The book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a semi-historical novel loosely based on the lives, trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Doctorow tells the story of Paul and Rochelle Isaacson (corollaries to the Rosenbergs) through the persons of their older son, Daniel, and his sister, Susan, who are college students deeply involved in 1960s politics. The presentation constantly shifts through backflashes as Daniel faces his [and his sister's] inability to honestly tell his life story. While there are some crude descriptions/language in places, the novel as a whole is historically informative and instructive and socially thought provoking.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
3mentions
3people
2020–2026years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It’s hard to know what anyone considers the “usual greats”. Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature, but she doesn’t seem to make it into the “average” person’s greats list, possibly because her use of language is very much not grade 5. Try The Golden Notebook, The Summer Before the Dark, The Grass Is Singing, The Good Terrorist, The Fifth Child, or the series that starts with Shikasta.
E.L. Doctorow is another such example. Try The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, Loon Lake.
In the scifi genre (aside from the Shikasta series already mentioned), M. John Harrison is worth a look. He’s got a long bibliography but Light might be a good starting point.
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum.
Some of Ursula Le Guin’s more serious books might fit the bill, like The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness.
Someone already mentioned Mervyn Peake, he definitely fits this category.
- Read the Book of Daniel sometime.
- > Not a lot of records survived the bronze age collapse & its extended aftermath.
This is completely untrue. We have more bronze age records than we have manpower to translate them. We also have many tells that are going unexcavated. Bronze age records are not at all difficult to find. They are plentiful, largely due to being nearly indestructible when fired. (Early records were generally not fired intentionally, but they would be when a city was sacked. Later iron age records were intentionally fired.)
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
This is also untrue. Particularly in this case, where the absence of evidence is very strong evidence of absence. I'll quote from the book I mentioned sidethread:
> But it is not just a question of denying Nebuchadnezzar his rightful place as builder of the World Wonder on the suspect testimony of much later sources. As luck would have it, among the many building records of Nebuchadnezzar that have come to light from Babylon and other Babylonian cities, not least is the great East India House Inscription on stone which describes the building of his palace. The king was far from reticent about his achievements in building: the marvellous walls of the city as well as the wonderful temples and palaces; but he never mentions a garden.
> Later, Greek writers describe Babylon without referring to the garden. Chief among them is Herodotus, writing in the time of Artaxerxes I (464-424 BC) who would surely have mentioned that the city contained a World Wonder, whether he had seen it himself, or had relied on hearsay for his information. Much later the Roman writer Pliny the Elder described the city, again without referring to the garden. Equally surprising, the patchwork of texts in several different languages and widely divergent versions now known as the Alexander Romance does not mention it even though the final days and premature death of Alexander the Great in Babylon gave every opportunity to incorporate a reference at the very least to one of the world's marvels. There is no mention in the writings of Plutarch, or of Quintus Curtius Rufus, when they refer to Babylon. Nor does the Book of Daniel mention it; Nebuchadnezzar went up on to the roof of the royal palace to admire his city, but the tale does not mention the supposed garden.
Nebuchadnezzar is not alone, by the way, in providing exhaustive lists of things he built in large royal inscriptions. Not only do all Mesopotamian rulers commemorate their notable achievements this way -- construction was an activity holy to Marduk, the city god of Babylon.
