Word: pompeii
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...back of the hall. Today, Mitten remembers the scene: “The books, blue-books, flip-flops, bottles of Gatorade, etc. left in Science Center B just where everyone abandoned them instantly when someone yelled, ‘Run like hell!’ It was like Pompeii...
...Pompeii...
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...Pompeii itself is a curious dish. It's marketed as a thriller, but it contains a lot more information about Roman engineering techniques and volcanology than your average Tom Clancy, and there are moments when the story feels like just an excuse to show off another nifty piece of research. Still, if Pompeii lumbers heavily at first, it eventually picks up speed, helped along by squalls of flying lava and gusts of uncommonly sharp writing, as well as by the undeniable pathos of Harris' most successful character, the great natural philosopher Pliny, who insists on recording his observations of Vesuvius...
...almost always a mistake to give a novel more than one epigraph. Harris gives Pompeii three, two of which draw parallels between the supremacy of ancient Rome and the current hyperpower of the U.S. Does he intend us to read the devastation of Pompeii as somehow analogous to the attacks of 9/11? A divine check on the hubris of empire? The connection feels reckless at best. Sometimes a volcano is just a volcano. --By Lev Grossman