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Khanh the Killjoy

How to make Pompeii dull

Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii - Vicky Alvear Shecter
He shook his head. “Poor little rich girl,” he mumbled.
“I am not a poor little rich girl,” she shot back, frustration turning into anger. “I am being sold [into marriage] and used, and I don’t like it.”
“But you are still free,” he insisted.

I don't think I'm alone in being fascinated by Pompeii. It's the site of a vast volcanic eruption that happened in 79 A.D. The city and its inhabitants were caught mostly unaware. Many of them died right there, holding their loved ones. Buried and burned alive under a river of lava.

There are some pretty heartbreaking images.



I am a morbid mofo, so when I sought out a book set in Pompeii at the time of the Mt. Vesuvius explosion, I wanted explosions, fires, earthquakes, deaths.

Instead, I got a lot of details on how the upper-class people and gladiator slaves lived their lives, and not much more than that for the greater parts of the book.

The good:
1. It is historically accurate
2. Painstaking details on the lives of the lesser gladiators

The bad:
1. It is dull, there's a lot of historical details, and not much else
2. It has a character who is intrinsically naive and Too Stupid To Live towards the end; while it's not her fault that she's so sheltered, it's also doesn't make for very good reading
3. A love triangle with a twist
4. A paranormal "curse" element that just felt completely out of place in a historical novel

The Summary: Lucia's life doesn't seem that bad. Fine, she's a girl when her father wanted a boy, and he hates her for that, but her father is fairly well-off, and as an upper-middle class woman, she's got a leisurely life. So what's the big deal?

Lucia was sure that the white-haired gentleman reclining on the dining couch before her would make a delightful grandfather. As a future husband, though, he left a great deal to be desired.

Ick. Ok, that's pretty bad. Lucia's father has just given her away to a man old enough to be her grandfather. To make it worse, hubby-to-be is old-fashioned, and a non-believer in educating females. Lucia a Roman trophy wife.

But still, it's a better life than Tages (called Tag). He is her father's medical slave, a native Etruscan whose family have had their property taken away and given away in bondage as punishment. He has known nothing but slavery his whole life. Tag was sent away a few years back, and now he's returned, a handsome young man who captures Lucia's attention, as a man, not as a childhood playmate. He wants a chance at his freedom, and aspires to be a gladiator. And he's got to deal with an annoying new gladiator trainee, a pompous young patrician toff named Quintus.

The patrician untied his filigreed, embroidered belt and began shrugging out of his tunic. Tag noticed how carefully he protected his oiled curls as he pulled the tunic over his head. Gods, the other gladiators were going to eat him alive.

Meanwhile, strange things are happening in Pompeii. Earthquakes, tremors, animals being jittery. As a scholar, Lucia feels like something bad is going to happen, but nobody will listen to her, because she is young and female.

Lucia and Tag gradually fall in forbidden love, as another threatens their romance, and as the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius looms. I'm sorry, I can't make the book sound any more exciting than that, because it isn't.

The Background: I am not an expert on Roman culture, by any means, but I love my history and I can smell bullshit when I see it. This book felt both historically accurate and exceedingly well-researched. The details about the gladiator school are well-described, the everyday events of both the lives of Lucia the young mistress and Tages the slave were both well-depicted. History lovers will enjoy the minutiae.

The Characters:

“Lucia. Did you really bring me out here so that you could lecture me on how you marrying a rich man is like me being a slave?”

Lucia is an exceedingly frustrating one. She is naive, and since she is a young Roman woman, she should be. The thing is that she is so much so that I just wanted to shake her at times. For one, she doesn't realize the class difference between her and Tag until he points it out. She is SO privileged in comparison, and she hardly realizes it. Yeah, I know it sucks being betrothed to a much older man, but she's still going to have a life as a wealthy, pampered mistress.

Unlike Tages, Lucia still has her freedom. She will be free to walk around. She will never fear being whipped by an owner. She will never be a slave, and she can't wrap that concept around her head. She thinks she has it soooooooooooo bad, and Tages loses patience with her. I don't blame him one bit.

“Look, I don’t have the luxury of having a philosophical discussion about the nature of freedom. As a slave, it means only one thing to me — no longer being owned by another human being.”

Lucia really is a poor little rich girl. She is smart, but she is exceedingly dull. Book smart doesn't equal common sense, and Lucia has very little of the latter.

I wanted to smack Lucia on the head. She has a little girl's dream of running away without consequence, and she is, frankly, really, really dumb. All Lucia thinks about is herself, and what she wants. She wants Tag? Sure, the solution is to run away, who cares about his dad, who cares about her dad, who cares about the other slaves who might get hurt in the process?

And the eruption? Let's put it this way, let's pretend that I love you, the reader. No matter how much I love you, I will never rush into a burning town when the earth is rumbling and a volcano is about to explode. Why? Because this might happen to me.



I'm sure there are more painful ways of dying than being buried alive in a volcano. I don't want to find out.

Sorry, love of my life. You're on your own. I hope you don't suffer.

All quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof subject to change in the final edition.