The Hidden

by Tobias Hill

In southern Greece in 2004, a close-knit group of archaeologists searches for the buried traces of a formidable ancient power. A student running from a failed marriage and family, Ben Mercer is a latecomer to their ranks, drawn to the charisma of the group's members—to the double-edged friendship of Jason, the unsettling beauty of Natsuko and Eleschen, and the menace of Max and Eberhard. But Ben is far too eager to join the excavation project, and there is more to the group's dangerous games and dynamic than he understands. And there are things that should always remain hidden.

A novel of astonishing grace and power from award-winning author Tobias Hill, The Hidden brilliantly explores the secrets we keep, the ties that bind us, and the true cost of fulfilling our desires.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Suspense, Thriller, Mystery

353 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Tobias Hill was an award-winning English poet, essayist, writer of short stories and novelist.

He was born in Kentish Town, north London, to parents of German Jewish and English extraction: his maternal grandfather was the brother of Gottfried Bermann, confidant of Thomas Mann and, as owner of S. Fischer Verlag, German literature's leading publisher-in-exile during the Second World War. Hill was educated at Hampstead School, a comprehensive institution, and Sussex University.

Hill first came to attention in the 1990s as a poet and author of short stories, with early work appearing in magazines such as The Frogmore Papers: he later became established as a novelist. As a poet Hill published four collections, Year of the Dog (1995), Midnight in the City of Clocks (1996), influenced by his experience of life in Japan, Zoo (1998) and Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow (2006): the last of these was described by The Guardian as "A vital, luminous collection...it is rare to come across a collection of poetry that you know with certainty you will still be reading years from now, but for me, this is such a book."

Hill's only collection of short stories, Skin (1997), was serialized on BBC Radio 4, was shortlisted for the 1998 John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize, and won the International PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tobias Hill is also a poet and you can tell; his writing style is a pleasure to read, his dialogue is believable and he definitely has a way with words.

Unfortunately, the plot does not live up to the prose. Absolutely nothing happens for the first half of the book and by the time the action starts heating up in the final quarter I'd reached the point where I no longer cared.

It doesn't help that his protagonist is ill-defined and mostly unlikable or that I never really believed his motivations.

I've given this 3 stars but 2.5 would probably be closer to the mark.

[Leanne Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I got into this book, the more absorbed I became. It really is an amazingly thoughtful novel, presenting the reader with a vivid picture of contemporary Greece but also delving deep into the ancient past. Oxford academic Ben Mercer has gone in search of Sparta, the city of fierce fighting men whose need for popularity was non-existent and whose willingness to defend their privacy made them into mythical heroes. Ben and his rival from Oxford, Everhardt Saer [spelling uncertain as I was listening to an audio version], are like the Spartans in their detachment. Yet even they seek the company of like-minded people, tolerating each other's vices for the sake of being members of a group with a common purpose.

The title, "The hidden" points to many themes in the book. First, there is the obvious theme of a buried civilisation beckoning modern archaeologists to know its secrets. Then there is the theme of the group's sinister activities, which only become evident to Ben after he has been with them for some time. Then there is the theme of Greece's recent political history, which is full of unspeakably horrific crimes committed by both individuals and nations. Of course, there is also the theme of psychological suppression, the hiding of personal motives from one's own awareness, and this is ultimately the most insightful aspect of the novel.

Tobias Hill won a prestigious award for this book and I can see why. The writing is brilliant, in both senses of the word. I was constantly arrested in my reading by the sheer iridescence of images flashing past my mind's eye. The author picks out the most typical and atypical sensory details possible and juxtaposes them in a stream of fleeting descriptive phrases, so that one has the sense of being caught up in a flurry of sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures — all belonging to a foreign country, all contributing to the growing atmosphere of threat as the action builds.

Also, I found the story profoundly moving on a spiritual level. it examines the question of what happens when curiosity, a positive human quality that produces learning, leads to unwanted discoveries. Sometimes learning is not a benefit but a burden, saddling the possessor of knowledge with fear, isolation and self-loathing. Tobias Hill explores this perplexing subject with sensitivity and courage. He doesn't attempt to provide a solution to the problem, but in telling the tale of the little group of diggers at Sparta, certainly unearths some disturbing truths about the human condition and forces examination of our collective capacity for cruelty.

[Ashvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was OK, though one of the comments on the back of the book said that it was a well-paced thriller or something like that. So not true. It plodded slowly. Very very slowly. And it wasn't a thriller at all. Some thriller-like stuff happened in the last 15% or so of the book, but nothing in the first 85% or so suggested that anything thrilling would happen.

I can't decide if this book rubbed me the wrong way because 1) it was "too smart" for me, 2) it was trying to be "too smart" for me and failed, or 3) I wasn't in the mood for a "smart" book. There were some neat moments here and there, but people who enjoyed this book probably enjoyed it because they liked Greek history and ideas, liked archeology, and/or like books written in a slightly unconventional style.

The writer has written poetry and stuff as well, and you can tell from his style. Or at least I could. It's because I don't "get" poetry. I have to think too much, and I'd rather a book draw me in without much effort on my part. I can understand that one may enjoy that type of reading, where the sentences and punctuation are a little off, and that "off-ness" elicits some feelings and/or imagery that may be harder to achieve by writing in a simpler style. It's not that anything was incomprehensible. Far from it. Just took a little effort. More than I was willing to put in. I definitely started skimming parts.

Oh, it's also a bit depressing. Not too bad, but certainly not a happy book.

That all being said, I clearly didn't hate it. It takes place in present-day Greece, much of it in what was Sparta. It also talks a lot about the Spartans. Interesting people, mostly because they're so fucked up. Most of the book focused on one character, his relationships with a few others, and his take on the history of Sparta. It was neat to get a flavor of small town Greece and an archeological dig.

I think the author had some great ideas, but didn't execute them as well as he liked. This might be the type of book that may actually work better as an indie movie. I think that much of it could have been better communicated by long slow shots of a rainy Greek country side with little music and dialogue.

I would actually recommend this book if people know what they're getting into. Which you do if you read this review. ;)

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I sought out because of a certain professional curiosity and, related to that, because it was the answer to me posing the question "What are you reading right now?" to a friend.

At the time, he was half way through the book and severely intrigued by where it was going. Several days later I was half way through the book and knew exactly what he meant.

He told me when he finished it that he was a little bit let down and now that I've finished it, I know what he means. You can find a synopsis somewhere else, but they're not kidding about the comparisons between this and The Magus and The Secret History. It, of course, falls short of both those books, but is equally it's own thing, but not nearly as memorable though. This is airport fiction done through an author with a very literary and poetic style.

Anyway. Up until the book's big reveal around page 270 or 280 or somewhere in between, I have to say that I was having the time of my life. For a book with not much happening in it, I was riveted. Hill does a brilliant job of setting up a certain tone throughout the book, a certain sense of dread that seems to hiding behind every corner or spying on you from afar in this new world we live in, this "age of terror."

The only SPOILER (albeit minor) I'll add there is that Hill's book falls apart, I believe, when he leaves his own voice behind and the story becomes reminiscent of things that Don Delillo was doing so brilliantly in the 70s and 80s and in the same setting as well.

I complain here about the big reveal being a let down, but then again, this book is primarily all "set up," so once we find out what the secret is, what is so hidden amongst this attractively beguiling group of friends, there's probably no way you could be let down. The book doesn't start to become bad anywhere in the last 75 pages, not at all, but it's fair to say that it doesn't hold your interest in quite the same way in those last parts. Understandably so, to an extent: More fun can always be found in the chase as opposed to the capture, as it were. A thing can have an incredible allure when it's hidden, when you know it's there in front of you and just around that corner, but that shine can fade in the harsh light of day when it's found. The brilliance of this novel, for me, wasn't the whole and complete story, but the parts in the dark, in the searching.

[Gavin Armour · Rating 2 out of 5]

Manchmal ist der böse Klappentext schuld…der in diesem Falle verhieß, es laut dem ‚Observer‘ nicht nur mit einem „wunderbar komponierten Thriller“ zu tun zu haben, sondern auch mit einem der „besten Romane über unser Zeitalter des Terrors“. Umso besser, denkt sich der politisch und gesellschaftlich interessierte Leser von Spannungsliteratur, da schlage ich doch gleich zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe! Nicht nur wird man – und das auch noch literarisch! – bestens unterhalten, sondern zugleich befriedigt man seinen Hunger nach Auseinandersetzung mit den großen Themen unserer Zeit. Heureka! 415 Seiten später sitzt man leicht verdutzt da und fragt sich, was denn das jetzt war?

Wir folgen dem Passionsweg des englischen Archäologen Ben Mercer, der aus einem dunklen, nicht näher erläuterten Grund seine Heimat verlassen hat, wo er seine Tochter und seine Exfrau zurücklässt. Letztere hat ein Verhältnis mit seinem ehemaligen Professor, was zu Mercers vermeintlicher Demütigung beiträgt. In Athen trifft er auf einen alten Kommilitonen, den Deutschen Eberhard, von dem er von Ausgrabungen in Sparta erfährt. So macht Mercer sich auf nach Sparta, auch und vor allem, weil seine nie beendete Doktorarbeit die geheimnisvolle, mythenumrankte weil wenig erforschte Stadt an der Südspitze des griechischen Festlands behandelte. Unterbrochen von Auszügen aus eben dieser Doktorarbeit, die nach Jahren des Stillstands von ihrem Verfasser während seiner Zeit in Sparta wieder aufgenommen und weitergeführt wird, wenn auch anders, als ursprünglich gedacht, berichtet uns THE HIDDEN (Originaltitel) von Mercers Begegnung mit einer seltsam anmutenden Gruppe von Wissenschaftlern, einheimischen Angestellten und institutionellen Vertretern, die ihn zunächst massiv verunsichern, bis er sich in einigen zufälligen und dann auch gewollten Ereignissen beweisen kann, wodurch die Gruppe ihn aufnimmt und in einige ihrer Geheimnisse einweiht. Er beginnt eine Affäre mit einer japanischen Kollegin, wird von seiner Chefin umschmeichelt und immer wieder mit Hinweisen konfrontiert, daß die Gruppe noch ganz anderes umtreibt, als die Archäologie. Allerdings begreift Mercer viel, viel zu spät, daß die Kenntnis dieser Geheimnisse sein und das Leben aller ihn Umgebenden nachhaltig und für immer verändern wird…

Es will ein Thriller sein, also soll man nichts verraten. Das zu befolgen ist ehernes Gesetz. Doch soviel darf dann doch angedeutet werden: Wenn man ein Publikum, einen Leser, einen Rezipienten fesseln will, sollte man irgendwann eine Handlung in Gang setzen. Introspektion taugt für Weltliteratur, nur selten taugt sie, um uns in nervenaufreibenden nächtlichen Lektüresitzungen zu bannen. Hier wird viel geraunt und angedeutet, im Grunde nichts je erklärt oder ausgearbeitet, was an sich kein Fehler sein muß, darf eine gute Geschichte doch ruhig ihren Anteil an Geheimnis bewahren, darf ein kluger Roman den Leser einbinden und Mit- wie Nachdenken einfordern. Doch sollte sich ein Text, bevor er veröffentlicht wird, mit sich selber in einen Dialog treten, was eigentlich er sein will? Sicher, die Größten sind in der Lage, aus Krimis Weltliteratur zu formen, aber auch das sei verraten: Tobias Hill ist definitiv nicht Dostojewski.

So mäandert dies zwischen selbstmitleidiger Eigenzerfleischung eines uns fremdbleibenden Protagonisten, der die dunkleren Seiten seines Wesens ganz offenbar auch vor sich selbst versteckt, einer Liebesgeschichte, die nie so recht in Gang kommen mag und selbst, als sie es dann wohl ist, dem Leser nie nah kommt, nie fesselt, bangen macht oder gar sehnsüchtig, einem Gruppenportrait mit Spannungsbeilage, die allerdings so im Ungefähren bleibt, daß „Thriller“ dran zu pappen schon als reiner Verkaufsanreiz zu betrachten ist, und schließlich, in seinen, fast muß man sagen: besten Momenten, einer flott geschriebenen und durchaus fesselnden Abhandlung über Sparta, seine Geschichte, soweit bekannt, die Mythen und Legenden, die es umranken und schließlich einer Rezeptionsgeschichte, die generell Interesse an der Geschichte des Wissens erwecken kann. Vielleicht hätte der Autor es dabei bewenden lassen sollen?

Man bleibt etwas ratlos zurück mit einem Ende, das zwangsläufig erscheint, nicht nur, weil die ganze Narration darauf hinläuft, sondern mehr noch, weil das Denken des Autors am Ende der Lektüre gar nicht anders zu funktionieren scheinen kann, als genau so, wie es dann kommt. Der eigentliche Vorwurf – und es ist ein für einen Thriller tödlicher, sorry – lautet: Langeweile. Das Buch fängt irgendwo in der Mitte, vielleicht etwas früher, kaum später, an zu langweilen. Wenn man seinen Lesern nichts bietet als Personen, über die man nichts erfährt, zugleich eine Atmosphäre steter Bedrohlichkeit zu kreieren versucht (und nicht nur versucht, es gelingt Hill durchaus), dann aber scheinbar nie einen Schritt, schon gar nicht denn entscheidenden, weiter geht, entsteht Verdruss. Da muß die Atmosphäre und die Art, wie sie erzeugt wird, schon außergewöhnlich sein, da müssen die Figuren schon fesseln, muß sich hinter viel Nebel und Ornament etwas Substanzielles abzeichnen und dieses Erkennen muß auch gefüttert werden – doch all dies ist hier nicht der Fall. Es erscheint, als habe der Autor uns ein wenig redundant mitteilen wollen, daß wir in Zeiten Leben, in denen „Terror“ zu definieren kaum möglich erscheint, weil seine Ziele nicht nur austauschbar erscheinen, sondern nahezu inkonsistent. Doch wird er zum Selbstzweck, ziellos, was ist es dann? Noch Terror? Eine an sich spannende Frage, auf deren Antwort man nicht in diesem Text hoffen sollte.

Dagegen die Spartaner, wie der Mythos sie uns schildert: Entschlossen und zielgerichtet, brutal und in ihrer Brutalität funktional bis zur Selbstaufgabe. An Insektenstaaten erinnern die deterministisch argumentierenden Einlassungen in Mercers Dissertation, die von Heloten und Hopliten künden und eine Sehnsucht nach Klarheit und Eindeutigkeit zum Ausdruck bringen, die Mercer in der Flucht vor einer unsagbaren Schuld in die karge Landschaft Lakoniens treibt. Klar sehen, durchblicken, erkennen – und doch bleibt hier alles „verborgen“. Zuviel, wie der Leser zu spät feststellt. Und dann sind sie um, diese 415 Seiten und es bleibt ein Gefühl zurück, wie wenn man zu viel Fast Food in sich hineingestopft hat: Leere und heiße Luft.

[Armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mit einem GR-Schnitt von 2,79 bei immerhin 251 Bewertungen ist Verborgen eines der am schlechtesten bewerteten Bücher in meinem Leseaufkommen (die meisten der schlechteren habe ich bislang als einziger gelesen oder bewertet).
Ein Grund dafür sind vermutlich enttäuschte Lesererwartungen, in diesem Archäologenthriller wird kein Artefakt ausgegraben, das seinem Besitzer die Weltherrschaft sichert und damit sämtliche heimtückischen Geheimdienste und Geheimbünde der Geschichte auf den Plan ruft. Diese ziemlich schräge Archäologentruppe, bei der jeder mehr als eine Leiche im Keller hat, findet nicht einmal den Beweis für eine immer schon gern geglaubte Legende, allenfalls dafür, dass die Spartaner tatsächlich missgebildete Kinder ausgesetzt haben.
In Sachen Unbehagen und ungeduldige Spannung/Erwartung auf den großen Handlungssprung verdient Verborgen glatte fünf Sterne, immer voraus gesetzt, man ist dazu bereit sich über die volle Dauer derartigen Schwingungen und einer ungewohnten Leseerfahrung auszusetzen.
Wer oder was verborgen wird, enthüllt sich im letzten Drittel, sogar ziemlich überzeugend, insofern sind die vielen frustrierten zwei Sterne nicht gerechtfertigt, auch die literarische Qualität stimmt.

Gefühlte Hauptursache ist das konstante Unbehagen in Verbindung mit dem Ungenügen der Hauptperson an sich selbst und gegenüber, Ben Mercer ist ein aus der Bahn geratener Archäologe, der nicht verkraftet hat, dass sich seine Frau von ihm scheiden lässt und einen älteren Professor heiratet.
Ausgangspunkt der Trennung, wie sich im Verlauf des Buches heraus stellt, ist der Zeugungsakt der Tochter, den er als Höhepunkt seiner Männlichkeit empfunden hat, seine damalige Frau als Vergewaltigung in der Ehe, das behauptet jedenfalls einer seiner Widersacher in der Archäologengruppe, die ihn erst ausgrenzt und später geschickt manipuliert.
In seiner Ungeschicklichkeit stellt Ben sicher keine Identifikationsfigur dar, dazu macht er einfach zu vieles falsch, in seiner akademischen Laufbahn, auf seiner kopflosen Flucht nach Athen, nach seiner Ankunft in Sparta; - als hätte er so etwas wie einen sozialen Defekt oder massive Defizite in Sachen Menschenkenntnis. Tobias Hill lässt es bis zum letzten Punkt offen, ob Ben die Erwartungen der Gruppe letztlich doch nicht erfüllt oder ob seine Schwächen nicht von vorn herein einkalkuliert waren.
Ein zweiter, anfangs deutlich faszinierenderer Erzählstrang als Bens Erfahrungen als Service-Kraft in einem Athener Vorortgrill sind seine Betrachtungen zur Geschichte Spartas, den Mythen und den Fakten für den Untergang der legendären Kultur, die kaum physische Spuren hinterließ und immer noch für Archäologenfrust gut ist. Die Abhängigkeit der Militärdiktatur von einem riesigen Sklavenheer, das durch Schrecken beherrscht wurde 9000 Soldaten hielten 300.000 Heloten in Schach stellt das immer noch irgendwie positiv konnotierte Sparta (so sehe ich es jedenfalls) unter die Vorläufer des NS-Staates oder die Leitbilder bei der Entwicklung der deutschen Herrschaft in den eroberten Ostgebieten.
»Was war Sparta ohne seine Heloten? Eine veraltete Waffe. Ein Geschöpf perfekt an Welten angepasst, die für immer untergegangen waren. Ein Lebewesen, das sich nur von einer bestimmten Vogelart oder einer bestimmten Frucht ernähren konnte, die selbst ausgestorben war«, so lautet Bens Fazit zum Untergang Spartas, nachdem Theben einer revolutionären Taktik und der Befreiung der Heloten die Grundlage des Sklavenstaates eliminiert hatte.
Natürlich werden Bens Studien zur Geschichte immer kürzer, während er sich von den Neuspartanern der Archäölogengruppe für ihren Kampf für eine bessere Welt keilen lässt.
Vielleicht habe ich schon zu viel gespoilert, aber die Lektüre lohnt sich, vorausgesetzt, man ist dazu bereit auf eine Identifikationsfigur zu verzichten und ein gewisses Unbehagen bei der Lektüre in Kauf zu nehmen, während die Handlung eher in die Rubrik Suspense denn Thriller fällt.
Für Freunde der klassischen Archäologen-Äktschnplotte in der Nachfolge von Jäger des verlorenen Schatzes gibt es sich noch genügend Bücher aus der Kategorie, in denen sich die CIA, der KGB, MI6, der Mossad und die Jesuiten mit ein paar verrückten Multimilliardären um die erste Windel des Jesuskindes oder so weil die ewiges Leben und Weltherrschaft verheißt.

[Ian Mapp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate that feeling of being robbed that you get at the end of a meaty book and you realise that it was utterly pointless investment of time. The early part of this book had enough intrigue to stop me from binning it, even though the story didn't appear to be going anywhere. By the end of the book, it really hadn't gone anywhere.

Ben Mercer has split up from his wife and daughter and goes to Athens, then Sparta to take part in an archaeological dig. Here, he is bonding with a diverse group looking for acceptance.

The author has obviously done his reseach on greek history and knows a lot of great words for fairly mundance objects and descriptions but in my view, he failed to fundamentally address what you read for - entertainment.

This plodded along at a desperately slow pace. The supporting characters were bland and how they integrated with the stroy and each other was very weak. The story never went anywhere and by the time I got to the end, I was just desperate for it to end.

A shame, as the premise and initial mystery hinted at a much better book.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed by this book as I'd been looking forward to reading it. In general, the plot was functional and worked ok but the comparisons reviewers have made with Donna Tartt's the Secret History are very flattering to Hill's book. The plot here is equally mysterious but the plot and characters aren't developed very adeptly with the result that they're unengaging - it's like reading a transcript of what happened in the first series of Big Brother. By the middle of the book I couldn't have cared less what happened to the central character and even major events in the plot seemed sham and superficial. The ending was sensationalist tosh and read like a teenager's screenplay. Had that been better I'd have upped the review a star.

[Marcelo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the Spartan theme of the book. That was the high-point of this novel. Reading about them made you think of all the different things that might happen later on to the main character. The problem is that none of them happen. Up to 3/4 of the story; you have no idea what's going on; and when it's explained; it pales in comparison to what it could've been. The dialog is confusing a lot of the times; and I often found myself going back to read a page just because I lost track of who was talking. It was an interesting read; too bad it probably won't stay in my mind for long.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

+1 for teaching me all facts about ancient Sparta. It was especially fortunate for coming right when my sixth grader was learning about Sparta in school, and we could talk knowledgeably about hoplites and helots.

+1 for beautiful prose. I liked the mood.

-1 for a big reveal that came up small.

Overall, this book had some good moments, but it made me recall many times how much more I enjoyed THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt, with which this book shares many thematic elements.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating and Unusual

This book was slow going but interesting enough and certainly beautifully written enough to keep me working at it. I disagree with other reviewers that the big reveal was disappointing. It was more interesting and more unusual and intriguing than I had expected. Overall the prose is poetic, the imagery very vivid, the characters distinct and varied, and the plot thick and slow in developing but overall left me satisfied.

[Rachna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't much of a thriller. It started out interesting with anecdotes about Sparta. The rest of the book built up to a disappointing conclusion. Was literally skimming through the book by the last 2 chapters.

3 stars because the writing was good enough to have me hooked through the uninteresting middle

[Penny Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read half of this, couldn't work out what it was about, didn't like the choppy, disjointed writing style - gave up. Not recommended.
The review on the front said "One of the finest novels written so far about our age of terror" by The Observer. I have no idea what book the reviewer read but there's nothing about 'our age of terror ' in the book I read. It's a sad loser on an archaeological dig in Greece!! 😏

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Hidden" is a book about obsession, and secrets, sombre in tone and full of ominous signs of things not being right, of not being what they seem. I enjoyed it, although at times I got a bit lost in the dialogue trying to follow who was speaking and had to backtrack and with the third person narrative I was unsure sometimes who the he was. That said, it was a gripping tale of what happens to Ben Mercer. Ben, emotionally vulnerable after his divorce, leaves Oxford for Greece where he joined a group of archaeologists on a dig in Sparta. The group is made up of five people, including a fellow academic from Oxford, and two beautiful young women. Dazzled by their charisma he is desperate to be accepted as part of their group, to be included, to take part in the strange games they play. But it wasn t just a game.[return][return]It s also about the history of Sparta. Interspersed in the narrative are Ben s Notes Towards a Thesis and it was in these notes that I found clues about the nature of the group. In ancient Sparta the Crypteia meant The Secret Matter or The Hidden - young men who were an instrument of subterfuge and terror . [return][return]I liked the contrasts in this book, the vivid descriptions of places. Here is an example where Ben is remembering Oxford:[return][return]"The fog going out through the streets to the rivers, the Thames and the Cherwell, the Evenlode and the Ock. The city always secretive and all the more so at that hour, as it slept, its acres full of unseen courts and cloisters, its lodgings and stairs full of lives, waiting, pending morning."[return][return]And again describing Athens:[return][return]"He recognised the lay of the land, the hills and saddle that ran between them. He knew the history of the ruins on each, the palaces and shrines and graves built one atop the other, like corals, the living on the dead. But the green of the slopes in the sunlight, and the flash of spring flowers; and beyond the ziggurat-steps of the Menelaion, the clear air across the valley, and the city below, and the mountains beyond the city, white capped, momentous & it was spectacular."[return][return]A novel about secrets, hidden things that maybe Ben should have left alone. The characters are all difficult to like, maybe because I couldn t get a clear picture of some of them in my mind. Ben is really rather pathetic and needy and because of that he is easily manipulated. I read the chilling events at the end of this book with increasing unease and a feeling of desolation. It was both gripping and horrific.

[Mareike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Verborgen ist laut dem Klappentext "Eine ungewöhnliche Mischung aus spannungsgeladener Handlung und historischen Fakten". Nachdem ich das Buch beendet habe, suche ich immer noch danach. Die historischen Fakten waren vorhanden - ausführlich dargelegt -, aber Spannung hat mir komplett gefehlt. Vielleicht kam bei mir keine Spannung auf, weil ich auch zu dem Protagonisten keinen Zugang fand und mich daher schon durch so manche Seite gequält habe? Anscheinend gibt es zu diesem Buch nur zwei Möglichkeiten: Entweder man mag den Stil des Autors oder man mag ihn nicht. Ich gehöre leider zur zweiten Kategorie.

Der Roman teilt sich in zwei verschiedene Stränge. Zum einen verfolgt man Ben, wie er in Griechenland zurechtkommt und seine Trennung von Frau und Kind verarbeitet. Seine Frau hat ihn verlassen, was stark auf seiner Seele lastet und immer wieder schubweise zum Vorschein kommt. Er hat Angst mit seiner Reise nach Griechenland einen Fehler gegangen zu haben, da er schon nach wenigen Wochen vergisst, wie sein Kind wirklich aussieht. So weit die Ausgangssituation. Irgendwann trifft Ben auf einen alten Bekannten, der ihm von einer Ausgrabung berichtet und schwups - Ben macht da auch mit.

Der zweite Teil des Romans ist von wissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen über Sparta geprägt. Im Normalfall wechseln sich fiktive Handlung und die wissenschaftlichen Erläuterungen nach jeweils einem Kapitel ab. Bei mir haben diese Einschübe allerdings dafür gesorgt, dass ich komplett aus der Geschichte war, wenn es bei Ben weiter ging. Für jemanden, der an einem Sachbuch für Sparta interessiert ist, könnte das Buch sogar ein erster Einstieg in das Thema sein, aber ich hatte etwas völlig anderes erwartet, nachdem ich den Klappentext gelesen habe.

Der Stil des Autors ist eigentlich ganz angenehm zu lesen. Die Stimmung des Romans ist düster und die Distanz riesengroß. Tobias Hill hat es nicht geschafft, dass ich unbedingt wissen wollte, wie es weiter geht und mein Mitgefühl mit Ben hält sich auch in Grenzen. Erst im letzten Drittel des Buches wird es dann interessanter und die Aufklärung war nachvollziehbar.

Bewertung
Verborgen konnte mich leider gar nicht packen. Die düstere Atmosphäre hatte zwar etwas für sich, aber Spannung kam entgegen meiner Hoffnung nicht auf. Ich glaube, man muss den persönlichen Stil des Autors mögen, um auch dieses Buch lesen zu können. Die Fakten über Sparta waren zwar interessant, rissen mich aber regelmäßig aus der Handlung, so dass kein guter Lesefluss aufkam.

[Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I approached Tobias Hill’s The Hidden as a literary piece of fiction, as I was mindful of the fact that he is a poet. So, you can expect him to write like one, meaning some of his sentences are rich in images, just the right formula of ‘Don’t tell, show’.

And show, he does, opening up a historical vista to ancient Sparta. Ben Mercer is an expert on this, and he’s supposed to be working on his thesis. But he never finishes it, and now is having problems with his marriage. He runs away from all this and heads off to Greece. There, he can only get work in a restaurant. When he met someone he knew from his Oxford days, Eberhard, he manages to wrangle a digging job in an archaeological site, and lucky for him, the dig is for ancient Spartan relics.

However Ben never counts on the mess he is going to get into with a small group of fellow diggers. He falls for one of them though, Natsuko. At first the group doesn’t take to him, but that changes after he joins them in a hunt for a jackal. That night he proves his mettle by killing one.

The book is interspersed with Ben’s accounts, possibly his thesis in progress, of ancient Spartan life, all very informative. They pace the book’s story line, so that in the wake of reading one account, you get thrown into the quick of the story.

Slowly Ben learns what has been going on behind the façade of the dig. There is something underhanded going on. Ben finds out what when Eberhard brings him to a place and shows him where he has kept someone, a Greek, a prisoner. Ben gets his first whiff of modern terrorism.

Thereafter, the pace quickens even more, and by the end of the book you see Ben bloodied. He wants to get away from all this with Natsuko. She agrees to follow him but asks Ben to do her a favour first. The ending here is rather full of shocking images, something with which by now you’d know that Hill has been doing very well.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benjamin Mercer, the anti-hero of this pretty good novel, a lapsed classics student from Oxford, drifts away from his divorced wife and their little daughter and finds himself in Greece. Ben -- or the secret narrator -- is fascinated with the history of Sparta, the prototype for the modern military-police state. It just so happens that Ben finds himself a grueling job as cook, bottle washer, and waiter in a meat grill in a suburb of Athens called Metamorphosis, and there his own decline from middle class respectability begins. One evening his Oxford classmate named Eberhard Sauer shows up and lets Ben know almost nothing about an excavation in Sparta. Ben gets signed up for the dig only to find himself in the company of a multi-national group of savage and secretive archeologists whose friendship he pines for.

The gang, under the ineffectual leadership of an American named Missy, is philologically true to the meanings of their names. Their acerbic leader Eberhard Sauer is as strong as a boar; Max needs no translation; the mortally beautiful Eleschen, a diminutive of Helen; Ben's lover Natsuko, a child of summer, and Jason, as talkative and nasty as his classical counterpart. Ben, we remember is the younger brother of Joseph, and Mercer, cognate of mercy which he does not receive -- especially at the conclusion which plays out at Easter. I quite enjoyed the thesis notes about Sparta and the descriptions of the countryside and techniques of the dig. The beautifully written novel holds up as a very scary page-turner about the evils of Sparta and of Greece's more recent past, so that's all folks!

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps some of my comments I made as I was reading this book will best show what I thought of it as I was reading it -

"Wow, now here's an unlikeable protagonist." The main character is not a very likable kind of guy. He's just gone through a messy divorce and he's a bit gloomy. As we find out in the story, everyone else is fairly similar to Ben in the sense that they are, as a group, very unlikeable. No one really likes Ben and we find that no one has ever really liked Ben. Then again, these people that do not like Ben aren't really likable themselves.

I should probably mention the plot at this point - Oxford scholar goes off to Athens to find himself and escape his ex-wife and he ends up on an archaeological dig with a few people that really don't like him and who seem to have something to hide.

"This book is rather strange. And the main character is a bit. . .disturbing. Just reading it I feel drugged in some way, it has a heavy, distorted feel to it." There is a bit of a dreamy quality to this work. The author manages to keep things hidden and it was this aspect of the book that I liked.

"I think the only reason I keep reading this is to find out what's hidden." Then again, with so many unlikeable people that I finally thought to myself - I hope they kill each other off at the end, the only reason I made it to the end was because there really is a mystery here. Something is hidden. Is it literal? Figurative? Ever going to come to light?

The writing is very good, but there are no heroes here.

[Britt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a hot mess. It took me forever (which is 3 weeks to me) to get thru it. It was so painfully boring to read that I tried to avoid the book like the plague. However, I have problems leaving anything unfinished so I eventually got through it. This isn't my usual reading material, but I wanted something that took place in Greece to read on my way there. The places, references, and history of Greece hit home since I just visited, but the story was pointless. It rambled on about Ben randomly coming to Greece to work in a group of archeologists. I had problems keeping the people straight and didn't like any of them. There isn't much plot until the very end. And if you think you're holding out for something great to happen, well you're not.

[Laff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Mercer is an academic, a man who has married, fathered a child and been divorced before he has grown up. He goes to Greece to join an archaeological dig, in search of breathing space and Sparta, his true love. But there is no escape. The unofficial leader of the shovelmonkeys is an old sparring partner from Oxford who cynically allows Ben to share a dark secret to win his loyalty. Hill writes like the poet that he is and paints a vivid picture of the troubled history of Greece from the horrors inflicted on the helots of classical times to those committed by the junta of the 1970s and the echoes that both may have today.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps if I’d liked any of the characters. Maybe if the plotting wasn’t so slow. I’d have liked this book. But apart from interesting stories about Sparta and some lovely descriptions of the Greek countryside, which made you long for lockdown to be over, the only way to describe this book is slow going. It sped up at the end but by then I didn’t care.

[Michael Tenerowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's easy to believe the author is a poet. He is somewhat of a wordsmith and enjoys their use. The mystery however isn't too much of a mystery but the characters were interesting enough to keep me on until the end.

[Jozef Asquith Crooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure what to say...

I was horribly disappointed. A complete failure in writing.

[Zora · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5/5

[Roger Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Plot is uninteresting.
Characters are not likeable.
Handling of dialog is confusing.
Theme is murky.
Had to force myself to finish.

[John Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard work.
Yet another be well written book but without too much in the way of story.
Livened up in the last 100 pages but still nothing special.

[Hugh J McKenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aborted

[Nicole | The Readerly Report · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having fled his hometown, school and his spectacularly failed marriage, Ben Mercer has retreated to the tiny town of of Metamorphosis, Greece, where he whiles away the hours living simply as a grill worker in a meat shop and working on his thesis on the peculiarities of ancient Sparta and the customs and psychology of ancient Greeks. Metamorphosis is literally in the middle of nowhere, so Ben is surprised one day by the appearance of Eberhardt, an old classmate from university, who tells him that he is working on an archaeological dig in Sparta. Eberhardt then disappears before Ben can chat with him further and without saying goodbye.

Intrigued, Ben makes a few inquiries and gets himself assigned to the same dig in Sparta, as much to figure out why Eberhardt was so cagey as to further escape the dismal possibilities of his current situation. Ben isn’t welcomed when he gets there. Eberhardt remains aloof and the other archaeologists to whom he seems closely bound show Ben even less interest, which is what make them so interesting to Ben, that and the fact that they seem to have ulterior moves and share a dark secret.

When I initially began reading The Hidden, I enjoyed it very much and was (as I remain) impressed with the beauty and expressiveness of Hill’s prose. I was immediately drawn in to what seemed to me the story of a man who is trying to come to terms with the reprehensible behavior that ruined his marriage, separating him from the wife and child whom he loved deeply. His writing on his thesis, conversations with co-workers on modern Greek culture, and the ruminations which exposed the failings of his marriage were not the gripping mystery that had been promised in the jacket copy, but was a story in which I was deeply interested.

The episode, eventually uncovered, that led to the destruction of Ben’s marriage was unique and one that I would have liked to have seen explored in more detail. If I was reading uneasily it was because the book was supposed to be a thriller, and more than one hundred and fifty pages in I had seen neither hide nor hair of one, and thought that the novel, to its disservice, had been poorly marketed.

Firmly into the second half, though, the novel begins to go astray. Several players are introduced at once and the conversations they have are a jumbled mess of long sentences, where no page breaks or quotation marks make it exceedingly hard to figure out who has said what. The story that had been building throughout the first half of the novel all but completely disappears, and I felt as if I had been dropped into a completely different book, with characters who were alien and a little flat. The mystery, which might have had legs if integrated into the story earlier, was anti-climactic by the time it made it’s way into the last seventy five pages of the novel.

Hill is a talented writer and I loved one of the stories that he was trying to tell. The thesis portion of the novel was interesting but ultimately seemed unconnected to the book, while the last section fragmented what he had been building. There was simply too much going on, but not enough to tie it all together and make it compelling. Contributing to this was the fact the book description totally mismanaged my expectations. I’m definitely curious to see what Hill might write next, but would proceed with extreme caution.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

contains spoilers. suggest that you only read on if you've already finished the book...




started slow and finished in an unanticipated manner (to me). some very elegant prose made the reading surprisingly nice in passages.

though there have been comparisons to Secret History (Tartt), and in the same vein, could be to The Likeness (French), I think a stronger comparative text might be The Lone Man by Bernardo Atxaga.

i liked this book more two days after i finished it than when i closed the back cover. it does not function like a thriller, which might be confusing to readers anticipating the conventions of the genre.

for me, it read more as an investigation into the psychology of an individual, who, made vulnerable through unsettled life circumstance and combined with passive/intentional behaviors, becomes an enemy of the state, for a cause, arguably not even entirely their own.

an ambitious project, a timely subject to take on, yet also one difficult to frame by the publisher without robbing the reader of the chance to realize its intent on their own...

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were bits of this book that I absolutely loved. I found the pseudo-scholarly discussions of Spartan society (especially the depiction of Thermopylae) and the depiction of modern Greece thoroughly satisfying. The slow set up of the book was generally enjoyable, but I'm not sure I found the ending worthy of the beginning of the book. All in all, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd taken the time to read it all at once -- it didn't quite hold up to the starts and stops of my commutes -- and I may still find an afternoon sometime to do just that.