The Journeys of Socrates

March 28, 2005
In his landmark 1980 novel, Way of the Peaceful Warrior,
Millman blended fact and fiction to tell the story of a young man whose life is transformed by his encounter with a mysterious sage named Socrates. In this intriguing follow-up, Socrates takes center stage. It's late 19th-century Russia, and young Sergei Ivanov has been drafted into training to become one of the czar's elite guards. When Sergei saves the life of a brutal fellow student, Dmitri Zakolyev, during a difficult training exercise, he knows this act has actually made him an enemy. Dmitri humiliated by his weakness, gets back at Sergei years later when he becomes part of a pogrom to hunt down Jews; during a chance encounter, Dmitri wounds Sergei, who is part Jewish, and kills his pregnant wife, Anya. After a suicide attempt that leads to a kind of vengeance-oriented enlightenment, Sergei studies with a series of masters to perfect his warrior skills. Millman's narration clips along, and he does a fine job with period flourishes. But the extended training chapters suffer from clichés of character and narrative, and dampen the suspense. A shocking surprise about the fate of Sergei's unborn child and a ham-fisted meeting between Sergei and his rival strain credibility, but Millman's fluid storytelling makes this an easy read. Agent, Candice Fuhrman
.