatively flat Jehar, for example, compared with the richly drawn Lord Rampling. Others faulted a somewhat predictable plot and the thriller's leisurely pace. However, readers hoping for a historical and entertaining read—and a lesson into the transitory nature of empires—will not be disappointed.
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC
From Booklist
The workings of imperialism in all its guises form the subject of Unsworth’s latest historical, set in 1914 Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). As Britain, America, France, and Germany scramble for footholds in the dying Ottoman Empire, John Somerville, a British archaeologist, excavates an ancient Assyrian palace, the lost remnants of a once-thriving world power. However, the site lies in the projected path of a railroad linking Constantinople to the Persian Gulf, which would open up access to rich oil fields and serve as a vital supply line in case of war. As Somerville accumulates evidence for his discovery’s significance, his nervousness and desperation grow, as do tensions and double-dealings among his party. His bored wife, Edith, looks elsewhere for excitement; an Arab hired to spy on the railway’s progress schemes to earn his own fortune; and an American geologist ostensibly working for British interests conceals his real motives. With measured prose that builds steadily in suspense, Unsworth does an excellent job at simultaneously evoking a past era and foreshadowing American involvement in the modern Middle East. --Sarah Johnson
Review
“A richly imagined novel squarely in the tradition of his Booker Prize triumph, Sacred Hunger. Unsworth has an Austen-esque flair for character and an uncanny ability to bring the past to life."–Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March “This is the work of a master: lean, elegant, and wise, weaving the doomed ambitions of two fallen empires into a compelling story that also deftly comments on the American presence in Iraq."–Andrea Barrett, National Book Award-winning author of Ship Fever “Land Of Marvels is up to Unsworth’s highest standard, featuring a cast of fascinating characters thrown together in the desert of Mesopotamia just before the Great War, all furiously digging for the past and turning up the future. American readers will recognize the landscape and learn some surprising facts about how we got exactly where we are right now. As well a great read, Land of Marvels is an important book.”–Valerie Martin, Orange Prize-winning author of Property“An intriguing story, elegantly and eloquently told.”–Peter Ackroyd, bestselling author of London: The Biography“Immensely intelligent and entertaining… Not only does [Unsworth] confidently steer a complicated narrative populated by numerous characters, all of them believable and interesting, but he displays an impressive command of archaeology and geology, difficult subjects that are at the center of his story… Land of Marvels can-and I believe should-be read as a corrective to the arrogance and overweening self-confidence that led the United States into the morass of Iraq, but it also is a reminder that nothing is forever… but it also can be read as singularly skillful entertainment. Its characters are real, its prose is fluid, its sense of place is pervasive, and its ending is exactly right, on a note of loss, survival and irony. All in all, a lovely, memorable book.”-Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post“Unsworth assembles his layers with the subtlety you would expect from a renowned, if restrained, historical novelist and Booker Prize winner… Amid the tension, and some deft characterization, Unsworth's themes of extraction and exploitation are irresistible… Unsworth's denouement is dramatic and richly symbolic…. In Land of Marvels Unsworth succeeds in summoning the demons and the angels of Iraq's present and past. Not bad for a volume you could read in an afternoon.”-The New York Times Book Review“[Unsworth’s] work is as clean as Hemingway’s and as dark as Conrad’s, and it’s braced with a loathing of exploitative power... In seamless prose Unsworth exposes his characters’ myriad ulterior motives, all of which mirror today’s news. The conclusion is shocking, but the real triumph is the book’s commentary on modern Iraq... Beautifully disguised as a literary thriller, the novel is a reminder that if we continue on our present course we won’t just be doomed to repeat history, we will be doomed utterly.”—Men’s Journal “One can't help but ponder the what-ifs while reading British author Barry Unsworth's intrigue-fueled historical novel Land of Marvels… Unsworth's portrayals are sensitive and, to an extent, empathetic, giving the story a humanity it otherwise would not possess… Unsworth isn't just spinning a good historical yarn here. Land of Marvels holds up a mirror to our own grand and maybe misguided ambitions in a region that is no less explosive, no less paved with grand and dubious intentions today.”-Seattle Times“In a way, to call Land of Marvels a murder mystery or thriller is to undersell its considerable qualities. There is mystery aplenty--and murder--but there's a lot more going on here, as is always the case with Unsworth. The book is imbued with local atmosphere and informed by sound knowledge of the history and the culture of this particular corner of the Turkish Empire: Mesopotamia, or what we now know all too well as Iraq.”-Los Angeles Times“With his usual light hand, [Unsworth] keeps the story snapping along, setting up plot twists galore in an atmosphere that approaches a drawing-room comedy, complete with intrigues among the ruins.”-The Boston Phoenix “What Unsworth does best here is portray the collision of cultures and political and economic interests that, with the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire a few years later, would lead to the drawing of questionable national boundaries, giving Britain control of the newly named Iraq, and planting the seeds of discontent that, some 85 years later, would find the United States invading a country it did not fully understand. Land of Marvels is subtle in the connections it makes between then and now, but the discerning reader can see clearly the hand of fate planting those seeds of luckless destiny.”-Bookpage"With measured prose that builds steadily in suspense, Unsworth does an excellent job at simultaneously evoking a past era and foreshadowing American involvement in the modern Middle East."-Booklist“One hopes this rich narrative may inspire a film version enlisting the talents of Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Kingsley and their peers. A transfixing melodrama alive with crackling suspense, sharply drawn characters, intense historical relevance and ideas in action. Absorbing and irresistible.”-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Unsworth here offers historical fiction at its best. [Land of Marvels] provides some insight into current political divisions in the Middle East as it explores the power and limitations of storytelling…. Unsworth [draws] characters with depth and complexity.”-Library Journal (starred review)“The tension between the players builds toward a violent, unexpected finale. In elegantly modulated prose, Unsworth creates a tapestry of ambition and greed while, at the same time, foreshadowing the current conflict in the region.”-Publishers Weekly
About the Author
BARRY UNSWORTH, who won the Booker Prize for Sacred Hunger, was a Booker finalist for Pascali’s Island and Morality Play, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize for The Ruby in Her Navel. His other works include The Songs of the Kings, After Hannibal, and Losing Nelson. He lives in Italy.
From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley Barry Unsworth's immensely intelligent and entertaining new novel takes place in 1914 in what was still known as Mesopotamia. It was under the control of the Ottoman Empire, but that ancient Turkish state was in the process of falling apart, and the nations of the West -- which by the end of that year would be embroiled in world war -- were competing for its strategic territory and its vast resources of oil, the incalculable value of which was only beginning to be understood. That much of this territory is now known as Iraq is not incidental to Land of Marvels, but the book is offered as background to what has happened there in recent years rather than as a politically inspired commentary on current American policy. Unsworth is now 78 years old, and Land of Marvels is his 16th novel, but if he's lost a step along the way, it certainly isn't evident here. Not only does he confidently steer a complicated narrative populated by numerous characters, all of them believable and interesting, but he displays an impressive command of archaeology and geology, difficult subjects that are at the center of his story. The archaeologist is John Somerville, an idealistic, naive Englishman who is supervising and underwriting an ambitious dig that thus far has yielded little of consequence. The geologist is Alex Elliott, an ambitious, unscrupulous American who is looking for oil and serving a number of masters. How matters play out between the two is at the heart of the novel, though there is much more to it than that. Mesopotamia is a beehive of archaeological activity "where French and German and British and American archaeologists [are] digging and tunneling into mounds pretty much like this one" that Somerville has chosen at a place called Tell Erdek: "Some were making important finds -- and the recurrent awareness that [Somerville] was not among these fortunate ones was like the intermittent throb of a sore tooth -- but all were in haste, no matter what the place, Tell Halaf, Tell Chagar, Khorsabad, Nineveh, Babylon. Haste, in this spring of 1914, to get out of the earth as much as possible, before it was barred to them." They are looking for relics of the past; others, like Elliott and those whose interests he allegedly represents, are looking for the fuel of the future, what Elliott -- a true believer in oil if not much else except himself -- calls "the greatest boon ever bestowed on the human race." Somerville is accompanied by three fellow Brits -- his wife, Edith, his assistant, Palmer, and a young woman named Patricia who soon becomes Palmer's fiancée. Somerville is occasionally given information of dubious value by an Arab named Jehar, "a Bedouin of the Harb people" who, at 34, has "become a person who postponed his pleasures, planned ahead," especially as regards Ninanna, the 15-year-old girl he hopes to marry. Much of this information has to do with the Baghdad Railway being built nearby, "financed by the Deutsche Bank, designed to link Constantinople to the Persian Gulf." Somerville is obsessed by the conviction that the railroad is "aiming at him," that it will destroy Tell Erdek before he can complete his excavation there. He knows that Jehar frequently lies to him about the railroad's progress, though to what end he has no idea, but he also wonders about himself: "Once again the question came to him, sickening in its quality of irresolution: Was he not a much worse liar, a real liar, one who told lies to himself? Deep within him did he not really want this railway track to come crashing through his mound, or close enough at least to put paid to any hope of further excavation? Convenient, a salve to his pride, if he could lay the blame for his failure on the incursion of the line. If the failure were seen to be his, it would reduce his chances -- already not great -- of finding a sponsor, raising money for other digs. His own money was running out; there would not be enough for another season." Then his luck begins to change. He extracts "slightly more than half of a circular ivory plaque, broken across diagonally, showing the head and right foreleg of a lion." He is puzzled because neither the material nor the design is typical of the period he believes himself to be exploring, and even more puzzled when another article -- a stone slab -- raises similar questions. The deeper he and Palmer go, the more he becomes convinced that the site is in some way connected to the Assyrians, with whom he has been fascinated since boyhood, "the empire that had seemed to him a paradigm of all empires," one that gave them "domination of practically all of the world they knew and . . . the development of a ruthless militarism that had made their army the most feared and efficient fighting machine that world had so far seen." Somerville becomes so convinced of the potential importance of his dig that he goes to Constantinople to ask the British ambassador, whom he had known slightly in school, to persuade the Germans to direct the railroad away from Tell Erdek. When he arrives, he is puzzled to find that the ambassador is accompanied by Lord Rampling, a rich, powerful and abidingly cynical man who has no interest in archaeology but a great interest in oil. He and the ambassador convince Somerville that they will see to his ambitions -- they have no intention of doing so -- but in exchange they insist that he agree to take on Elliott in the guise of a fellow archaeologist when in fact he will be there as "an expert in petroleum geology, to have a look around." Everyone wants Middle Eastern oil and the power it promises. While Somerville studies the empires of the past, Rampling and his like are trying to build empires of the future. Patricia, who is smart and thoughtful, puts her finger on things when she tells Palmer that "something has been set in motion that can only end in destruction" and that Somerville sees it "coming straight for him." When he expresses skepticism, she replies: "It must be distressing to be living at a time when people like [Somerville] -- and like you too -- people trying to put things together, make sense of things, add to the sense of human community, are facing a contrary spirit of dismemberment and destructiveness that is terribly strong and pervasive. It is a kind of brutality that goes under the name of realism, and it is alive and well in Britain. You can call it the spirit of commerce, or the spirit of empire, or the élan vital. At Cambridge I made a special study of the Whig administrations of the mid-nineteenth century and their dealings with Belgium and Russia, and what Lord Palmerston said during his time as Foreign Secretary has always stayed in my mind. I've forgotten a lot of the stuff but not that. 'There are no longer permanent principles, only permanent interests, and we pursue these to the exclusion of all else.' That's more than half a century ago, but nothing has changed." Nor, needless to say, has it changed since then. Land of Marvels can -- and I believe should -- be read as a corrective to the arrogance and overweening self-confidence that led the United States into the morass of Iraq, but it also is a reminder that nothing is forever. Somerville, who may indeed march in the "army of the gullible," has a far keener understanding of history's realities and truths than those men pursuing empire in the underground oceans of oil: "Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, all bent on conquest, all convinced they would last forever, building their cities and proclaiming their power, empires following one upon another, their only memorial now the scraps that lay belowground, which he and his like competed in digging for." Land of Marvels can be read for that lesson, one as old and familiar as "Ozymandias" but forever in need of repetition, but it also can be read as singularly skillful entertainment. Its characters are real, its prose is fluid, its sense of place is pervasive, and its ending is exactly right, on a note of loss, survival and irony. All in all, a lovely, memorable book.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1.
He knew they would come that day or the next. Jehar had sent word. But it was only by chance that he saw them approach. He had risen soon after dawn, tense with the fears that came to him in these early hours of the morning, and fumbled his clothes on, taking care to make no noise that might disturb his wife, who slept in the adjacent bedroom, only separated from him by a thin wall. Crossing the courtyard, he saw that Hassan, the boy who kept the gate, was asleep under his blanket, and he took the same care to avoid arousing him.
By habit--it was the only route he ever took whether on foot or on horseback, though rarely so early--he followed the track that led for a half mile or so through low outcrops of limestone toward the hump of Tell Erdek, the mound they were excavating. This seemed to fill the sky as he drew nearer to it, black still, like an outpost of night. Then he saw a sparkle of silver from the floodlands in the distance and knew that the sun was showing behind him.
It was above the horizon by the time he reached the tell and bright enough to dazzle the eyes, though there was no warmth in it yet. He stood for a while in the shadow of the mound, strangely at a loss now that he was here, uneasy, almost, at the silence of the place, at the sense it gave of violation, this ancient heap of earth and rock and rubble, gashed and trenched for no purpose immediately apparent, as if some beast of inconceivable size had raked it savagely along the flanks. Before long it would resound to the thudding of the pick and the scraping of the shovel, the shouted orders of the foremen, the cries of the two hundred and more Bedouin tribesmen, who would come with their baskets and harness--valuable property, often fought over--to resume their antlike task of carrying away the loose earth and stones from the digging.
But it was now, as he felt the silence of violation in this place where so much of his hope and his money were invested, that he saw the men approach. News of the railway came to him in a variety of ways, but the reports he paid for were announced in the same way always: the dust of the riders, lit this morning to a glinting ash color by the early rays of the sun, seen far off across the flatland to the west. He knew in every detail the route they had taken: the rail yards of Aleppo, then Jerablus on the Euphrates, passing within sight of Carchemish, where Woolley and Lawrence had made the Hittite finds barely a year ago, then the desert steppeland rising and falling, dusted with green in this early-spring weather, scattered with mounds like this one, the tombs of long-dead cities. And so to this little swarm of dust in the middle distance.
It was the way the line would take, straight toward him, straight toward his hill, between the village where his workforce came from and the floodlands of the Khabur River. Sometimes he imagined he could catch the shine of the rails as they reached toward him. Mica, salt, asphalt, quartz, any glinting thing in the landscape might work this effect on him, even the fields of pitch where the oil seeped up, which were too far away to be seen at all, except in occasional, shifting gleams. It kept his worry alive, though he knew it for illusion; the journey on horseback from Jerablus, where the line had reached, where the Germans were building the bridge, took four days.
Sometimes it took longer, and Jehar would enumerate the reasons: desert storms, problems with the horses, attacks by raiding parties. He was grave-faced in recounting these things; his tone was charged with sincerity; further details were ready if required. But it was never possible to know whether he was merely inventing these episodes; such things happened on occasion to any traveler in these lands; why not, on this occasion, to them? The motive was clear enough--no secret was made of it--and it was this that made the accounts less than fully reliable: Jehar was seeking to extract a few more piastres for their hardships and their loyalty. He took care not to do it too often. He was a man of the Harb people; but he had traveled widely outside the tribal lands, and his travels had taught him that moderation, whether in truth or in falsehood, was likely to be more profitable than excess.
When the figures were near enough to be distinguished, Somerville stepped out into the open so that they should see him as they followed the track toward the expedition house. They dismounted at a distance of a hundred paces or so and left the horses in the care of one of their number. The others, headed by Jehar, walked toward him, inclining their heads in greeting as they drew near. None would have dreamed of approaching mounted when the khwaja was on foot. Jehar, as always, would be the spokesman. The others drew around him in a half circle. The hoods of their cloaks were thrown back, but they wore the folds of the headcloths still drawn over the mouth against the cold they had ridden through. They would say nothing, but they would keep a close eye on the sum handed over to Jehar; he was their employer, as the archaeologist was his, four being deemed a sufficient escort to ensure safe passage through lands in the main unfriendly, guard against ambush by day and depredation by night. Often enough, of course, they were themselves the raiders and despoilers; in their saddle slings they carried Mauser repeating rifles of recent make, weapons that had been issued to the Sultan's irregular cavalry units in Syria. But none of these men belonged to any unit at all, however irregular...
Jehar uncovered his face, which was handsome, narrow-boned, and level-browed, fierce in its serenity. "Oh noble one," he said in Arabic, the only language they had in common.
"Well," Somerville said, "speak out, why do you wait?" The delay, he knew, was more due to Jehar's relish for drama than to any diffidence about delivering unwelcome news.
Jehar raised his arms on either side. "Lord, the bridge is made, its claws have come to rest on our side of the Great River." He continued to gesture, lifting his arms higher, then lowering them to make the sweeping shape of an arc. "A great marvel, this bridge of the Germans," he said. "It is all made of steel, the span is greater than any floods can reach."
He looked keenly as he spoke at the face of the man before him, who had sustained the infliction of this news without change of expression. "Farther than ten throws of a stone," he said in a tone of wonder. "High in the sky, the sparrows cannot fly over it." He was disappointed by the other's failure to show feeling but not deceived by it; he was sensitive in certain ways and had understood very early in their acquaintance that the Englishman was one of those--he had met others in his time--whom Allah for reasons inscrutable to mortals had predisposed to feel singled out for harm. He was himself an optimist, blessed with a belief in his destiny. Only one such as he could set out to raise one hundred gold pounds, starting from nothing. This was the bride-price of the Circassian girl who filled his thoughts. He knew that this man was searching for treasure and was possessed by fear that the people of the railway would bring the line too close and take the treasure for themselves. It must be an enormous treasure, for one to spend so much on the finding of it. They had not found it yet; this was the third year they had come; they had dug down and down, but they had not found it yet...
"We were approached by a ghazwa of the Shammar people," he said. "A dozen men. They followed us for some miles and fired at us. We killed one and they fled, the cowards."
There was nothing in the attentive faces around him that could be taken to confirm or deny this story. Next time he spoke of it the Shammar raiding party would be fifty strong at least, the deaths five or six, and the encounter would already belong to the realm of legend.
"Now we will be pestered by his relatives with demands for blood money," Somerville said.
"No, no, they did not know us." For the first time Jehar glanced around at his companions, who all shook their heads.
"Well, we shall see. Now that the bridge is completed, have they started immediately to lay the rails on this side of the river?"
"No, lord, there will be some delay. New rails have come from the steelworks in Germany, they have come by sea to Beirut. Now they wait for the unloading of the rails and the transporting of them to Aleppo and so to Jerablus. They will bring the rails and the coal into the yards in Jerablus. All this will take time, perhaps ten days. Also, they lack timber. It must be brought from the north, from Urfa. This I was told by one whose word can be trusted. For this very precious information I gave him money from my own purse."
"But they had already laid some miles of track on this side of the river, even before they started work on the bridge. They were already engaged on it in my first season here, three years ago. Then the work was abandoned, the rails were left to rust. Now there are German surveyors and engineers here, they have rented houses in the village, they have taken some of our workpeople to build their storage sheds."
He paused, aware of having spoken too rapidly, with too much emphasis, aware of Jehar's eyes on him. There was always something unsettling in the man's gaze, something too intent. "Under our noses," he said. "They brought the stuff downriver." In fact the warehouses had been there already when he arrived in mid-February. The sight of them, the presence of the Germans, had been a grievous blow to him; before that it had been possible to hope that they intended to take the line farther north, toward Mardin. He said, "The sheds are stacked to the roof. Strange they should be waiting for supplies at Jerablus when they have the timbers and the rails stacked up here."
"But they are intended for this part of the line," Jehar said with extreme simplicity. "A railway is made in stretches, like a garden. When you grow palms, you plant here because the ground is easy. In another place you wait until you can make the ground better. Twenty piastres I gave him."
"I am not carrying any money," Somerville said. "I did not expect to meet you here. But I will remember what is owed. Four Turkish pounds as usual. We agreed at the beginning that I would not be responsible for your expenses."
He did not believe that Jehar had disbursed any of his own money, but in any case it would have been a great mistake to undertake to meet costs of this kind; he knew Jehar well enough to know that the costs would multiply. It was little enough he gave them anyway; how much Jehar would keep he did not know, but thought it probable that the others might get half the money to share among them, a meager amount but they found it sufficient; this job of escorting Jehar was much coveted, he had been told. "Well," he said, "in view of the delay at Jerablus you can take some days for your own business before setting out again. But I must be informed when they start again with the laying of the track."
On this, with low bows, the men retired to where their horses waited and turned toward the village. But Somerville was not given time to ponder the news. His two foremen were approaching, and behind them came the first of the workpeople, talking and laughing together. He moved forward to greet the two men, deriving comfort, as always, from the air of competence they carried with them, like an aura; they were united in it in spite of the physical dissimilarity between them. Elias, who was from Konia and Greek by birth, he had known for some years now. They had been together on a dig at Hamman Ali, south of Mosul, in the days when Somerville had been still an assistant. He had been delighted--and flattered--when Elias offered his services here. He was stout of build and corpulent, though quick and sure-footed on the ground of the site, with a round, good-humored face that could turn to fury with fearsome speed when he found something amiss, some slackness in the work. The other, Halil, was a Syrian, tall for an Arab and sinewy, with a stentorian voice and an expression of severity and melancholy.
Somerville had complete confidence in both and knew that they could be safely left to organize the groups and set the people on to work; there would in any case be little change from previous days in the distribution of the labor and the areas of excavation: Most of the people would be employed at different levels of the pit, which in three seasons of excavation they had dug down to a depth of sixty feet; others would be extending the lateral trenches in the hope of finding some remains of connecting walls. Walls were of utmost importance, even if no more than a few inches of them were left. They could lead to rooms, to gates and portals, to temples and palaces. So far, however, they had found nothing but the foundation lines of humbler and more recent habitations, Roman and Byzantine, not greatly interesting.
He was about to start making his way back to the expedition house when his assistant, Palmer, arrived, a sturdy figure in his white cotton suit and soft-brimmed white hat.
"I thought I'd come and see the work started," he said. "I didn't know you were here. Lovely morning, isn't it?"
Somerville assented to this but without much conviction. He liked Palmer and knew he was lucky to have an assistant who, in addition to knowing something of field archaeology, was an acknowledged expert on Assyrian and Sumerian inscriptions. But there were occasions when he wished--irrationally--that Palmer's looks might sometimes betray some faltering, even some hint of dismay, something to correspond to the extremely disappointing nature of their excavation so far. But no, he was always equable, his eyes gentle and shrewd behind the glasses, ready for the momentous discovery just around the corner. Of course Palmer was young, only twenty-seven, eight years younger than himself. And it wasn't Palmer's money that was draining away...
He knew they would come that day or the next. Jehar had sent word. But it was only by chance that he saw them approach. He had risen soon after dawn, tense with the fears that came to him in these early hours of the morning, and fumbled his clothes on, taking care to make no noise that might disturb his wife, who slept in the adjacent bedroom, only separated from him by a thin wall. Crossing the courtyard, he saw that Hassan, the boy who kept the gate, was asleep under his blanket, and he took the same care to avoid arousing him.
By habit--it was the only route he ever took whether on foot or on horseback, though rarely so early--he followed the track that led for a half mile or so through low outcrops of limestone toward the hump of Tell Erdek, the mound they were excavating. This seemed to fill the sky as he drew nearer to it, black still, like an outpost of night. Then he saw a sparkle of silver from the floodlands in the distance and knew that the sun was showing behind him.
It was above the horizon by the time he reached the tell and bright enough to dazzle the eyes, though there was no warmth in it yet. He stood for a while in the shadow of the mound, strangely at a loss now that he was here, uneasy, almost, at the silence of the place, at the sense it gave of violation, this ancient heap of earth and rock and rubble, gashed and trenched for no purpose immediately apparent, as if some beast of inconceivable size had raked it savagely along the flanks. Before long it would resound to the thudding of the pick and the scraping of the shovel, the shouted orders of the foremen, the cries of the two hundred and more Bedouin tribesmen, who would come with their baskets and harness--valuable property, often fought over--to resume their antlike task of carrying away the loose earth and stones from the digging.
But it was now, as he felt the silence of violation in this place where so much of his hope and his money were invested, that he saw the men approach. News of the railway came to him in a variety of ways, but the reports he paid for were announced in the same way always: the dust of the riders, lit this morning to a glinting ash color by the early rays of the sun, seen far off across the flatland to the west. He knew in every detail the route they had taken: the rail yards of Aleppo, then Jerablus on the Euphrates, passing within sight of Carchemish, where Woolley and Lawrence had made the Hittite finds barely a year ago, then the desert steppeland rising and falling, dusted with green in this early-spring weather, scattered with mounds like this one, the tombs of long-dead cities. And so to this little swarm of dust in the middle distance.
It was the way the line would take, straight toward him, straight toward his hill, between the village where his workforce came from and the floodlands of the Khabur River. Sometimes he imagined he could catch the shine of the rails as they reached toward him. Mica, salt, asphalt, quartz, any glinting thing in the landscape might work this effect on him, even the fields of pitch where the oil seeped up, which were too far away to be seen at all, except in occasional, shifting gleams. It kept his worry alive, though he knew it for illusion; the journey on horseback from Jerablus, where the line had reached, where the Germans were building the bridge, took four days.
Sometimes it took longer, and Jehar would enumerate the reasons: desert storms, problems with the horses, attacks by raiding parties. He was grave-faced in recounting these things; his tone was charged with sincerity; further details were ready if required. But it was never possible to know whether he was merely inventing these episodes; such things happened on occasion to any traveler in these lands; why not, on this occasion, to them? The motive was clear enough--no secret was made of it--and it was this that made the accounts less than fully reliable: Jehar was seeking to extract a few more piastres for their hardships and their loyalty. He took care not to do it too often. He was a man of the Harb people; but he had traveled widely outside the tribal lands, and his travels had taught him that moderation, whether in truth or in falsehood, was likely to be more profitable than excess.
When the figures were near enough to be distinguished, Somerville stepped out into the open so that they should see him as they followed the track toward the expedition house. They dismounted at a distance of a hundred paces or so and left the horses in the care of one of their number. The others, headed by Jehar, walked toward him, inclining their heads in greeting as they drew near. None would have dreamed of approaching mounted when the khwaja was on foot. Jehar, as always, would be the spokesman. The others drew around him in a half circle. The hoods of their cloaks were thrown back, but they wore the folds of the headcloths still drawn over the mouth against the cold they had ridden through. They would say nothing, but they would keep a close eye on the sum handed over to Jehar; he was their employer, as the archaeologist was his, four being deemed a sufficient escort to ensure safe passage through lands in the main unfriendly, guard against ambush by day and depredation by night. Often enough, of course, they were themselves the raiders and despoilers; in their saddle slings they carried Mauser repeating rifles of recent make, weapons that had been issued to the Sultan's irregular cavalry units in Syria. But none of these men belonged to any unit at all, however irregular...
Jehar uncovered his face, which was handsome, narrow-boned, and level-browed, fierce in its serenity. "Oh noble one," he said in Arabic, the only language they had in common.
"Well," Somerville said, "speak out, why do you wait?" The delay, he knew, was more due to Jehar's relish for drama than to any diffidence about delivering unwelcome news.
Jehar raised his arms on either side. "Lord, the bridge is made, its claws have come to rest on our side of the Great River." He continued to gesture, lifting his arms higher, then lowering them to make the sweeping shape of an arc. "A great marvel, this bridge of the Germans," he said. "It is all made of steel, the span is greater than any floods can reach."
He looked keenly as he spoke at the face of the man before him, who had sustained the infliction of this news without change of expression. "Farther than ten throws of a stone," he said in a tone of wonder. "High in the sky, the sparrows cannot fly over it." He was disappointed by the other's failure to show feeling but not deceived by it; he was sensitive in certain ways and had understood very early in their acquaintance that the Englishman was one of those--he had met others in his time--whom Allah for reasons inscrutable to mortals had predisposed to feel singled out for harm. He was himself an optimist, blessed with a belief in his destiny. Only one such as he could set out to raise one hundred gold pounds, starting from nothing. This was the bride-price of the Circassian girl who filled his thoughts. He knew that this man was searching for treasure and was possessed by fear that the people of the railway would bring the line too close and take the treasure for themselves. It must be an enormous treasure, for one to spend so much on the finding of it. They had not found it yet; this was the third year they had come; they had dug down and down, but they had not found it yet...
"We were approached by a ghazwa of the Shammar people," he said. "A dozen men. They followed us for some miles and fired at us. We killed one and they fled, the cowards."
There was nothing in the attentive faces around him that could be taken to confirm or deny this story. Next time he spoke of it the Shammar raiding party would be fifty strong at least, the deaths five or six, and the encounter would already belong to the realm of legend.
"Now we will be pestered by his relatives with demands for blood money," Somerville said.
"No, no, they did not know us." For the first time Jehar glanced around at his companions, who all shook their heads.
"Well, we shall see. Now that the bridge is completed, have they started immediately to lay the rails on this side of the river?"
"No, lord, there will be some delay. New rails have come from the steelworks in Germany, they have come by sea to Beirut. Now they wait for the unloading of the rails and the transporting of them to Aleppo and so to Jerablus. They will bring the rails and the coal into the yards in Jerablus. All this will take time, perhaps ten days. Also, they lack timber. It must be brought from the north, from Urfa. This I was told by one whose word can be trusted. For this very precious information I gave him money from my own purse."
"But they had already laid some miles of track on this side of the river, even before they started work on the bridge. They were already engaged on it in my first season here, three years ago. Then the work was abandoned, the rails were left to rust. Now there are German surveyors and engineers here, they have rented houses in the village, they have taken some of our workpeople to build their storage sheds."
He paused, aware of having spoken too rapidly, with too much emphasis, aware of Jehar's eyes on him. There was always something unsettling in the man's gaze, something too intent. "Under our noses," he said. "They brought the stuff downriver." In fact the warehouses had been there already when he arrived in mid-February. The sight of them, the presence of the Germans, had been a grievous blow to him; before that it had been possible to hope that they intended to take the line farther north, toward Mardin. He said, "The sheds are stacked to the roof. Strange they should be waiting for supplies at Jerablus when they have the timbers and the rails stacked up here."
"But they are intended for this part of the line," Jehar said with extreme simplicity. "A railway is made in stretches, like a garden. When you grow palms, you plant here because the ground is easy. In another place you wait until you can make the ground better. Twenty piastres I gave him."
"I am not carrying any money," Somerville said. "I did not expect to meet you here. But I will remember what is owed. Four Turkish pounds as usual. We agreed at the beginning that I would not be responsible for your expenses."
He did not believe that Jehar had disbursed any of his own money, but in any case it would have been a great mistake to undertake to meet costs of this kind; he knew Jehar well enough to know that the costs would multiply. It was little enough he gave them anyway; how much Jehar would keep he did not know, but thought it probable that the others might get half the money to share among them, a meager amount but they found it sufficient; this job of escorting Jehar was much coveted, he had been told. "Well," he said, "in view of the delay at Jerablus you can take some days for your own business before setting out again. But I must be informed when they start again with the laying of the track."
On this, with low bows, the men retired to where their horses waited and turned toward the village. But Somerville was not given time to ponder the news. His two foremen were approaching, and behind them came the first of the workpeople, talking and laughing together. He moved forward to greet the two men, deriving comfort, as always, from the air of competence they carried with them, like an aura; they were united in it in spite of the physical dissimilarity between them. Elias, who was from Konia and Greek by birth, he had known for some years now. They had been together on a dig at Hamman Ali, south of Mosul, in the days when Somerville had been still an assistant. He had been delighted--and flattered--when Elias offered his services here. He was stout of build and corpulent, though quick and sure-footed on the ground of the site, with a round, good-humored face that could turn to fury with fearsome speed when he found something amiss, some slackness in the work. The other, Halil, was a Syrian, tall for an Arab and sinewy, with a stentorian voice and an expression of severity and melancholy.
Somerville had complete confidence in both and knew that they could be safely left to organize the groups and set the people on to work; there would in any case be little change from previous days in the distribution of the labor and the areas of excavation: Most of the people would be employed at different levels of the pit, which in three seasons of excavation they had dug down to a depth of sixty feet; others would be extending the lateral trenches in the hope of finding some remains of connecting walls. Walls were of utmost importance, even if no more than a few inches of them were left. They could lead to rooms, to gates and portals, to temples and palaces. So far, however, they had found nothing but the foundation lines of humbler and more recent habitations, Roman and Byzantine, not greatly interesting.
He was about to start making his way back to the expedition house when his assistant, Palmer, arrived, a sturdy figure in his white cotton suit and soft-brimmed white hat.
"I thought I'd come and see the work started," he said. "I didn't know you were here. Lovely morning, isn't it?"
Somerville assented to this but without much conviction. He liked Palmer and knew he was lucky to have an assistant who, in addition to knowing something of field archaeology, was an acknowledged expert on Assyrian and Sumerian inscriptions. But there were occasions when he wished--irrationally--that Palmer's looks might sometimes betray some faltering, even some hint of dismay, something to correspond to the extremely disappointing nature of their excavation so far. But no, he was always equable, his eyes gentle and shrewd behind the glasses, ready for the momentous discovery just around the corner. Of course Palmer was young, only twenty-seven, eight years younger than himself. And it wasn't Palmer's money that was draining away...
Product details
- Publisher : Nan A. Talese; 1st edition (January 6, 2009)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385520077
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385520072
- Item Weight : 1 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.94 x 1.08 x 8.53 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,023,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78,722 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #210,611 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 27, 2011
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 5, 2014
Unsworth is a good writer and I like very much his other books. This one though feels like unfinished somehow, probably because it ends abruptly. Nevertheless, I enjoyed while reading it and still think he is a good writer!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 8, 2016
well worth the reading and it gets a hold on us early in the story. Following through is well rewarded.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 17, 2013
Slow, uninteresting reading. Good characters in a slow, terrible obvious,dull plot. Might be helped if there were a or some maps -- a major failing. Assumes extensive knowledge of Iraq and adjoining areas. And extensive knowledge of history of Abbysenian Empire -- which I can't even spell!!!!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 20, 2011
I understand this seems a bit slow, but he is such a good writer, I cannot put it down. Just a great read, great characters.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 14, 2016
Excellent quality, cheap and fast delivery
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 10, 2011
I love archeology and historic fiction. This book has both in a quick read that is also rich in interpersonal drama.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 5, 2020
The time is 1914 and the place is Mesopotamia (now Iraq). In the leadup to the First World War, a collection of individuals from around the globe have gathered to attempt to attain their goals. Somerville is a British archaeologist and believes that he has found an undiscovered Assyrian palace. He has financed the expedition himself to a large extent and he is desperate to make a momentous discovery and assure his place in history. He is accompanied by his wife, who chose him over more prestigious matches because she found his quest fascinating but now that she is here, she is bored and looking for excitement.
Others in the party include graduate students who have found romance with each other and of course, the native men who do the actual work. Jehar is one of these men, a scout whose main interest is getting enough money from this work to pay the dowry of his love and make her his wife. He is scouting and reporting back on the progress of a railroad to Baghdad which Somerville is fearful will come through his digging and ruin his plans. There are also government officials who have paved the way for Somerville's work and a shadowy businessman who cares not a whit about the upcoming war, ancient history or what will happen except for how it affects his fortune. These last two make a pact with Somerville. He will allow an American geologist, Elliot, who is scouting for oil reserves to join his expedition, hiding his true plans behind that of being another archaeologist.
Tensions mount as each individual pursues his own agenda. Somerville makes a breakthrough in the excavation and it appears that he does have a major find. Elliot is also successful in his explorations and believes that he has discovered a massive oilfield. He knows that there are both business and military rivals that would do anything to know his discoveries. Jahar becomes more and more frantic as the time grows shorter for him to find the money to marry and he comes up with a plan to blow up the railroad works to delay their progress. Somerville's wife starts an affair with the American out of boredom and fear that her husband is not as impressive as she believed when she married him. The tension rises and it is inevitable that there will be clashes between the opposing agendas. Who will emerge victorious?
Barry Unsworth had a long and distinguished career as an author. He wrote seventeen historical fiction novels, usually with some connection to the British Empire. He was shortlisted three times for Booker Prize and his novel, Sacred Hunger, won the Booker in 1992. This novel with its' conflicting agendas and personalities is an exploration of the urges that drive men to complete amazing feats and their willingness to do whatever it takes, good or evil, to accomplish their goals. It starts slowly but the tension and pace increase until the book reaches its thrilling climax. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.
Others in the party include graduate students who have found romance with each other and of course, the native men who do the actual work. Jehar is one of these men, a scout whose main interest is getting enough money from this work to pay the dowry of his love and make her his wife. He is scouting and reporting back on the progress of a railroad to Baghdad which Somerville is fearful will come through his digging and ruin his plans. There are also government officials who have paved the way for Somerville's work and a shadowy businessman who cares not a whit about the upcoming war, ancient history or what will happen except for how it affects his fortune. These last two make a pact with Somerville. He will allow an American geologist, Elliot, who is scouting for oil reserves to join his expedition, hiding his true plans behind that of being another archaeologist.
Tensions mount as each individual pursues his own agenda. Somerville makes a breakthrough in the excavation and it appears that he does have a major find. Elliot is also successful in his explorations and believes that he has discovered a massive oilfield. He knows that there are both business and military rivals that would do anything to know his discoveries. Jahar becomes more and more frantic as the time grows shorter for him to find the money to marry and he comes up with a plan to blow up the railroad works to delay their progress. Somerville's wife starts an affair with the American out of boredom and fear that her husband is not as impressive as she believed when she married him. The tension rises and it is inevitable that there will be clashes between the opposing agendas. Who will emerge victorious?
Barry Unsworth had a long and distinguished career as an author. He wrote seventeen historical fiction novels, usually with some connection to the British Empire. He was shortlisted three times for Booker Prize and his novel, Sacred Hunger, won the Booker in 1992. This novel with its' conflicting agendas and personalities is an exploration of the urges that drive men to complete amazing feats and their willingness to do whatever it takes, good or evil, to accomplish their goals. It starts slowly but the tension and pace increase until the book reaches its thrilling climax. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.
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SusannahB
4.0 out of 5 stars
Desert Drama
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 7, 2013
Set in the desert of Mesopotamia in 1914, in the months before the Great War, Barry Unsworth's sixteenth novel centres on English archeologist, Somerville, a man with a passionate interest in the Assyrian Empire, who is funding an excavation with his own money, which is fast running out. Desperate to unearth a sensational find, Somerville is distraught when a new railway being built by the Germans moves ever closer to his site, threatening to destroy all that he has been working towards. Enter Jehar, a Bedouin Arab employed by Somerville to keep him informed of the progress of the railway who, when he is not collecting information for Somerville, is looking for ways to earn enough money to pay the uncle of a beautiful Circassian girl, Ninanna, for her hand in marriage. Other characters with Somerville on the dig include his beautiful, but disappointed wife, Edith, who feels the excitement has gone out of their marriage; Somerville's assistant, Palmer, an acknowledged expert on Assyrian and Sumerian inscriptions, and his suffragist fiancee, Patricia. Visiting the site, we meet Major Manning, a British army officer, who is ostensibly employed to travel around the region collecting information for survey maps, but in truth has a somewhat different role, and Alex Elliott, an American geologist posing as an archeologist, who takes an unwise interest in Somerville's neglected wife, Edith.
Initially this is a rather slow-paced tale, but as the protagonists' stories develop and the plot deepens, the narrative begins to move at a faster pace and becomes more involving and intriguing. I particularly enjoyed reading about the character Jehar and his love for Ninanna, and his fear that her grasping uncle would sell her to another man, or into prostitution, before he could accumulate the high bride price, but I would have liked to have learnt more about Edith and the duplicitous Elliott, and I would also have liked to have known a little more about another character, Rampling, who was involved in Elliott's role posing as an archeologist and whom we met only briefly. That said, I found this novel, with its attractive dust jacket (I have the hardcover), an enjoyable read and I found the details about the archeological excavation and the Assyrian Empire, brief though they may have been, both interesting and informative. As the story drew to a close, Unsworth deftly brought his plotlines together and left his story with an explosive (literally) and rather melodramatic ending - but obviously I shall leave that for prospective readers to discover for themselves.
4 Stars.
Initially this is a rather slow-paced tale, but as the protagonists' stories develop and the plot deepens, the narrative begins to move at a faster pace and becomes more involving and intriguing. I particularly enjoyed reading about the character Jehar and his love for Ninanna, and his fear that her grasping uncle would sell her to another man, or into prostitution, before he could accumulate the high bride price, but I would have liked to have learnt more about Edith and the duplicitous Elliott, and I would also have liked to have known a little more about another character, Rampling, who was involved in Elliott's role posing as an archeologist and whom we met only briefly. That said, I found this novel, with its attractive dust jacket (I have the hardcover), an enjoyable read and I found the details about the archeological excavation and the Assyrian Empire, brief though they may have been, both interesting and informative. As the story drew to a close, Unsworth deftly brought his plotlines together and left his story with an explosive (literally) and rather melodramatic ending - but obviously I shall leave that for prospective readers to discover for themselves.
4 Stars.
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Judi Moore
3.0 out of 5 stars
Digging for Motivations
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 30, 2009
I was disappointed with this book. I bought it because it was set in a period (just before WWI) and a place (Mesopotamia)which interests me, and because the author is a Booker Prize Winner whom I have never read. Oh, and the cover image of the hardback is luscious!
I didn't feel the pace was very brisk - although others may say that it suited the reflective nature of most of the protagonists, whose several motivations are explored in detail. Despite the book being, ostensibly, about a 'Dig' for most of the book the excavation is almost incidental and downplayed. Only at the end does the Dig become a real part of the plot when all those motivations come together in a most explosive manner. Then, wow, everything unravels at breakneck speed.
There are flashes of lyrical writing - perhaps too many for something that is being marketed as a spy thriller. There are also longueurs which ill suit the genre.
I didn't feel the pace was very brisk - although others may say that it suited the reflective nature of most of the protagonists, whose several motivations are explored in detail. Despite the book being, ostensibly, about a 'Dig' for most of the book the excavation is almost incidental and downplayed. Only at the end does the Dig become a real part of the plot when all those motivations come together in a most explosive manner. Then, wow, everything unravels at breakneck speed.
There are flashes of lyrical writing - perhaps too many for something that is being marketed as a spy thriller. There are also longueurs which ill suit the genre.
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starsailor
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stays with me
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 9, 2014
I loved the characters in this book, with their finely nuanced motivations and cultural baggage. As with most of Barry Unsworth's books, the historical setting is note perfect and the plot beautifully imagined, but neither is necessarily the real point. Somehow he manages to convey deep truths about human nature and how life works, behind the scenes of an enjoyable read and it is this aspect that haunts you.
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Edward M. Sedgwick
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but not gripping
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 28, 2012
I enjoyed this book about the clash between archeology, oil exploration and the development of railroads in the middle east prior to WWI. The story illuminated an area and a period of history about which I knew nothing.
I hope to read another of Unsworth's books before long.
I hope to read another of Unsworth's books before long.
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Penny Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars
Land of Marvels
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2014
I try to get my hands on every book written by Barry Unsworth... always entertaining, witty, thoughtful, compassionate and beautifully-written, I love his stories. I highly recommend his books.
