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The Athenian Murders

by José Carlos Somoza, Sonia Soto (Translator)

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 · rating details · 537 ratings · 62 reviews

The English debut of one of Spain's most dazzling younger writers -- a postmodern murder mystery set in ancient Greece.
In this brilliant, highly entertaining, and intriguing novel, Jose Carlos Somoza intertwines two darkly compelling riddles, forcing us to confront the ways in which we interpret reality.
In ancient Athens, one of the pupils of Plato's Academy is found dea...more

314 pages

Published (first published 2000)

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Oct 02, 2011 Louize rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone who loves mystery in multiple layers!

A very clever book. Set in Plato’s Athens, the story begins with a well-born youth found dead, devoured by wolves near a forest. Diagoras, a tutor at the Academy, acquired the services of Heracles Pontor “The Decipherer of Enigmas” to discover the truth behind his pupil’s death. Heracles, prompted by his own curiosity, agreed to solve the enigma of the youth’s death. Despite their complete contrast -one philosopher and the other a realist- the two worked together in solving the mystery.

Parallel...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: metafiction aficianados

Shelves: novels

In a blurb on the back cover, a reviewer compares this book to Pale Fire and The Name of the Rose. I would agree with that, but with the qualification that Somoza's book is a lot less demanding of the reader's work. Moreover, I'd add another couple of titles that came to mind while reading this: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter: A Novel (perhaps also The Mezzanine and Mulligan Stew: A Novel?). Readers who liked these metafictional works will likely enjoy Som...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Tristram rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-literature

Ein meisterhaftes Kastenteufelchen

„La caverna de las ideas“ ist bislang das einzige Buch, das ich von Somoza gelesen habe, und so war ich denn auch anfangs überrascht über die groteske Unbeholfenheit des Stils, die mich annehmen ließ, hier habe jemand in einer Fremdsprache geschrieben und sich dabei eines Übersetzungsprogramms aus dem Internet bedient. Eine kleine Kostprobe, gleich von der ersten Seite: „El frío erizaba la piel azul de la Noche, y el Bóreas hacía ondular la cabellera dorada de l...more Ein meisterhaftes Kastenteufelchen

„La caverna de las ideas“ ist bislang das einzige Buch, das ich von Somoza gelesen habe, und so war ich denn auch anfangs überrascht über die groteske Unbeholfenheit des Stils, die mich annehmen ließ, hier habe jemand in einer Fremdsprache geschrieben und sich dabei eines Übersetzungsprogramms aus dem Internet bedient. Eine kleine Kostprobe, gleich von der ersten Seite: „El frío erizaba la piel azul de la Noche, y el Bóreas hacía ondular la cabellera dorada de las antorchas ...“ Oje, dachte ich mir, welch ein Metaphernsalat!

Aber da das Buch eine Kriminalgeschichte und einen Philosophen als Detektiv versprach, las ich dennoch weiter – und ich kann nur sagen, dass ich mich andernfalls um ein einzigartiges Leseerlebnis gebracht hätte. Die oben zitierte und auch von vielen anderen Lesern kritisierte Ungelenkheit der Metaphern macht nämlich Sinn, ist sie doch Bestandteil eines von Somoza selbst erfundenen Stilmittels, der Eidesis, die darin besteht, dass ein Text auf der Oberfläche eine Geschichte erzählt, dabei aber bestimmte Wörter – meist krude Metaphern und mehrfache Wiederholungen – enthält, die, zusammengenommen, ein verstecktes, von der scheinbar im Vordergrund stehenden Textaussage unabhängiges Bild transportieren. Die Eidesis ist mithin eine Art Geheimschrift.

Für die Geschichte, die in „La caverna de las ideas“ erzählt wird, ist dieser Code von großem Belang, doch gleichzeitig entlarvt er diese als bloße Geschichte. Ginge ich genauer auf diesen Punkt ein, würde ich die Auflösung und das Originelle dieses Buches leider schon vorwegnehmen. Nur so viel: Wie der Titel bereits andeutet, ist Platons Ideenlehre ist für die Lösung des Falles nicht ganz unerheblich.

Ganz kurz zum Inhalt: Der athenische Philosoph Heracles Pontor befasst sich aus intellektueller Neugierde mit einer scheinbar willkürlichen und äußerst brutalen Mordserie, die seine Heimatstadt in Angst und Schrecken versetzt und der ausschließlich junge Männer aus gutem Hause zum Opfer fallen. Anfangs glaubt er noch, sich bedenkenlos auf die Kraft seines Verstandes verlassen zu können, doch dann werden die Geschehnisse immerzu absurder.

Es lohnt sich wirklich, diesem anfangs recht sperrigen Buch eine Chance zu geben, denn es wird weitaus mehr als nur eine fesselnde Kriminalgeschichte geboten. Ein kleiner Hinweis zum Abschluss: Entgegen etwaigen sonstigen Gepflogenheiten sollten hier die Fußnoten unbedingt mitgelesen werden, denn in ihnen wird eine weitere Geschichte erzählt.
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Feb 01, 2013 Smcleish rated it 2 of 5 stars

Originally published on my blog here in June 2003.

This novel seems to have been one of literature's recent success stories. It is basically a crime novel, an investigation into the death of a young student at Plato's Academy, initially thought to have been caused by a wolf attack but leaving grounds for suspicion of something more sinister. The Athenian Murders takes the form of a translation of an ancient manuscript telling the story, complete with copious footnotes by the translator, who is fa...more Originally published on my blog here in June 2003.

This novel seems to have been one of literature's recent success stories. It is basically a crime novel, an investigation into the death of a young student at Plato's Academy, initially thought to have been caused by a wolf attack but leaving grounds for suspicion of something more sinister. The Athenian Murders takes the form of a translation of an ancient manuscript telling the story, complete with copious footnotes by the translator, who is fascinated by the literary convention of eidesis of which it forms part (that is, the presence of meaningful images in the text not part of the story, such as repeated metaphors). He becomes convinced that some secret is hidden in the narrative's images (the word eidesis comes from the Greek for image), and is eventually rather neurotic about them.

Reviewers have described The Athenian Murders as a hybrid of The Name of the Rose and Pale Fire. It is in reality not much like The Name of the Rose, which is a fairly lazy comparison made for any historical crime novel with literary pretensions. Pale Fire is far closer, but it is a comparison which really shows up the shortcomings of Somoza's novel. The enjoyable aspect of Nabokov's idea (which is to illuminate the obsessions of the annotator through his misunderstanding of the text, and thereby satirise at academic literary criticism) is completely missing in The Athenian Murders. The translator does become obsessed, but it is about something so pointless as to be almost unbelievable - the use of the repeated images is interesting, but hardly enough to convince a reader, as it does the translator, that they reveal a secret of vital importance. (I don't know that much about it, but the form of the word eidesis leads me to suspect that a secret does not have to be involved at all, and that it could be used in other ways - as part of an intellectual game, as we have here in the way that the images are used to link each chapter to one of the labours of Hercules, or as by many writers from Aeschylus on, to use the subconscious to heighten the mood of a passage.)

There are other problems with The Athenian Murders, as far as I was concerned. A minor one is the occasional error in the background Some of these are quite obvious and jolted me out of Plato's Athens; an example is the use of the American rattlesnake as a simile in the supposedly ancient text. (Since the novel is full of ironies, this hint of modern authorship may be another, but it doesn't really bear that appearance besides being far more subtle than the rest of it.) The main problem that the novel has is its ending, and this affects the whole of the last quarter or so of the text as Somoza leads up to it. As always when criticising the ending of a novel, it is hard to talk about it without giving it away; the least I can say is that it is banal and dull, pretty much at the level of "and then I woke up, and it had all been just a dream".

It's hard to tell how much of this is the fault of the translator rather than the original author, since my feeling is that anyone who dumbs down by changing the title to something as silly as The Athenian Murders rather than keeping the reference to Plato's famous metaphor from The Republic could easily have completely destroyed the intellectual content of the rest of the novel.(less)

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Sep 26, 2012 Yves Fey rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had a weird experience with this book. Trying to be objective after an unpleasant experience with it, my opinion is that the author considers himself to be more clever than he actually is, and the book too pretentious. I loved The Name of the Rose. This doesn't come close to that, but is in the same "weird historical" subgenre. It's unusual and has some interesting stylistic flourishes. Fairly early, I began to find the book a bit irritating, but still very intriguing. The more that certain fa...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 06, 2011 surfmadpig rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of Italo Calvino

Shelves: fffaaavvvooorrriittteeesss

I was handed this book by a friend and started reading it without knowing anything about it, not even having read the backcover. I love it when that happens, because everything is a surprise and there can be no prejudice at all.

So I started, and immediately I thought, "eeek, a "period book". I generally tend to dislike writers who pretend that we know enough about an era to be able to write about its every-day life realistically. I had issues especially concerning the language, because I read it...more I was handed this book by a friend and started reading it without knowing anything about it, not even having read the backcover. I love it when that happens, because everything is a surprise and there can be no prejudice at all.

So I started, and immediately I thought, "eeek, a "period book". I generally tend to dislike writers who pretend that we know enough about an era to be able to write about its every-day life realistically. I had issues especially concerning the language, because I read it in translation. A Modern Greek translation of a Spanish novel set in Ancient Greece: something was bound to go wrong. And I really wish I could read the Spanish original, because I'm really curious exactly how pompous and flowery the language there was. It can't possibly have been that annoying.

Anyway, the plot seemed interesting enough and I felt like reading, so I read on. And, slowly, the ingeniousness of the book hit me. I'm trying hard not to write spoilers, so I'm just going to say that it has been a very long time since I read anything with that many levels, that many ideas and that much inspiration. Most of it works too, and the parts that don't are still exciting.

The ending was good, although not as brilliant as I expected it to be. That, and the writing (translating?) style might have cost it a star, but then I realized that a few days had passed and I was still thinking about this book. I am still excited about it, although I've finished it, and that's rare and priceless. So there you have it, five out of five, let me rant in Greek about the annoying translator now.

***on the Greek translation***
Είμαι 99% σίγουρη πως η μαντάμ, που πήρε λέει και πέρσι βραβείο ΕΚΕΜΕΛ ($@#$#^# αν και δεν έχω διαβάσει το βιβλίο για το οποίο το πήρε), έχει αλλάξει το ύφος γραφής. Η γλώσσα της μετάφρασης είναι σαν κακοβαμμένη τραβεστί: μιλάμε για νεοελληνική, βέβαια, αλλά διανθισμένη με αρχαιοπρεπείς ή σκέτο αρχαίες ή και καθαρευουσιάνικες λέξεις και εκφράσεις σε υπερενοχλητικό βαθμό. Άσε που χρησιμοποιεί ορισμένες αρχαίες λέξεις που χρησιμοποιούνται μεν ακόμα, αλλά με διαφορετική σημασία. Και εννοείται πως τις χρησιμοποιεί με την αρχαιοελληνική τους σημασία. ΟΚ, θα μου πεις, αυτό ήταν μια μεταφραστική επιλογή, μια άποψη που σίγουρα ικανοποίησε πολλούς (δε θα μιλήσω για το ποιόν όσων ικανοποιήθηκαν όμως) και τελικά τη συνήθισα. Επίσης ήταν άθλος της μεταφράστριας να μεταφράσει έτσι, σε αυτό δε διαφωνώ καθόλου.

Υπάρχουν σοβαρότερα προβλήματα όμως, εξόφθαλμα μεταφραστικά λάθη τα οποία δεν είναι οτι ψάχνω με μεγεθυντικό φακό(ΟΚ, έχω ψώνιο, το δεχόμαστε), αλλά όταν τα βρίσκω με κάνουν να μην πιστεύω πια πως διαβάζω μια μετάφραση που σέβεται το πρωτότυπο και το ακολουθεί όσο πιστά μπορεί. Τέτοια είχαμε πολλά. Αλλά μ'άρεσε τόσο που τα αγνοώ, γιατί βαθμολογώ το βιβλίο, όχι τη μετάφραση: ήταν τόσο καλό που δεν κατάφερε να το χαλάσει η μεταφράστρια.(less)

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Jul 02, 2011 Terri Lynn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-ancients, fiction, mystery-suspense-thrillers

This book was a surprise to me. I love ancient history/culture/mythology and I also love mysteries. This book was a wonderful blend of both. We start with a modern day translator of an ancient text laying out what happened. His "footnotes" are actually part of the story. As he goes along, he becomes convinced that the ancient writer has hidden secret messages in the text and as he continues to translate , he finds that these secret messages begin to refer to HIM and in a threatening way!

The que...more

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Feb 07, 2012 My Inner Shelf rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historique, polar-thriller

J’ai eu du mal à choisir ma lecture après avoir lu Clara et la pénombre, j’ai donc fait simple en ne prenant pas de risque, et en lisant un autre Somoza. Cette fois il nous expédie à Athènes, où l’on croise un Hercule Poirot antique et Platon, rien de moins. Tout commence par la mort d’un éphèbe, et l’inquiétude de son mentor qui s’interroge sur les derniers jours de son jeune élève. Il fait appel aux services d’Héraclés Pontor (ahah !), Déchiffreur d’énigmes, un homme sympathique mais peu encli...more

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Apr 26, 2011 Darcy Conroy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: recent-reading, philosophy, sunday-philosophers

An interesting idea which the author, unfortunately, simply does not pull off. The internal logic is flawed, as is the logic of his (straw man) detective character. The author's presentation of philosophy and logic as well as Plato's theory of the forms (which he insists on calling 'the existence of Ideas") are simplistic, and will annoy anyone who has studied it in any depth, at least as much as the liberties his translator says he takes with the text will annoy real translators. But none of th...more An interesting idea which the author, unfortunately, simply does not pull off. The internal logic is flawed, as is the logic of his (straw man) detective character. The author's presentation of philosophy and logic as well as Plato's theory of the forms (which he insists on calling 'the existence of Ideas") are simplistic, and will annoy anyone who has studied it in any depth, at least as much as the liberties his translator says he takes with the text will annoy real translators. But none of that is what made it so haaaard for me to force myself through this book (it's for a book club, so I had to.)

I found it impossible to become in any way absorbed in the story because Somoza constantly distracts the reader with the two parts of the project, which appear to be most interesting/important to him and, which the critics are loving: the translator commenting on the piece (don't worry, I'm going to avoid spoilers, despite my rating) and the fictional literary device 'eidesis.' I'm sure plenty of people will say that this distraction was a deliberate part of the metafiction or, at least, that literary books aren't supposed to flow, they are supposed to make the reader work. I accept neither of those objections; It is clear in the latter parts of the book that we are supposed to be absorbed, or at least care about these characters (in the main text and footnotes) and I'm afraid I was never given the chance to connect with them, because of these two devices.

First, the eidesis, which at one point is described as 'subtle' but is the opposite. The repeated imagery (it's no spoiler to define "eidesis") stands out incongruously from page 1 so that a) it just reads like bad writing and then b) once we know what it is, it still jumps out as bad writing but now we're thinking, "alright already we get the image" and THEN we have to put up with the translator popping in to exclaim about the eidesis he has so cleverly discovered. Which brings me nicely to my second point.

Second, the translator. Any time I had managed to get past the writing (the eidesis wasn't the only problem,) and just when I was starting to become absorbed in the main story, the translator would appear with his thoughts on the matter. That would be fine if I wanted to know what the translator thought but, unfortunately, he is not only unnamed but un-introduced and simply forces himself upon us. I quickly began thinking of him as "the interrupter" and it stuck. What's worse, until fairly late in the piece, his comments are rarely anything that isn't damned obvious to the reader, already; in fact, on page 263 the translator comes up with a 'revelation' that I had wondered about on page 33 - now, an author has every right to reveal their story as they want but being 230 pages behind the reader suggests a need to credit their readers with a touch more intellect.

The sad thing about this book (without giving spoilers) is that there actually is no need for 'eidesis' to be invented to achieve what the author (fictional and real world) is attempting to achieve with it and so the language need not have been burdened by it. I know that might sound absurd to those who have read it, but it's actually not needed - I'm sure plenty of others will have seen what I'm referring to, as obliquely as I can, I don't think it takes a degree in Philosophy (though it will help!)

The saddest thing about the book, for me, is the portrayal of Plato's theory of forms as some life-quashing philosophy because it's exactly the opposite - of course, that can be forgiven, it is hard to see from inside the cave. (less)

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May 10, 2010 Rich Stoehr rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

It's a story within a story, within another story. It's an eidetic novel. It's a philosophical progression. It's a self-reflexive text. It's a quest for truth. It's a mystery, in many senses of the word. It's "The Sixth Sense," but rendered in prose and about a thousand times better. It's pure poetry in parts. It's a novel about ideas and words, and whether one can exist without the other.

It's one of the best books I've read in years.

It's difficult to say anything specific about "The Athenian Mu...more

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Jan 10, 2009 Jlucena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Este libro ya me lo leí hace unos 5 años, pero aun así todavía me acuerdo como me enganchó.

El libro esta ambientado en la antigua GRECIA,época de Platón, y otros filósofos, en la que se produce un asesinato, el cual tendrá que investigar el supuesto protagonista del libro. Digo lo de supuesto,ya que esta historia es realmente un libro que esta siendo traducido por, el personaje real de la historia, el cual se va viendo introducido por las notas de traductor al pie de página.

Realmente, este esti...more

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May 07, 2011 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

This is a very clever book. It kept me wondering about how many different levels on which the author was working. There are two story lines throughout, with a third hidden within the primary story. A sort of Russian nesting doll of a book or perhaps a better image is the reflection of a reflection, which leaves the reader questioning what the original looks like.

The primary story is a murder mystery set in Athens at the time of Plato. The main character Heracles is known as the “Decipherer of En...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Mzmo rated it 4 of 5 stars

An intelligent murder mystery for the literary and philosophically minded. Set in ancient Athens, several historical figures make an appearance or play a role. Politics and philosophy are woven into the story of the murders. A parallel plot runs along side the crime story as the translator of the ancient text (the Athenian Murders was initially a work of fiction written by a Greek writer) begins to find hidden messages in the writing and records his observations, thoughts and experiences in foot...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Roy Brown rated it 3 of 5 stars

I loved the concept of the book; however I feel it was too condensed considering the complex structure that is presented (it is essentially a series of nested stories) so that sometimes it felt as if the story was unfolding too easily and without enough contemplation. The book would require to be very long to facilitate the pace that I think appropriate for the murder mystery theme, but I think it would make it fantastic.

The story is gripping and the multilayer plot is executed well; aside from...more

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Mar 30, 2010 Vanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Intéressant... mérite certainement réflexion.

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Jan 31, 2013 Thomas rated it 2 of 5 stars

Others have written extensively about the novel, so I won't repeat their descriptions. However, I found the novel merely tedious. The literary device of inserting the 'translator' into the story with his comments and belief that he is a part of the story. By the time I reached the end, I didn't care what he thought his point was. It seemed pointless. Others have loved this as a literary work. That I didn't is my problem, not the author's. I believe he did his job well. I expected something else...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Rise rated it 4 of 5 stars

Set in ancient Greece in the time of Plato’s Academy, this postmodern, heavily footnoted murder mystery was ostensibly a scholar’s translation of a Greek text, also called The Athenian Murders, written by an anonymous author just after the Peloponnesian War. Like the Quixote, therefore, it was a meta-translation, a text put forward as a translation of a fictional original by a narrator who was conscious of the fact. Here, the fictional translator himself gave his comments on the story and his tr...more Set in ancient Greece in the time of Plato’s Academy, this postmodern, heavily footnoted murder mystery was ostensibly a scholar’s translation of a Greek text, also called The Athenian Murders, written by an anonymous author just after the Peloponnesian War. Like the Quixote, therefore, it was a meta-translation, a text put forward as a translation of a fictional original by a narrator who was conscious of the fact. Here, the fictional translator himself gave his comments on the story and his translation in the footnotes. As he worked on the chapters of the text and immersed himself in the cryptic images ‘hidden’ in the story, his copious notes at the bottom of the pages became more and more desperate in tone. The fictional translator (the qualification was necessary, in deference to Spanish-to-English translator Sonia Soto) of the fictional Greek text was starting to cave in, so to speak. Both the original Spanish title of the novel and the purported Greek text were called La caverna de las ideas (2000, The Cave of Ideas).

The Cuban writer José Carlos Somoza must have been fond of what-if stories. His other novels translated after this one—The Art of Murder and Zig Zag—were both set in the future, so the speculative and futuristic may be a constant preoccupation with the author.

'Poetry, tragedy, comedy, prose, epics and many other things.... I must make it clear, Plato, that I do not "see" the future: I invent it. I write it and that, for me, is equivalent to inventing it. Simply for pleasure, I conceive worlds that differ from this one, voices that speak from other times, past or future.... On occasion, Apollo has allowed me to deduce what the future might be like ...'

That was the writer Philotextus speaking to Master Plato. For Somoza, the novel was a literal cave of ideas and possibilities. The puzzle was evident from the novel's epigraph, from Plato of course:

There is an argument which holds good against the man who ventures to put anything whatever into writing on questions of this nature; it has often before been stated by me, and it seems suitable for the present occasion.
For everything that exists there are three instruments by which knowledge of it is necessarily imparted; fourth, there is the knowledge itself, and, as fifth, we must count the thing itself which is known and truly exists. The first is the name, the second the definition, the third the image ...

The fifth instrument, the thing itself, requires that knowledge of the thing must fold in on itself. Plato's theory of ideas cautions against the very danger of steeping oneself in incomplete, unverifiable ideas, and the (Kafkaesque) danger of interpreting everything.

In this story of crime solving, the narrative role of the translator was given utmost importance. Translation became the vehicle for solving the crime at the center of the story and for illuminating the unsolved enigmas brought about by Plato's dangerous ideas. "Translator figures" haunt The Athenian Murders, both novel and meta-translation, in various guises, all plausible roles for the translator: detective, philosopher, sculptor, and reader.

Somoza's cave-like book was quite the entertaining and thought-provoking detective story.(less)

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Aug 12, 2010 R. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Héraclès Pontor est l'alter ego antique du détective Hercule Poirot. Cette profession portait à cette époque le nom bien plus poétique de "déchiffreur d'énigme". Un éphèbe est retrouvé mort, le corps couvert de profondes lacérations. Ses blessures donnent à penser qu'il a certainement été attaqué par des loups. Héraclès est sollicité pour examiner le cas, par un des plus fidèle disciple du grand Platon. Le détective et son employeur ont des idées diamétralement opposées et n'auront de cesse de s...more Héraclès Pontor est l'alter ego antique du détective Hercule Poirot. Cette profession portait à cette époque le nom bien plus poétique de "déchiffreur d'énigme". Un éphèbe est retrouvé mort, le corps couvert de profondes lacérations. Ses blessures donnent à penser qu'il a certainement été attaqué par des loups. Héraclès est sollicité pour examiner le cas, par un des plus fidèle disciple du grand Platon. Le détective et son employeur ont des idées diamétralement opposées et n'auront de cesse de s'affronter sur le plan philosophique tout au long de l'enquête.
Ce roman n'est pas qu'un simple polar ayant pour cadre la Grèce antique et pour protagoniste un Sherlock Holmes débattant philosophie avec son acolyte le Dr. Watson. Il cache bien plus car il contient des "eidesis". Les "eidesis" sont des métaphores présentes de manière récurrente dans le récit. Ces répétitions créent un effet de style faisant apparaître inconsciemment au lecteur une idée indépendante de l'histoire racontée par le texte. Cette propriété fait des "eidesis" une forme de stéganographie. Cette technique est l'art de dissimuler un message dans un texte en clair. Elle a été rendue célèbre grâce aux échanges au contenu en apparence irréprochable entre Alfred de Musset et Georges Sand.
José-Carlos Somoza utilise un procédé narratif élaboré. Il ne se contente pas de nous raconter directement l'histoire mais nous propose la traduction d'un texte ancien dans lequel le traducteur communique directement avec le lecteur par le biais des notes de bas de page. Ce récit est donc une métafiction puisque l'histoire relatée par le manuscrit original suit son cours sans que le traducteur ne cesse de nous impliquer dans sa quête obsessionnelle des clés de l'oeuvre au travers de l'identification des "eidesis". La grande question qu'il se pose (et que nous nous posons) est de savoir si ce qu'il voit (et que nous voyons) est le fruit d'une réelle intention de l'auteur ou le pur produit de son imagination.
Ce roman est un véritable travail d'orfèvre car l'auteur fait preuve d'une grande érudition en réalisant une prouesse à la fois technique, savante et poétique. Les plusieurs niveaux de lecture, les discussions philosophiques et la reprise de nombreux mythes et légendes de la Grèce antique au cours d'une enquête concernant des meurtres inexpliqués font de ce roman labyrinthique une oeuvre unique que je conseille d'explorer sans tarder. http://www.aubonroman.com/2007/07/la-...(less)

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Jul 22, 2008 Scurra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Like The Club Dumas, this book is not what it appears to be. To say more would spoil one of the most ingenious literary constructs I've had the pleasure of reading: suffice it to say that it's one of those books that you immediately want to start again when you get to the astonishing ending, just to see if the author cheated at any point. Which he never does, and in fact this makes the second reading almost more pleasurable than the first.

Yes at heart it is a murder mystery, and if you don't lik...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: mt-bookpile-original

This mystery tried so very hard to be clever, but honestly? More trying and less clever. It also brought to mind Sophie's World, with the supposed translator becoming a part of the book but perhaps more of a literary device than a real character.

Ostensibly this is an ancient Greek text about the murders of a few young boy/men in Athens, students at Plato's Academy yet also partaking of the arts (forbidden by the Academy) and Heracles is a "Decipherer of Enigmas" asked to find out what really ha...more

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Jun 14, 2007 Mayee rated it 2 of 5 stars

So I picked up this book by Jose Carlos Somoza the other day at the library on a spontaneous whim to smuggle some popular reading. It looked like an Arturo Perez Reverte-kind of thing -- the author had the same kind of sharp aquiline Latin good looks, and the premise of the story promised some form of clever-clever intertextual playing of form, with its hero Heracles Pontor trying to solve the mystery of some murders of young men from Plato's Academy.

It starts off decently enough, but I'm not qu...more

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Apr 29, 2010 Sheila rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a really intriguing book. It is certainly not an easy read. It is told as two parallel yet connected stories. A modern day translator is working on the translation of a ancient Greek murder mystery text. Themain body of the book is the story of that mystery. The translator's notes are written in the book as footnotes to the translated mystery text. These footnotes contain the second story, namely what the translator is thinking and expereincing as he proceeds with his translation. Now me...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Su48 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read this whilst on holiday in Peloponnese 2006.
It just happened to be on the shelf in the villa we were renting.

Totally not what I expected when I picked it up but just could not put it down.

Not going to waffle on about it, but I loved it.

Told so many people to read it but don't know how many have found it yet.
Wish I'd brought it home with me and left one in it's place.

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Aug 05, 2011 Jasminka rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, books-i-own

Fascinating!!!!!
A unique story! Unusual structure, superb and intriguing, one of the most original new novels of fiction, intelligent and full with philosophy... Reminds me a lot of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose", which is one of my favorite novels! A brilliant mystery-novel of story within story within story...
I won't say anything specific, only - My highest recommendation!!!

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Oct 18, 2012 Selina rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this whilst at uni and feeling a little lonely. My memory of reading it is that, quite simply, it was simply the best book I had ever read. I am now torn between rereading it or not as I couldnt stand to reread it and be disappointed but I really want to read it again! A terrific book which really unsettled me at the time.

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Jun 15, 2009 Linda added it Recommends it for: no one

Abysmal. No stars. This book is like one of those horrible novels assigned by English or Philosophy teachers for students to analyze. It's translated from the Spanish, but I really don't think that was the problem. Terrible concept --- don't know why I even finished reading it. Guess I'm a masochist.

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Feb 14, 2012 naeblis rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novela-historica, lit-española, 2010

Cuando leo a Somoza siempre me queda una sensación parecida a la de un futbolista al fallar un penalty: era dueño del momento y de pronto, la victoria se le escapa de las manos. Con este libro es igual. El desarrollo parece bueno, hasta que llegamos a la idea principal que se supone debe ser sorprendente y novedosa, pero termina siendo chocante, por culpa de la manía del escritor de forzar situaciones. Ese vicios a los giros "inesperados" (momentos absurdos, lugares comunes)llega a estropear la...more

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Jan 16, 2013 thegift rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translated, crime, historifiction, philosophycrit, pomo, eurolit, spainlit, society, religion

...but then, I like postmodern, like crime, like translations, like philosophy, like historical, like social and religious satire, like ideas that can transcend land and when of origin, yes, great intro to his work, better than zig zag, compelling, playful, thoughtful work.

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Jan 15, 2012 Cian rated it 5 of 5 stars

A fantastically well-crafted, betimes dreamlike - othertimes nightmarish, literary murder mystery. Even where it crafted fear in me, there was no part of this book I didn't like. Beautiful like an oil Spanish still-life, and fascinating as another's mind.

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About José Carlos Somoza

José Carlos Somoza is a Spanish author born in Havana, Cuba. In 1960 his family moved to Spain after being exiled for political reasons. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in psychiatry, but he gave up medicine in order to be a full-time writer in 1994.

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“Ah, a literatura!... - exclamou. - Meu amigo, ler não é pensar a sós: ler é dialogar! Porém o diálogo da leitura é um diálogo platónico: o teu interlocutor constitui uma ideia. Contudo não se trata de uma ideia imutável: ao dialogares com ela, modifica-la, torna-la tua, chegas a acreditar na sua existência autónoma...” — 0 people liked it

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