Jeremy Paterson
Peopling the Piazzas of Pompeii
Pompeii: The Living City
By Alex Butterworth and Ray Laurence
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 341pp £20
On a scorching summer’s day, in the very centre of Pompeii, I was accosted by a hot and bothered American who asked despairingly, ‘Is there anything radically different at that end from this end?’ The same disenchantment is reflected in a graffito in Pompeii’s café toilet, recorded by the authors of this excellent new book: ‘If I’d wanted ruins I could have gone to Kabul.’ The paintings have faded; the plaster crumbles from walls; walls themselves occasionally collapse. It takes a real act of the imagination to recreate the life that once filled the city’s streets. Ray Laurence is well qualified to make the attempt. I remember the moment when, while researching his PhD with me, he announced he was spending his time counting all the external doors in Pompeii. From what at first sight seemed a rather dubious and rebarbative task he conjured up a seductive reconstruction of the patterns of people’s movement around Pompeii, which later formed part of his Roman Pompeii: Space and Society (1994). Now he has teamed up with Alex Butterworth, a writer and dramatist, to bring the city to life in a more readily accessible and attractive fashion.
What the authors have done is to attempt to tell the story of the last twenty-five years of Pompeii’s existence in something of the style of a novel (move over, Robert Harris). The lives of individual Pompeians are reconstructed from inscriptions, graffiti, memorials, houses and decoration, and the clutter of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
Give the gift that lasts all year with a subscription to Literary Review. Save up to 35% on the cover price when you visit us at https://literaryreview.co.uk/subscribe and enter the code 'XMAS24'