Salammbo: High Priestess of Ancient Carthage (Audiobook)

from billt568

Took a few days to process. This book was compelling and the story was one I was only familiar with as a historical sidenote. The violence and the sexual imagery used a lot of similar prose, and I found the sensuality sort of mixed between the two. In the end it was like eating rotten, sweet frui...

from HadriantheBlind

Flaubert goes on a radically different track here - after the astonishing success of Madame Bovary he goes for an Orientalist tragedy on the ruin of Carthage. As expected, he put an astonishing amount of work into this - he's read his Polybius, and written astonishing (exaggerated?) accounts of t...

from la2bkk

As an avid ancient history fan, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover this work. Although historical fiction, in general Flaubert did his homework and wrote a fairly accurate account of the little known but brutal Third century BC war between Carthage and its mercenary army. Flaubert did an...

from stillatim

A bit of a rollicking tale, especially unexpected from Flaubert; it has the feeling of an epic poem, or a medieval romance. That's probably the best way to judge it: not dealing with deep characters (although Spendius is chilling); not interested in a perfectly coherent, driven plot (although the...

from antiquary

In honesty, my rating is based on reading the English translation. Extremely vivid historical novel of the "truceless war" between Carthage and the rebel mercenaries.