title: The Nature of Blood
author:  Caryl Phillips 
description: Like his earlier works, the novels <a href="/exec/obidos/ISBN=0679736891/${0}"><i>Cambridge</i></a> and <a href="/exec/obidos/ISBN=0679757945/${0}"><i>Crossing the River</i></a>, Caryl Phillips's <i>The Nature of Blood</i> is made up of several stories that take place over a large span of time. The result of this innovative technique is that themes, characters, and incidents resonate against one another, and history is seen not as a straight line but as a circle or a spiral. In one story, a Jewish man abandons his family to fight for the state of Israel. In another, the Moor Othello, another soldier who has left his family, comes to Venice. There, he visits the Jewish ghetto and finds himself astounded that "they should choose to live in this manner." Phillips's most daring feat in this provocative and thoughtful novel, however, may be to write in the first person about a Holocaust survivor just after World War II.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  # Royal Blood
  
  
  ## And One Commitment
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Simone Nicholls
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2020 by Simone Nicholls
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
  mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
  written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in
  a book review.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Untitled](part0003.html#2RHM0-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 1](part0004.html#3Q280-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 2](part0005.html#4OIQ0-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 3](part0006.html#5N3C0-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 4](part0007.html#6LJU0-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 5](part0008.html#7K4G0-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 6](part0009.html#8IL20-ea94148662a541ee89a62e0deb9aa0dc)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 7](part0010.