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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I can understand why people would like this book, but I found my mind wondering and was unable to concentrate on it or keep up on where the book was, it just wasn't for me I'm afraid.
When I finished this book, I wanted to worship it, cradle it in my arms to never let go. After I read a bit more of Marguerite Yourcenar, I wanted to worship her too.
This book is ten years of work that turned out to be a complete fictional memoir of the life of Emperor Hadrian. Yourcenar read all the books she could find about him, travelled to the places he visited, writing notes and then destroying them when they weren't enough.
And you can see all that work in this amazing book. It is almost a religious experience. You can see a life unfold before your eyes: a young man in Roman court that went to explore the vastness of the Roman Empire. It's not just storytelling, it is also a complex way of stating ideologic and metaphysical ways to see life and history. All this with a meticulous historical accuracy.
This book is one of the best historical books (fiction or non-fiction) I have ever read, hands down.
It is truly a journey into the empire, into history and, most of all, into a human being.
This book is ten years of work that turned out to be a complete fictional memoir of the life of Emperor Hadrian. Yourcenar read all the books she could find about him, travelled to the places he visited, writing notes and then destroying them when they weren't enough.
And you can see all that work in this amazing book. It is almost a religious experience. You can see a life unfold before your eyes: a young man in Roman court that went to explore the vastness of the Roman Empire. It's not just storytelling, it is also a complex way of stating ideologic and metaphysical ways to see life and history. All this with a meticulous historical accuracy.
This book is one of the best historical books (fiction or non-fiction) I have ever read, hands down.
It is truly a journey into the empire, into history and, most of all, into a human being.
I really wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't. The writing style was just not for me. I'm not sure if it was the translation, or the author intentionally wrote it this way. It just did not work for me. But there were a decent amount of lovely and powerful passages.
I also think it helps the reader to know the history of Hadrian and of his time. I went in knowing very little of Hadrian other than the fact that he named his successor Marcius Aurelius. There are a lot of reference to historical events in the novel that I wish I knew the history. I would have appreciated the author's craft of this historical fiction much more.
I also think it helps the reader to know the history of Hadrian and of his time. I went in knowing very little of Hadrian other than the fact that he named his successor Marcius Aurelius. There are a lot of reference to historical events in the novel that I wish I knew the history. I would have appreciated the author's craft of this historical fiction much more.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Written as though the author remembers instead of telling.
Distant and yet very touching and vibrant. Yourcenar makes the past timeless.
Distant and yet very touching and vibrant. Yourcenar makes the past timeless.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Yourcenar's Hadrian is a man of action and pleasure reflecting upon his life as it draws to a close. He's lived an uncertain life through 40, preparing for suicide to escape his enemies if Trajan doesn't make him emperor. But alas, Trajan's wife pulls through, and Hadrian's enemies are the ones who perish.
The novel is history come to life and one of the best-researched novels I've ever read. Historical fiction feels too hackneyed to describe the journey Yourcenar went through to write Memoirs of Hadrian. She attempted to start in her 20s but didn't write the first sentence in the final text until far later in her life. Five years were spent following Hadrian's footsteps across Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor. After 2000 years, Hadrian lives again through her words.
This book was just a pleasure to read. For anyone interested in Rome, philosophy, or tragic love stories, pick it up.
The novel is history come to life and one of the best-researched novels I've ever read. Historical fiction feels too hackneyed to describe the journey Yourcenar went through to write Memoirs of Hadrian. She attempted to start in her 20s but didn't write the first sentence in the final text until far later in her life. Five years were spent following Hadrian's footsteps across Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor. After 2000 years, Hadrian lives again through her words.
This book was just a pleasure to read. For anyone interested in Rome, philosophy, or tragic love stories, pick it up.
A wonderful book, beautifully written and profound in its examination of his life by a man reconciled to his approaching death. It reminded me of the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius, which was one of the highlights of my study of Roman History.
The following is the review I put up on MobileRead where the Literary Book Club is reading the book this month:
I was very impressed by it, both the beautiful prose and the immense scholarship which underpinned the work.
The Penguin edition I read also contains Yourcenar's Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian and in it she writes of retaining only one sentence from an early draft of the book, which was one which I noted as both beautiful and profound:
Quote:
Like a traveler sailing the Archipelago who sees the luminous mists lift toward evening, and little by little makes out the shore, I begin to discern the profile of my death. (page 16)
This one I also noted and appreciated for its wisdom:
Quote:
... each of us has to choose, in the course of his brief life, between endless striving and wise resignation, between the delights of disorder and those of stability, between the Titan and the Olympian ... To choose between them, or to succeed, at last, in bringing them into accord. (page 121)
And a quote from Yourcenar's reflections on writing the book:
Quote:
A human life cannot be graphed, whatever people may say, by two virtual perpendiculars, representing what a man believed himself to be and what he wished to be, plus a flat horizontal for what he actually was; rather, the diagram has to be composed of three curving lines, extended to infinity, ever meeting and ever diverging. (page 284)
A wise and beautiful book. I kept being reminded of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (the Mark for whom the memoirs are written), and I can't give higher praise than that. Here is a quote from Book 8 of the Meditations:
Quote:
The first rule is, to keep an untroubled spirit; for all things must bow to Nature's law, and soon enough you must vanish into nothingness, like Hadrian and Augustus. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are, remembering that it is your duty to be a good man. Do without flinching what man's nature demands; say what seems to you most just - though with courtesy, modesty, and sincerity.
The following is the review I put up on MobileRead where the Literary Book Club is reading the book this month:
I was very impressed by it, both the beautiful prose and the immense scholarship which underpinned the work.
The Penguin edition I read also contains Yourcenar's Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian and in it she writes of retaining only one sentence from an early draft of the book, which was one which I noted as both beautiful and profound:
Quote:
Like a traveler sailing the Archipelago who sees the luminous mists lift toward evening, and little by little makes out the shore, I begin to discern the profile of my death. (page 16)
This one I also noted and appreciated for its wisdom:
Quote:
... each of us has to choose, in the course of his brief life, between endless striving and wise resignation, between the delights of disorder and those of stability, between the Titan and the Olympian ... To choose between them, or to succeed, at last, in bringing them into accord. (page 121)
And a quote from Yourcenar's reflections on writing the book:
Quote:
A human life cannot be graphed, whatever people may say, by two virtual perpendiculars, representing what a man believed himself to be and what he wished to be, plus a flat horizontal for what he actually was; rather, the diagram has to be composed of three curving lines, extended to infinity, ever meeting and ever diverging. (page 284)
A wise and beautiful book. I kept being reminded of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (the Mark for whom the memoirs are written), and I can't give higher praise than that. Here is a quote from Book 8 of the Meditations:
Quote:
The first rule is, to keep an untroubled spirit; for all things must bow to Nature's law, and soon enough you must vanish into nothingness, like Hadrian and Augustus. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are, remembering that it is your duty to be a good man. Do without flinching what man's nature demands; say what seems to you most just - though with courtesy, modesty, and sincerity.