Quo Vadis

First, I want to be clear about which edition of "Quo Vadis" I am reviewing here: it is the edition from Hippocrene Books, ISBN 0781805503, translated by W.S. Kuniczak. I spell this out because I believe the translation is of great importance. Kuniczak already cut his teeth with a splendid version of Sienkiewicz's "trilogy." I really ordered this book out of curiosity. "Quo Vadis" was the generally-accepted American view of Nero's Rome and the rise of Christianity when I was a boy: the mammoth film spectacle was released in 1951. Yet it seems pretty certain that the "narrative" presented by "Quo Vadis" --- "Christianity good, Roman paganism bad" --- is pretty much dead in the water (or, even worse, a laughingstock) by the early years of the 21st century. I was also curious to look at one of the very first global best-sellers: "Quo Vadis" was translated into 40 languages, and sold millions of copies. What surprised me was that reading just the first five or ten pages really hooked me. The book starts out as a passionate love story: the patrician pagan Vinicius, by all accounts a phenomenally handsome man who lives at the top of the pagan status-heap, is stricken by a fatal love-at-first-sight for a girl he does not even know. A few more pages, and canny readers will understand that the girl, Lygia, is a secret Christian --- and then you start wondering how all this is going to work out. Besides that, the novel's most memorable character is Petronius, who is master of the revels for the megalomaniac Nero. He is at first scornful of Vinicius's "total love" for Lygia, but he is a very intelligent (if cynical) man who is finally forced to admit that, in this case (as in others) Aphrodite and Eros are the supreme gods guiding human affairs. And then Sienkiewicz begins raising the question --- sometimes gently, and sometimes forcefully --- a question which boils down to "which side are you on?" Despite all of our sentimentality about "the grandeur of Rome," is it not finally self-evident that Rome had to be destroyed, and replaced? If you doubt that, then reflect on the massive amount of slavery, tyranny, sadism, and cruelty which was the daily fare in Rome. Even if you have only seen "Gladiator," you have a good idea of what the Romans considered to be a good show --- men and beasts slaughtering one another to entertain the masses. Sienkiewicz also provides good insights into pagan philosophy (mostly via Petronius). On the other side, you meet the secret and persecuted community of Christians, along with memorable portraits of St. Peter and St. Paul. In sum: I found this to be a fascinating and very well researched historical novel. Biased? Of course it's biased. Everyone who picks this book up will probably be biased as well. But biased towards which side? :-) If you are a fan of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," this is probably a good volume to read at the same time. And it's a fascinating story.

Though I love Church history and have read many of the writings of the Chrurch Fathers (mainly 1st & 2nd cent) I have never come upon anything like this novel. Sienkiewicz (an author unknown to me before discovering Quo Vadis) creates an extraordinarily detailed and vivid spiritual and psychological landscape of 1st cent Rome, both pagan and Christian. With a story line that grips the attention and keeps the pages turning, one meets Nero and several of the members of his vast, opulent household, the ruling class of Rome, dripping with unthinkable excess, decadence, intrigue and vacuity: lives despairing of meaning and transcendence, self-medicated with sensuality. And then you meet the followers of the new and strange religion, grossly misunderstood and mistrusted, and you begin to enter their secret lives and to understand them too. The followers of one they call Christ live in the same time and place - but in a completely different world, a world known by hope in a Kingdom infinitely greater than that "beautiful" one built by "the divine" Nero. In the novel, these two worlds collide with cataclysmic results. Externally, of course, we witness the gut-wrenching persecution of the Christians. But Sienkiewicz soars far higher as he opens the mind and heart of the reader to the internal conflict that this collision of worlds creates: the variety of responses in the persecutors ranging from heart-hardening indifference or even enthusiastic amusement and blood-lust to an awakening of conscience, a glimpse of the eternal and sometimes even to conversion. But even more poignant is the challenge to the persecuted: the temptation to despair, to disillusionment, the pleading prayer for deliverance, the self-abandonment in hope to the promises of Christ, and, finally, the supernatural gift of forgiveness and love that is at the heart of this new faith, a faith that is gently flowering in the hard, cruel soil of the ancient Pagan world. And it is, indeed, a faith that can only survive the darkness by a total and miraculous self-giving of love, both human and divine. In short, one meets real men and women in Quo Vadis, struggling with the most real and fundamental conflicts of human life. And though the story is set long ago in a land (for most of us) far away, the struggle it addresses is perennial because it is, recognized or not, the spiritual struggle of every human soul.

All time favourite...gave it as a gift and now everyone wants one :) fascinating love story in a troubled historical time. Truly engaging even for non Christians

ESTE LIBRO LO SOLICITE EN ESPAÑOL, ME LO ENVIARON EN INGLES. Que posibilidad habrá para que me lo enviaran en español.

Wonderful story, beautifully executed, full of remarkable portraits of different extremes in human nature, and a breath-taking accomplishment of seeking (and achieving) accuracy in historical fiction. It is an exquisite portrayal of the radical clash between the pre-Christian world and Christendom. Truly, an exceptional product.

This film seeks to give us some idea of what faced Christians in early Church history.

I bought it as a present for somebody, as I am Polish and I read it many times in my native language. The translation seems to be ok. For me it is one of the best book of great Polish literature. About forgivenes and love. 'The Greeks brought their wisdom, the Romans their law, what do you bring? Love - responded Peter'.