Plato Papers, The

Set 2,2000 years in the future, Peter Ackroyd's imagination new novel is by turns lively, inventive and surprising. Plato, the orator, summons the citizens of London on ritual occasions to impart the ancient history of their city. He dwells particularly on the unhappy era of Mouldwarp (AD 1500-2300), which existed before the dimming of the stars and the burning of the machines. He lectures upon The Origin of Species by the nineteenth-century novelist Charles Dickens and upon the pantomimic routines of Sigmund Freud. He even provides a glossary of twentieth-century terms, and explains such early myths of creation as super-string theory' and 'relatively'. But then something happens. He has a dream, or a vision, or he goes on a real journey - opinions are divided - and enters a vast underground cavern, where citizens of Mouldwrap London still live. When Plato returns with stories if this lost world he is put on trial for corrupting the youth by means of lies and fables, since his words have spread consternation among them. Are their lives part of some greater reality? And, if they learn to doubt, perhaps they will be able to recognize a truth beyond that of their own world. All will depend upon the judgment of Plato by his fellow citizens.