Books in brief

"The Fall of Troy"

by Peter Ackroyd

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 212 pp., $23

No adventurer personifies the late 19th century romantic obsession with archaeology and ancient civilizations so vividly as Heinrich Schliemann, the amateur German archaeologist associated with the unearthing of Troy.

An entrepreneur who became wealthy by war profiteering, among other methods, Schliemann was a brilliant, self-educated polymath who believed that Homer's stories about the Trojan Wars were not merely poetry but also history. Through unbridled ambition, a craving for recognition, an enormous ego and a highly elastic moral code that allowed him to discard or manufacture ancient "treasures" to support his historical theories, Schliemann became a controversial character in his own day, as journalists, scholars and politicians debated over whether he was a genius or a grave robber.

Given all the nonfiction that has been written about Schliemann and his archaeological explorations in northwestern Turkey, it takes a courageous author to tackle a novel based on Schliemann. But Peter Ackroyd, the prolific English author who has written acclaimed nonfiction as well as historical novels about such people as Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare, has taken Schliemann for the main character in his deft, brief new novel, "The Fall of Troy."

Though Schliemann is called Heinrich Obermann in Ackroyd's story, Ackroyd uses many of the exact details of Schliemann's life, including his marriage in his late 40s to a well-educated, young Greek woman named Sophia, who accompanies him to Turkey and the excavation that he believes is Troy.

Of course much of "The Fall of Troy" is fiction, including the dark ending. But with his flair for historical detail, Ackroyd offers insights into the politics, imperialistic attitudes and unapologetic racism that fueled the 19th century Western mania for digging up other people's histories and carting the archaeological loot back to Europe and the United States. Ackryod also paints a convincing psychological portrait of a man so driven by his intellectual passions that he is capable of undertaking nearly any subterfuge or crime.

Reviewed by Robin Updike

"Cheating at Canasta"

by William Trevor

Viking, 232 pp., $24.95

In his 50-year writing career, William Trevor has shown himself to be a masterful chronicler of the human spirit, with all its hopes, fears, darkness and joy. "Cheating at Canasta" is a collection of 12 short stories illuminating the lives and times of his fellow U.K.-ers, although his themes transcend geography. His style has become even more spare and elliptical, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. The storytelling is not always linear; rather, it is, like life, filled with revelations, reversals and unexpected corners.

In the title story, a recent widower returns to Harry's Bar in Venice, fulfilling a promise made to his wife when she realized she would never see Venice again. He is distracted from his solitary musing by the sotto voce bickering of a young couple seated near him. When they leave, he exchanges greetings with them, eventually letting them know why he is there alone and thereby restoring them to one another.

Trevor's subtlety is present throughout all the stories; in "Men of Ireland" he makes the reader wonder if the confrontation between the priest and the young man is based on reality or simply the need to extort something from the Church as recompense for an impoverished youth. In "A Perfect Relationship" Trevor tells of a middle-age night-school teacher and a young woman, his student, breaking up and perhaps coming back together. He knows, and she doesn't, that she would be coming back for all the wrong reasons.

"At Olivehill" addresses issues of family, land and the inevitability of change. The children of Mollie and James are ready to sell off much of their land to developers who will build a golf course. James is ill and Mollie insists that her grown children not bother him with their plan. After James' death, Mollie feels that she has betrayed him by not letting her family hear from him that he will not stand for it.

These are stories about the warp and woof of ordinary lives, all woven with Trevor's expected taxonomic genius; he owns the short story.

Reviewed by Valerie Ryan

"The Quiet Girl"

by Peter Høeg,

translated by Nadia Christensen

Farrar, Straus & Giroux,

408 pp., $26

Peter Høeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow" (1993) was a captivating page-turner. "The Quiet Girl," on the other hand, is perplexing. A promising beginning quickly deteriorates into a cumbersome narrative with a series of preposterous twists, a catalog of undeveloped characters and an unsatisfying conclusion.

Forty-two-year-old Kaspar Krone, an internationally famous former circus clown, has a unique skill. He can "access people's acoustic essence, especially children's." One cold April day in Copenhagen, the title character, 10-year-old KlaraMaria (who resonates as E-flat major) appears in Kaspar's courtyard along with two "catastrophic" D-minor adults. Who is this quiet girl and what does she have to do with Kaspar Krone? That is the one underwhelming question this overlong novel sets out to solve.

Perhaps she can save him from being shipped to Spain as a result of an investigation for tax evasion. Perhaps she can help him solve the riddle of why Copenhagen appears to be flooded after a series of earthquakes which may or may not have happened. Perhaps she has been kidnapped. Perhaps she is part of a cabal of 12 children with extraordinary psychic powers. Perhaps Kaspar and KlaraMaria have a deeper, more profound connection with each other.

The bloated narrative spins out of control with too many conjectures and too many uninteresting characters. These include the inhabitants of a mysterious convent/asylum — a nefarious Blue Lady and an abusive African nursing nun. There is a woman from Kaspar's past who may or may not be on his side and may be one or two characters. There is the suspicious government agency, Department H, where some undefined social or scientific experiments, perhaps involving the psychic circle of children, are being conducted. Even the fully dimensional Kaspar becomes tedious when he translates everything — from people to nature to concrete — into musical sounds.

"The Quiet Girl" tries to end with a big finish — one surprise piled on another. But what should have been a major revelation is conventional and exasperating.

Reviewed by Robert Allen Papinchak