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(More customer reviews)A Treasure Trove of Historical Fact
In this fourth book of her trilogy the no less improbable Suzanne Frank leads us in her delightfully non-linear way to Sumer where we witness twilight for Chloe and Cheftu as civilization is just dawning.
Some may be saddened at this last novel but the time travelling couple become again the vehicle which allows us to see and touch Sumer as it must have been just as it was giving novelists their raison d'etre: written language. And while she pays homage to that event she deftly weaves a wealth of historically accurate fact into the fabric of this adventure.
I remember a reader taking her to task in an earlier novel because Cheftu addressed Chloe as "vous" and not the familiar "tu"and had to chuckle that, of course, Ms. Frank was correct in that there was no familiar "tu" in Cheftu's lifetime, only in Chloe's.
Similarly here we are immersed in a culture awash in beer, like some early keg party only to realize that beer was the preferred beverage with which people had a fixation much like the French have today with their wine. And while we may want to find this "obsession" laughable we should not take Ms. Frank too lightly for she is just leading us down the primrose path, infusing each scene with as much historical flavoriing as practical even if we fail to notice.
And how do we know any of this? Because they wrote it down; on clay documents protected in clay envelopes which happen to be on display today in the British Museum (Room 56).
Suzanne Frank's passion and respect for historical research is everywhere in this novel. It's in the details, if you look, and there are lots of them. Good book.
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