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Captivity, by György Spiró
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The epic bestseller and winner of the prestigious Aegon Literary Award in Hungary, Captivity is an enthralling and illuminating historical saga set in the time of Jesus about a Roman Jew on a quest to the Holy Land.
A literary sensation in Hungary, György Spiró’s Captivity is both a highly sophisticated historical novel and a gripping page-turner. Set in the tumultuous first century A.D., between the year of Christ’s death and the outbreak of the Jewish War, Captivity recounts the adventures of the feeble-bodied, bookish Uri, a young Roman Jew.
Frustrated with his hapless son, Uri’s father sends the young man to the Holy Land to regain the family’s prestige. In Jerusalem, Uri is imprisoned by Herod and meets two thieves and (perhaps) Jesus before their crucifixion. Later, in cosmopolitan Alexandria, he undergoes a scholarly and sexual awakening—but must also escape a pogrom. Returning to Rome at last, he finds an entirely unexpected inheritance.
Equal parts Homeric epic, brilliantly researched Jewish history, and picaresque adventure, Captivity is a dramatic tale of family, fate, and fortitude. In its weak-yet-valiant hero, fans will be reminded of Robert Graves’ classics of Ancient Rome, I, Claudius and Claudius the God.
- Sales Rank: #564006 in Books
- Published on: 2015-11-03
- Released on: 2015-11-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.60" w x 6.00" l, 2.60 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 864 pages
Review
“György Spiró aspired at nothing less than (...) present a theory in novelistic form about the interweavedness of religion and politics, lay bare the inner workings of power and give an insight into the art of survival….This book is an incredible page turner, it reads easily and avidly like the greatest bestsellers while also going as deep as the greatest thinkers of European philosophy.”
—Aegon Literary Award 2006 jury recommendation
“What this sensational novel outlines is the demonic nature of History. Ethically as well as historically, this an especially grand-scale parable. Captivity gets its feet under any literary table you care to mention."
—István Margócsy, Élet és Irodalom
“This book is a major landmark for the year.”
—Pál Závada, Népszabadság
“It would not be surprising if literary historians were soon calling him the re-assessor and regenerator of the post-modern novel.”
—Gergely Mézes, Magyar Hírlap
“Impossibly engrossing from the very first page….Building on a huge volume of reference material, the novel rings true from both a historical and a literary point of view.”
—Magda Ferch, Magyar Nemzet
“Monumental…. The level of detail is stunning; Mr. Spiró seems to know absolutely everything about the first-century Mediterranean world and revels in Herodotean digressions…. Mr. Spiró’s encyclopedic tendencies do not hobble “Captivity,” which never loses steam. In Tim Wilkinson’s forceful translation, we are transported to a world of political corruption and messianic hopes. Uri, whose maturation gives the story its psychological heft, exemplifies the enigmas and tensions of Diaspora Jewry across history.... Mr. Spiró has been a celebrated figure in Hungarian letters since the 1970s, but the remarkable “Captivity” (from 2005) is the first of his novels to be translated into English. You can read it as a parable of the Jewish condition amid the modern empires of Europe, or you can simply lose yourself in the ancient setting it so comprehensively describes.”
—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal, 10 Best Fiction Books of 2015
“BEN HUR, BUT BIGGER AND BETTER. Hungarian writer György Spiró’s newly translated novel Captivity powerfully sets the perils of modern Jewry in Early Christian Rome…. Captivity [is] a sprawling (more than 800 pages), picturesque, old-fashioned historical novel about the Roman Empire, in the showy tradition of Ben Hur and I, Claudius. In fact, both Jesus and Claudius, the main characters of those books, make cameo appearances in Captivity, as do other boldface names of the 1st century CE, including Caligula, Pontius Pilate, and Philo of Alexandria. What sets Captivity apart is that it makes the rare attempt to view all these historical phenomena—from the rise of Christianity to the flamboyant vices of the emperors—through a distinctively Jewish lens…. Where Spiró excels is dramatizing the world through which Uri moves—its political institutions and social arrangements, its sights and smells…. a complex and thoughtful portrait of what Judaism meant in ancient Rome…. Captivity draws you in with its pageant of the classical world, but by the end it also turns out to be a profound meditation on what Judaism meant, and means.”
—Adam Kirsch, Tablet
“[One of] the fifty best independent press books of 2015.… There is no shortage of Hungarian masters writing enormous novels — Krasznahorkai and Nádas immediately come to mind — but Spiró’s epic road novel stands on its own. A picaresque that doubles as a kind of Jewish history, it’s remarkably still a page-turner.”
—Flavorwire
“With the novel Captivity, Spiró proves that he is well-versed in both historical and human knowledge. It appears that in our times, it is playfulness that is expected of literary works, rather than the portrayal of realistic questions and conflicts. As if the two, playfulness and seriousness were inconsistent with each other! On the contrary (at least for me) playfulness begins with seriousness. Literature is a serious game. So is Spiró’s novel.?"
—Imre Kertész, Nobel Prize–winning author of Fatelessness
“Uri, the hero of Spiró's enormous novel, is a Jewish Candide, although the scope of his exploits suggests more of a naive Don Quixote type.… Deliberate, evocative and richly detailed. Spiró's elaborate style reflects Uri's acute observation, with the hint of a wink at the reader.… Spiró, a Hungarian man of letters, juxtaposes the prosaic and the significant with aplomb and offers a cheeky, unique view of history through the eyes of his modest everyman. A thoroughly impressive literary feat.”
—Publishers Weekly (lead starred review)
“Brilliant, picaresque novel of Jewish life in the first century, a bestseller and prizewinner in Spiró’s native Hungary.... There are two great impulses at work in Spiró’s yarn, the first being a comprehensive sociology of Roman Jewry, the second a grand, seriocomic novel of ideas. Uri, overcoming obstacles and a flaw of birth, makes for a Joseph Campbell–worthy epic hero…. there’s a lot packed into these pages, including an engagingly complicated portrait of Roman-Jewish relations in the early empire (“We loathe, absolutely loathe your kind, but not to the extent that we too will perish”), a rambunctious tour of ancient philosophies (including a hilarious semi-Mishnaic defense of prostitution), and no end of plain, good shaggy dog humor. A winning and thoughtful entertainment, somewhere between Lives of the Caesars and The Tin Drum.”
—Kirkus
“A visceral new form of epic history. Here mountains of trivia form vivid landscapes and academic minutiae open windows into the soul of a forgotten age. It is a work of fiction, though, and it is hilarious.... Spiró’s serious accomplishment is to challenge the chilling observation, popularly attributed to Stalin, that “one death is a tragedy and one million deaths a statistic” by breathing life into the neglected statistics of a magnificent—and terrifying, brutal—age.… An intently philosophical book.… Captivity expresses historical ideas authentically.… the real power of Captivity is the ability the extensive historical detail lends the reader to inhabit and empathize with ancient life. It is difficult to imagine a more entertaining way to realize so much data, and it is wonderful that Spiró has managed such an accomplishment. His technique is a welcome innovation for historical fiction in general, and perhaps the drollest scholarly introduction to the first century yet.”
—Jewish Book Council
“This remarkable novel, recently translated from the Hungarian, is as close as we are likely to get to a real feel for how it was to live in the first century CE…. Spiró’s artistic agility shines in his recreation of the world through which Uri moves…. Spiró has absorbed an awesome amount of information to create his ancient tableaux. He demonstrates a mastery of everything from the silk trade to the workings of ancient economies…. The strength of the book is in its unheroic, unillusioned depiction of ancient life…. if you are curious about the ancient world, if you wish to get a “finger-feel” for what it was like to live there, and to think about the forces that shaped the rise of Christianity, Captivity is well worth your time. Here is a faithful, fantastically informed, and extravagantly detailed picture of one of the most turbulent and consequential moments in human history.”
—David Wolpe, Los Angeles Review of Books
About the Author
About the Author:
Born in 1946 in Budapest, award-winning dramatist, novelist, and translator György Spiró has earned a reputation as one of postwar Hungary’s most prominent and prolific literary figures. He teaches at ELTE University of Budapest, where he specializes in Slavic literatures.
About the Translator:
Tim Wilkinson gave up his job in the pharmaceutical industry to translate Hungarian literature and history. He is the primary translator of Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész. Wilkinson’s translation of Kertész’s Fatelessness won the PEN Club/Book of the Month Translation Prize in 2005.
Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
This book is a masterpiece
By siberacuse1
As one reviewer says the book does start "slow", but the author is building the foundation for the remainder of the book by recreating the Jewish community of Rome in the 1st century. There is no shortage of "action" later on. The book deals with the birth of Christianity, the emperors from Tiberius to Claudius, the Jewish wars among other historical events. Throughout the book the author weaves a cogent philosophy dealing with various topics including religion, politics and the relationship between father and son. I found the book very enjoyable and thought provoking.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A Must Read for Jewish Second Temple Period Monothesism(s)
By S. Bleier
I have been intensively studying the Jewish Second Temple Period literature through the destruction of the Second Temple. Though "Captivity" is historical fiction, I found that "Captivity" provided me context for the Second Temple Period literature that I also have been reading. It is a must read for anyone who wants to understand Judaism(s) of the Ancient Roman Empire. As an added benefit, it even discusses 1st Century CE Christianity origins as it fit in the scheme of the period's monotheism.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
History, writ large and small.
By balaboosta
A tour de force historical odyssey through the 1st century Roman Empire through the eyes of Jewish Roman naif - a cross between Candide and Zelig, Spiro's novel is utterly engrossing to anyone with an interest in Second Temple Judaism, the volatile religious and political cross-currents of the time, the Roman Empire, the writings of Classical Greece and many other sundry subjects. Uri, our erstwhile protagonist, sent by his father on a delegation from Rome to Jerusalem with diversions to Judea and Alexandria, encounters the personages of the age - Pilate, Claudius, Caligula, the Greek Jewish philosopher Philo and even has a passing acquaintance with Jesus, the significance of which he realizes only years later. One of the novel's greatest achievements is the historical density of facts of 1st century life - there are digressions into Roman road-building techniques, the architecture of the Temple, the myriad coinage of the time from drachmas, dinars, shekels, sesterces, talents and seemingly dozens of others, the life of galley slaves, the laborious process of winnowing wheat, mechanical engineering of the ancient world, the system of Roman taxation, not to mention the elimination habits of Essenes. The result of this accumulation is to immerse the reader in the mundane and gritty details of daily life as well as the larger political, religious, philosophical and historical tensions of the time with its intrigues, assassinations and corruptions - we go from high to low and back again. One can understand this world only, as we do our own, in all its three dimensionality, micro- and macro-scopically.
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