What do Ancient Rome and America have in common?  After recent events, writers such as Gore Vidal have suggested they both have Empires where one has fallen and the other is possibly destined for the same fate.  However, in Jose Luis De Juan's compelling novel, This Breathing World, they form the background to a dual story which spans both periods, two parallel narratives that weave themselves into one complex tale of dark desire. 

Starting out in Ancient Rome, the story follows the exploits of Syrian Mazuf, a scribe in a busy bookshop who shares a passion for literature and boys in equal measure. His lusts bring him success and notoriety in equal measure, but they both prove his undoing.  Laurence, on the other hand, is a new student a Harvard University during 1980s and narrates his own history.  He shares an equal passion for books and men, many of who he encounters in the library where he works. His clandestine relationships with both Harry, a married man, and Jonathan, a charismatic, popular student, unearth darker, murderous desires.

Not only does This Breathing World examine how books can change and shape lives - Mazuf learning to write and copy books demanded by patrons and Lauence working in a library - but also how books themselves are physically changed so that their meanings are altered  - Mazuf enhances (or 'improves') his given texts, whilst library Gibbons' classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is meticulously butchered and reassembled by successive Harvard students. 

Translated from Spanish, it reads with elegance and intelligence.  Jose Luids De Juan moves between the two stories with stylish dexterity. His prose is flavoured with historical description and lyrical language, but it gains added potency with the dangerous sexual nature of both tales, tinged with inevitable melancholy. It's a novel crafted with intelligent deliberation in structure and story telling, its pleasure gained from slowly absorbing the duality of its narrative.  There's an undoubted love of literary form, echoed in the characters' own passions, which drive the individual tales, as well as binding them together with multi-layered craftsmanship.  Echoes of writers such as John Updike and Alan Hollinghurst spill from the pages, but This Breathing World has a smouldering, unique voice that resonates long after the final chapter.