Essay Questions

What violent event is described in the novel?

The narrator describes from the prologue the place where the action takes place as being one where countless people died and where countless bodies were left unburied. The violent events described in the novel took place between the Celts and the Romans between the 2th and the 5th century. During this time period, the Roman Empire tried to take over the territory known today as France through a series of violent battles. The Celts were persecuted for a long period of time and even enslaved by the Romans. Because of these appalling conditions, many Celtic tribes rebelled against the Romans but their rebellions were often crushed by the Roman forces.

What was the profession of Ned’s parents?

In the novel, Ned accompanies his father on a two-month trip to France where he was working on a project. Ned’s father is presented as a being a world-renowned photographer whose next project was composing a photo book of France. There are little information given about Ned’s mother and she is only mentioned in a few paragraphs. From those paragraphs, the reader finds Ned’s mother was a member of Doctors without Borders and at the time when the action in the novel was taking place she was in Sudan, working. While the narrator does not clearly state the relationship between Ted’s parents, it is mentioned Ted was worried for his mother who was working in a war zone.

What could the image of the bull symbolize?

An image which appears time and time again is a carving of a bull inside the Church on a wall dating back to the time when the Romans were the dominating power in the area. The bull appears in many artifacts dating from the Roman time and the bull is linked with the traditional Roman way of life and the way in which the Romans viewed religion. Bulls were often sacrificed in Roman times and were seen as sacred animals. The bulls are also symbolic animals, linked with the idea of rebirth and vitality, something which is also linked with the major character in the novel and with Ysabel as well.