Word: punic
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Dates: during 1963-1963
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...Coin of Carthage, by Bryher. The Punic Wars, seen not so much on the battlefronts as in the backwaters of living and in the private hopes and problems of small people...
...Maria or a drummer dragged along in the wake of Napoleon's march to Moscow. But the wispy, aging English heiress who calls herself Bryher and now lives permanently in Switzerland writes historical fiction in her own strange way. Her latest book covers some 40 years of the Punic wars. Characteristically, her two major characters never take part in, or talk about, any of the major battles. They are not attached to either army. For that matter, they are not even Roman or Carthaginian, but a pair of grubby Greek traders...
...Subtitles. Bryher's seemingly patchy method is likely to prove a relief to readers tired of overstuffed historical pageantry. But her assumption that anyone reading the book will know in large outline at least who won the Punic Wars and how is often disconcerting. As Trader Zonas leaves from his home in a seaport town and trudges into the hills with the hope of selling leather bridles to the Carthaginians, his small adventures at first seem fragmentary and meaningless-like a provocative foreign film seen without subtitles...