Purple and Black by K.J. Parker
You have to love a story that starts out with the line, “You are, of course, an unmitigated bastard.”
Purple and Black is a collection of the military dispatches sent back and forth between the new Roman Emperor Nicephorus and his best friend Phormio, who has reluctantly taken charge of the military at Nico’s insistence. Nico is appointing his friends to the important government positions because the empire has gone through seventy-seven emperors in the last one hundred years — all but a handful of them dying painful deaths. Official business of the Empire is written in purple ink, but there is enough room in the dispatch tubes for one extra sheet of paper, and here, written in pedestrian black, we learn the true story behind the official business. The novella is actually printed in purple and black ink.
One of the delights of being a reviewer is being given a book by an author I have never read before and finding a gem. I giggled and snickered through many of the letters, and I laughed until I had tears rolling down my cheeks at one point. K.J. Parker unerringly captures the relationship between two college buddies who are thrust into situations for which they were not prepared. Nico becomes emperor because his father, uncles, and older brothers all killed each other in a civil war. Phormio is a political philosopher and a college instructor, so he leads the military from a text book. Many of the letters cover the darker territory of wartime tragedies, but Purple and Black‘s tone swings back and forth between lighthearted teasing and weighty affairs of state, and Parker manages the transitions seamlessly.
I thoroughly enjoyed Purple and Black. Though the big reveal was obvious a mile away, the way it was handled by the characters added a level of heartbreaking reality to the story. In this short volume, Parker wrestles with the issues of idealism, pragmatism, friendship, loyalty and power in such an interesting, entertaining, and complex manner that I’m considering assigning Purple and Black in my next political theory class. (Yes, like Phormio I teach political theory in college, which may have been why I found him so incredibly funny; I could see myself doing the same things he did if I had suddenly been put in charge of the Roman army!)
The true identity of K.J. Parker may be a mystery, but the high quality of her (his?) writing is no secret. I highly recommend Purple and Black for a fast enjoyable read. After this introduction to Parker’s work, I will be definitely seeking out more books by her (him?) in the future.
~Ruth Arnell (2009)
Purple and Black is one of Subterranean Press’s novella-length books, and a very fine one, too. It is an epistolary novel, containing letters between an emperor — one whose empire seems very Roman in character — and the former schoolmate he has appointed as the governor of Upper Tremissis, a province that is the focus of an insurgency. Official communications between the two are written in flowerly language in purple ink: “Phormio begs to inform his His Majesty that he has safely arrived at Tremissis City, and has assumed control of the civil and military administration.” The less formal and much lengthier portion of any message is written in the vernacular, in black:
You are, of course, an unmitigated bastard. Not content with dragging me away from my chair at Anassus, which I worked bloody hard to earn and which will not go to that pinhead Atho, you made me waste three months of my life in a military academy, of all places, and now you’ve dumped me here, in the last place on earth, surrounded by snow, soldiers and savages. What the hell did I ever do to you?
Obviously, the former school friend persona is more in evidence than the formal governor persona; and the emperor responds in the same form. It’s clear that both men are young and still idealistic, thrust into positions of power that they’re smart enough to handle as an intellectual exercise, but a bit too naïve to manage as well as more seasoned men might. It’s one thing to read about how to handle an insurgency in Art of War, and pretty much as easy to order soldiers to perform a certain task, but quite a different one to deal with the consequences.
One would suppose that a book about an insurgency and how the government deals with it would either be relatively dry or entirely vicious — or a combination of both. This book isn’t. It’s moving: sad, even bittersweet, much more emotionally touching than I expected when I picked it up. It is so well-written that the reader genuinely feels he knows these characters, and their dilemmas. Seeing what happens to them, then, is painful. This was not the military drama I expected, but something much more.
Purple and Black was my introduction to Parker, and I intend to read everything (s)he ever wrote, over time. I’m delightedly anticipating the hours I’ll be spending in the worlds (s)he’s created.
~Terry Weyna (2013)
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