The Magic Circle: A Novel

Be prepared for a whirlwind of ideas, surprises, time jumping, and a family tree that has branches so heavily overlapping that you need to note it down--have a pad and pen ready!But truly, the book has a unique flavor all its own. I've read it as well as the other comments, and I'm frankly surprised by those who think that Katherine Neville is trying to keep a 'trend' that is supposed to be a 'winning formula'. Writers have a style, and Neville's style of taking jumps from time to time is very well plotted and maneveured. It can keep you spellbound. If someone says the book is boring, I hope curious readers will take my word for it that it is absolutely not.I can't say enough about 'The Magic Circle'--history buffs, and all those who love to speculate about certain historical figures, will find them coming to life in all kinds of ways and presented in a different light altogether. This story is full of subtle nuances of human psychology, intelligence--oh dear me yes, is it ever intelligence--power, family, and love. Lust plays its role, but it's not what the story evolves around, and I agree completely that Neville has produced 'quality fiction'.Doubtless for some it may seem that Neville has written out of her time (no pun intended). I prefer to call her work timeless.

When this book first came out, I wrote one of the very first reviews of it (This is a brilliant book, but is it a good book? Feb 22, 1998.) I have received many letters, both from Neville's devoted fans as well as comments from my own colleagues about those initial thoughts I jotted down.As an historian, as a lover of mysteries, and a devoted fan myself of Katherine Neville, I decided to take a good hard look at the review I wrote so long ago. In retrospect, I realize my review was neither fair nor completely accurate, and that it may have led to a great deal of misunderstanding on the part of other readers. I must admit that today it seems more of a gut level reaction to a book that, on first reading, had disturbed me deeply. But when I confronted those feelings, and especially when I realized that there were many readers, with perhaps less depth of sincere feeling than my own, who seem to have jumped on the bandwagon of something I wrote, in haste, so long ago, I thought I should be enough of a man to admit I might have made a serious error in judgment. I would therefore like to correct the impression I may have given to others.The real error of my review which I would like to address is when I accused Neville of setting herself up as a "self-proclaimed expert on the Bible, Torah, Greek history, Roman history, Ancient Civilization, the Gauls, the Celts, nuclear science, the beliefs and rituals of Native Americans," etcThis statement of mine has caused a lot of controversy because I then proceeded (or so I am told) to launch into a diatribe that made it sound as if I was presenting MYSELF as an expert in all those fields, and therefore in a position to judge her in each and every one of them. Nothing could have been further from my intention. Indeed, I have subsequently learned that Neville actually IS an expert in some of these things, and in others she really did her homework in a manner that would befit even the finest writers of historical fiction. For instance, I was mistaken in thinking she had never been in Russia, Vienna, or Paris, but had merely collated her descriptions from books. I learned that she has lived in all these places and that her descriptions were based on her experiences, just as with all those descriptions I loved so much that I AM acquainted with myself, like those of Marin, Sun Valley, the Snake River, and the Kootenai Wilderness.I also accused Neville of taking a "series of rumors, uncertainties, and guesses" and turning them into fact. As her readers have, quite rightly, objected to me, her book is presented as a work of fiction, not of history, so of course, she has a perfect right to make any such changes as she sees fit. That doesn't necessarily signify, however, that she has taken such liberties, and I was wrong to suggest, without any specific evidence, that she ever has.The real eye-opener for me, was when several of my own colleagues who are grounded in the classics pointe

I don't have much time for fiction these days, but I read both the Eight and Magic Circle straight through. Neville is a rarity among modern writers...she obviously has the intelligence and strength of character to get past the formulaic machinery that publishers have been clamping down on popular fiction. The ambition and eruditon in her novels is remarkable enough. More importantly, they represent a real return to the authorial imagination that has been squuezed out of literature-as-mass commodity over the last few decades. To read Neville is to encounter an amazing intellect, a great story teller, and a teacher with the ability to make you rethink basic assumptions about western culture.Incidentally, having read the other readers reviews, it seems as though some witless cabal is inventing a dreary reaction against her book. Please note the preponderance of high reviews before this month, and the variety of the reviews before this month. Lately they seem all characterized by the same barely literate sentence fragments, key words, and one star rating, and a lack of ownership...a pattern that the managers of this board should investigate

Out of curiosity I happened to read the reviews of Katherine Neville's The Magic Circle, and I was shocked to find that many of them seemed cranky, almost hostile toward the author. I wondered--why? I read the book on a coast-to-coast flight last spring, and I don't think I even raised my eyes the whole time it was such a satisfying experience. Neville is such a good writer, the plot was a puzzle of course (her speciality), and her characters zany, interesting women. Ah. Is that it? The women are truly Characters, all of them, but especially the heroine, Aphra Behn, is a free-wheeling, liberated, unnattached, cool, autonomous female at the center of a murder mystery involving world governments and reincarnational events. And Neville herself is such a brainy, funny, polished writer--a woman with eccentricities and a mind like the net woven by Spider Woman. Sure, I couldn't keep all the details in my head either (one of the main complaints of the reader reviews), but so what? It's a mystery for heaven's sake. It's a novel. It's for relaxing, and in the meantime you get to find out fascinating details about the Cumaean Sybil, the Goddess and her dying god, corruption in the nuclear power industry, Native American initiation ceremonies, and SO MUCH MORE! Maybe Neville's books will have to start carrying a warning label: NOT FOR ANYONE WITH A SHORT ATTENTION SPAN; or maybe better yet, FOR BRAINY WOMEN ONLY ( & the men who love them).

The Magic Circle is a wonderful, fascinating adventure novel. After her cousin's violent death (or so we think), Ariel Behn, a nuclear security expert in Idaho, finds herself heir to a mysterious collection of manuscripts which contain the key to an ancient and powerful secret. In addition to Ariel's story, which is set in 1989, The Magic Circle contains many historical elements; as she travels across Europe, where her boss has sent her, Ariel discovers many secrets about her extremely complex family, all of whom were involved in the search for the secret in the manuscripts. There is also a parallel plot set in ancient Rome, Jerusalem, and Britain, involving many historical figures. Katherine Neville's knowledge of history is amazing! I learned so much from reading this book, just as I did from reading her novel The Eight. I didn't think it was quite as good as The Eight, but that's not saying much, since The Eight is my favorite novel of all time. In particular, I thought the ending was a bit anticlimactic, and some of the revelations about Ariel's family were a little hard to take. But these are only minor complaints. I still consider The Magic Circle one of my favorite books.