Tides of War by Steven Pressfield

Phew! It's been a while since my last review, and it's because I've been reading this book. Now, as usual I'll throw in some background: I bought this book on a whim, because I'm mildly interested in Greek culture, but I'm not a great fan of historical fiction generally. I'd put off reading this book for years, literally, but I'd finally got around to reading it... mostly because I'd ran out of other books I particularly wanted to read. So, I think you have to read this review realising this isn't my first choice in style of book. But you can find gems in other genres, so I thought it's worth a try.

This is a novel based around the life of Alcibiades of Athens and his involvement in the Peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens around 430-400BC. The historical context is probably best left to wikipedia, but in the book, Alcibiades is an Athenian leader, a disciple of Socrates and a talented general. He is audacious, inspiring and a marmite-like person: he's either adored or despised. He is raised upon a pedestal by people, and cut down as his enemies conspire against him; time and time again his plans for the general good of the people are sabotaged by others' schemes for personal power.

The story is told mainly from the perspective of one Polemides, a loose friend and associate of Alcibaides, who interacts indirectly and directly throughout Polemides' career as a soldier and mercenary. Perhaps this is one of my favourite things about this book. There is a lovely contrast between Alcibiades and Polemides, the former a great hero brought low by intrigue and political wrangling, and Polemides, a much more lowly soldier, brought even lower mostly by his association with Alcibiades.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. I knew I'd find it difficult, and I did. I struggled through parts of it, having a lack of interest. But at the same time I really liked the story; I feel it was told well, it had interesting characters and situations, and the world is really brought to life, with down to earth writing, comments about day to day life and realistic emotions. I cannot say how accurate it is historcially, but I think it is close enough, and it's certainly a good story. I don't even think you could easily change it to make it better - eg making it shorter would take out some of the detail which makes it good. I think I just don't like the subject matter enough to really enjoy it.

I'll go back to the people, actually. The characters are really good. They're realistic. No hero is without fault, no villain so bad they can be universally hated. Throughout the book people philosophise about events and about other people, and the futility of a lot of the situations is brought out; the inevitable rejection of Alcibiades by whoever he's with despite what he does for them is a major theme. I like this, it makes the book more interestng, more intelligent.

So I suppose I will say I think this book is really good. It's written well, it's got a great story, it's got lovely characters, and it's a reasonable mix of action and background story (it's not very heavy on the action, though, if that's what you like). However, I don't think I'd read it again, and I'm not sure I'd buy another book by Steven Pressfield. It's just not my style. But if you like historical fiction I'd make a guess this book would be great.

Score? 7. I probably only enjoyed it as much as a 6 or possibly even a 5... but it's a good book, and I can't let the fact that it's not in my favourite style blind me to this too much.

7/10