Paperbacks: Boy CaesarThe Green and the GoldThe ParthenonIrish Peacock and Scarlet MarquessStevenson Under the Palm Trees

Boy Caesar by Jeremy Reed (PETER OWEN £11.95)

In the roll of those later Roman emperors who blundered, belched and burned their way to catastrophe, the strange, androgynous figure of Heliogabalus has seemed to many chroniclers barely worth a mention. But for Jim, a gay student, haunting in modern Soho, the boy-emperor's short and lurid reign offers a glimpse of an empire which could have taken a more tolerant, more pacific direction. But there are troubles closer to home. His boyfriend, Danny, has become an acolyte in a sado-masochistic cult whose leader, a wraithlike "saint" called Slut, has not taken Jim's repugnance for his religion well. Fleeing to Rome with his friend Masako, Jim finds tokens of the boy Caesar's presence everywhere, and begins to wonder if some reincarnation of him is abroad.

Reed is nothing if not bold. From the outset, he is determined to root the world of Heliogabalus in the now, so images drawn from technology abound. But the effect soon palls when you realise that these are employed with no regard for their applicability. The characters' dialogue shows not the slightest trace of individuality - bar the token "mmm" which signals yet another platitude from Masako. Jim is obsessed with clouds, though we never discover why. Random detail dissipates any drive. Above all, the prose stinks of the lamp. Almost every page is crushed by a great juggernaut of exposition. This would be pardonable were it not for the fact that the thoughts analysed err on the side of the obvious. I'd give examples, only they'd take up most of the remaining space. We want to see work, not working.

Suspense, it need hardly be added, is the first casualty of this corrosive earnestness. The spectacle of a writer clearly capable of profound and subtle thought, not to mention exquisite imagery, wheezing beneath the weight of analysis makes you despair. "You've got a novel here," proclaims Jim's tutor. No, we've got a thesis.

Were this a first novel, the position of the reviewer would be rather easier. I could say that it shows great promise, that it was grand in conception, full of delicate and beautiful conceits, and deeply erudite - I would be able, in short, to wish the author well. Unfortunately, this option is not open. Reed is established, he is a name. So it's hard to avoid the suspicion that this is indeed a book which has been dug out and dusted down: a bottle from the vaults which has been left too long.

The Green and the Gold by Christopher Peachment (PICADOR £7.99)

Even as a child Andrew Marvell was a poet; how else could he remember the smell of women as being "plowdery"? A perfect touch. This tale of the poet's inner history is charming, funny and rather poignant. Adoring his mother, hating yet desiring his sisters, Marvell emerges as a figure of the middle light, alternately cold, sensuous, pompous and passionate. The novel follows his progress as advisor to Cromwell, spy in Spain, intriguer at home and ambassador everywhere. Peachment is not afraid to chuck in more post-modern quips than you can shake a copy of Who's Who at: Kandinsky appears as a decorator, and figures from the songs of Tom Lehrer sprout everywhere. A magnificent but hapless 1960s matador appears here as a dark and princely Englishman who's great at bullfighting but crap at spying. Milton, rather predictably, is gruff, Rochester still rakish but with a sweet touch of incompetence. The style never quite settles down, but this doesn't matter; what Peachment has caught perfectly is the odd blend of ingenuousness and disillusion shared by so many poets. The ending comes as a nihilistic shock, as the poet, bleached of all feeling, looks over a life of timid hedonism and his missed chance of love.

The Parthenon by Mary Beard (PROFILE £8.99)

  byron wept at it, Freud didn't think it existed, Tagore condemned its "barbarian ugliness" and Evelyn Waugh compared it to Stilton cheese. The Parthenon, as the author observes, was not the biggest or the best of its kind, ancient writers barely mention it, but its fascination endures. There are several explanations for this, all of which are covered with wit and insight here. The sometimes smug parentheses aside, this is a magnificently taut and readable study. The Parthenon is a ruin, so has the romance of decay; it has been violated, so inspires an almost empathetic pity, and it has endured, so provokes respect. Then there's that business with the marbles lost to Elgin, and the metaphorical marbles lost by Greece as a result. The Parthenon was paid for by the Delian League, allies of Athens who found themselves vassals. The world's most famous pagan temple was erected only as an expression of imperial power: it hosted no rites until it became a church. Beard wryly notes: "Like many superpowers, Athens saw no contradiction between democratic freedom at home and aggressive imperialism overseas."

Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess ed Merlin Holland (FOURTH ESTATE £8.99)

This is the fullest transcript of Oscar Wilde's lawsuit against his lover's deranged father to date, and it makes for horrible, and horribly exhilarating reading. Several preconceptions are dashed. Wilde did not merely play to the gallery; confronted by aggression, he responded with defiance. "Don't call me sir," he snaps at one point. Wilde's counsel Edward Clarke comes across as a helpless bear worried at the throat by Carson's relentless terrier. This book reminds you that the court room is in large measure the prototype of the theatre: the in and out exchanges, the warp of tension built and then as suddenly defused, the horrible sense of inevitable crisis. Merlin Holland's introduction is balanced and involving. He raises, for example, the issue of the legality of a conviction based on witnesses who had, effectively, been bribed. Carson, like Wilde, was not afraid to overreach: the text makes it clear that over Wilde's attitude to Huysman's A Rebours, Carson simply made a fool of himself. But he recovered, pulled back, seeking other weaknesses. Perhaps the bitterest tragedy of this tragic trial was that Wilde did not see that he was up against one of his own: an artist.

Stevenson Under the Palm Trees by Alberto Manguel (CANONGATE £7.99)

In this fictionalised account of Robert Louis Stevenson's last days in the island of Samoa, all at first seems idyllic. He loves the joy and innocence of the Samoans themselves, his work is proceeding well, his mother has surprised him by her whole-hearted enthusiasm for their life in Samoa, and his wife, Fanny, remains his best critic and most devoted nurse. But there are tremors in this serenity. A strange, clearly fanatical missionary called Mr Baker has appeared, Stevenson's consumption begins to take a turn for the worse, and the noon-day devil in him is stirred by a beautiful young dancer. When the dancer is found raped and murdered, Stevenson's hat on the scene, the author is at first merely puzzled. When the village tavern is burned down and the villagers turn hostile glances on him, he is horrified, but still as a spectator. The missionary has another explanation, that Stevenson's longings are taking hideous shape while his body sleeps, and that he, Baker, is the midwife to these desires. Though this is richly told in faultless prose, it remains a little thin. Here's a novella which should have become a novel.