Cicero, Dante, and Vichy France:

I just finished reading Iain Pears' Dream of Scipio, a historical novel about a fifth century manuscript. In it, Roman Gallic aristocrat Manlius writes the Dream, a work of essentially Manichean philosophy sort of based on the Cicero work of the same name. Olivier de Troyen, an early Renaissance poet seen as the precursor of Dante, finds and copies the manuscript and tries to understand it as an orthodox work since Manlius is revered as a saint in Provence. And Julien Barneuve, a French classicist and collaborationist tries to reconcile the historical Manlius with the saintly bishop through this work in 1944.

This book had everything I love in a book: different time periods, some interesting philosophy, not entirely sympathetic main characters (Manlius massacres Jews to assure his place as bishop of Vaison, Olivier betrays his master who had always been good to him, Julien is a collaborationist and probably a coward). Somehow, I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. The plot was strong enough, but I didn't buy the character's motivations and I found several central actions (this is a book with three climaxes) unconvincing. The characterisations seemed a bit off.

Pears raises interesting philosophical questions about love, betrayal, and security/order, and the book is worth reading for that, as well as for an interesting plot that nicely blends three different time periods. But it could have been so much more.