Hephzibah Anderson champions an account of the Terracotta Army and Philip Roth's resonant Exit Ghost, in this week's paperback reviews.
The Terracotta Army
John Man
Abacus
Dh58
In the spring of 1974, the central part of China's Shaanxi province was crippled by drought. In the village of Xiyang, six brothers realised that unless they acted quickly, the persimmon harvest that supported their families would fail. They decided to dig a new well, and struck out for a spot on the slopes of Mount Li, shovels in hand.
When they hit a layer of red earth as hard as iron, they assumed it was a kiln lid, theirs being a region with a vibrant pottery past. Eager only for water, they ignored the chunks of pottery that clunked on their spades as they dug. Then, one of the brothers discovered what seemed at first to be a jar but, once hauled from the ground, was revealed to be an earthen torso. More followed, though the brothers tried their best to avoid them, worried that they might be earth-gods whose disinterment would provoke bad luck and thwart their quest for water.
These days, the Terracotta Army is as recognisable a symbol of China as its Great Wall. But in 1974, the brothers had no idea that they'd been digging their well on the south-east corner of the pit containing the legendary figures. Eventually, the fragments - "the pottery equivalent of a massacre" as the historian John Man puts it in his lively retelling - attracted official notice. Their discovery is one of the greatest archaeological finds of all time. Comprised of over 8,000 life-size, individually carved figures of warriors and their horses, along with musicians, acrobats and bureaucrats, the army was interred in the first emperor of China's burial palace. The mausoleum covers an area the size of England's Cambridge, and only a fraction has so far been excavated. The fabled riches that it may yet yield add tantalising spice to this narrative.
That same emperor, Qin Shi Huang, also built the Great Wall and unified his country with standard coinage, measures and a single written script. Inspired yet ruthless, he was haunted by paranoia and driven by a lust for immortality. In the decade leading up to his death in 210BC, he laid the foundations upon which China continues to rest: geographical unity and continuity. The full story of how and why the warriors came to be buried and what they have since grown to represent makes for an enthralling saga, enabling reflection on everything from mythmaking and nation-building to the malleability of the past once it is harnessed to serve the present.
Alongside those half-dozen fruit-growing brothers, the book's cast includes philosophers, fortune-tellers and the young self-taught archaeologist who saved all but one of the clay figures from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Though his prose doesn't sing like the best of Simon Schama's, say, Man injects his account with refreshingly journalistic verve, fusing reportage and some stunning photography with sound history. He also has a knack of peeling back the present to reveal the past as a continual, living presence in the here and now. Describing the experience of visiting the Terracotta Army Museum, for instance, he bids the reader to pause a while before rushing to enter Pit No 1, where the clay warriors stand massed in their serried ranks. Try to imagine the place as it was before the "tourist-trap shops" lured the "camera-clicking crowds", he urges, try to peer beyond the vast plaza and utilitarian architecture. If you can, you'll find a tale vital to our understanding of the country whose regimented pageantry at this summer's Olympics inspired such awe.
Exit Ghost
Philip Roth
Vintage
Dh52
The paperback publication of this resonant novel is sure to be drowned out by the simultaneous arrival of Philip Roth's latest, Indignation. But don't let that distract you if you haven't yet read Exit Ghost.
At its heart is the author's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, veteran of eight previous Roth novels. Driven out of New York by escalating death threats, Zuckerman has been hiding out in the Berkshires for the past 11 years. There, he has honed his life to the bare essentials - writing and ageing - while screening out conversation, newspapers, political outrage and terrorist threats. He has even managed to sidestep "the emotional boomerang of erotic attachment".
Returning to the city for a medical procedure, Zuckerman finds himself seduced once again by its limitless possibilities. In the space of 48 hours, three interconnected occurrences seal the deal: first he glimpses the aged muse of EI Lonoff, a writer he worshipped in his youth. Next, his eye alights on a classified ad placed by an alluring young novelist named Jaime and her husband seeking to trade their apartment for a place upstate for a year. And thirdly, Jaime's ex-boyfriend and Lonoff's would-be biographer contacts Zuckerman, claiming to have unearthed a "great secret".
Hangman Blind
Cassandra Clark
John Murray
Dh52
November is said to be the month of the dead, and it's then that a nun named Hildegard leaves the safety of her priory and rides out for York and the Abbey of Meaux, with just a hunting knife and two hounds for protection. Her mission drives this atmospheric mystery novel, a deft blend of historical research and snappy action that is the first in a projected series.
The year is 1382, and with boy-king Richard II teetering on England's throne, the royal court is ruled by scheming dukes and barons. Just a year earlier, a people's uprising threatened all-out anarchy, and though an uneasy peace now reigns on home shores, rival popes are vying with one another on the war-torn continent. "There's the stench of conspiracy everywhere you look," an ale-wife comments. The novel's title derives from a macabre chant whose meaning boils down to: flee for your life.
Hildegard is an intrepid heroine. As a young, wealthy widow seeking to conserve her independence, she has taken the only route open to her - the veil. But the great abbeys are themselves fraught with power struggles, and Hildegard is embroiled even before murder strikes at her childhood home of Castle Hutton.
Nemesis
Jo Nesbø
Vintage
Dh45
Don't be fooled by his name. Harry Hole may think he's a hard-boiled American PI - and, as a workaholic former alcoholic with a muddled love life, he may even have the credentials to prove it - but he is actually an Inspector in the Oslo police force's Serious Crimes Unit.
When a bank robber leaves a cashier dead, Harry is called in to investigate. At his side is a brilliant young female officer, whose own policeman father was shot dead by a robber. This time, the masked villain has pocketed two million kroner and left behind not a shred of evidence. As they scour the CCTV footage that is their only clue, Harry juggles workplace rivalries with his ongoing investigation into the murder of his former partner.
There are tensions on the home front, too. His girlfriend Rakel has flown to Russia for an acrimonious court case that will determine whether or not she gets to keep custody of her son, and a smouldering-voiced ex named Anna has sashayed back into Harry's life. As if there weren't already enough going on plot-wise, Anna is later found dead, and Harry becomes the prime suspect. Add to that allusions to Norway's Nazi past, gypsies and America's post-September 11 bombardment of Afghanistan, and you have one overstuffed, occasionally improbable, but nevertheless diverting doorstop.
