Word: pompeii
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...last days of Pompeii has been the title of, among other things, a historical romance by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a mini-series featuring Lesley-Anne Down and a porn flick starring one Candy Samples. It's hard to beat the location: the playground of the Roman aristocracy, a town swollen and oozing with corruption and decadence, conveniently located near a large, picturesque source of divine retribution. First sex, then violence--what's not to like...
...Pompeii (Random House; 278 pages), Robert Harris, author of the thrillers Fatherland and Archangel, makes the most of it. He takes us into the life of the city by way of Marcus Attilius Primus, a young, pure-hearted engineer who specializes in building and maintaining aqueducts. Aqueducts were a big deal in A.D. 79, both the backbone of and a metaphor for the glory that was ancient Rome. One night Pompeii's aqueduct starts belching sulphurous fumes, then dries up altogether. Attilius sets out to find the problem...
Along the way, he becomes embroiled in an internecine squabble within the household of Ampliatus, one of Pompeii's plutocrats, which brings him into contact with Ampliatus' sexy daughter and leads him to the mystery of his predecessor's sudden disappearance. Harris has a field day with the debauched goings-on at Ampliatus'--the menu includes honeyed mice, parrot tongues, a sow's udder stuffed with kidneys (with the sow's vulva on the side) and a moray eel fattened on human flesh...
...announcement of his retirement. But he doubts it will happen: "There's a paradox," he says. "If the Pope has the capacity to make such a decision, it means he still has the capacity to run the Church." John Paul seems determined to continue. After enduring a trip to Pompeii Tuesday, he returned by helicopter, and then was said to have met with bishops, Cardinals and foreign diplomats, signed off on new assignments in the Church hierarchy and looked ahead to next Sunday's ceremony to beatify Mother Teresa. And he still shows up every Wednesday in St. Peter...
Walking into the empty hall, it reminded me of a modern-day Pompeii. Nearly everything was the same as it had been when we had left. Sodas sat half drunk, a full bottle of aspirin lay across one mini-desk. An unordinary moment in my life had been preserved...