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gsnaith's review
5.0
The Cicero trilogy is a masterpiece of historical fiction. It sticks close to the current understood historical facts and breathes new life into the long dead actors of that distant stage.
Marcus Tullius Cicero is a hero of mine and often fictionalised amounts of his story seen to misrepresent him. Robert Harris does not. He presents a fully realised world of nuance, subtlety and life that gives you a VIP view of the last days of the Roman Republic over Cicero's shoulder, through the eyes of Tiro.
One of the few books/series that brought a tear to my eye but then Cicero always does that.
Long live the Republic. Long live Cicero.
Marcus Tullius Cicero is a hero of mine and often fictionalised amounts of his story seen to misrepresent him. Robert Harris does not. He presents a fully realised world of nuance, subtlety and life that gives you a VIP view of the last days of the Roman Republic over Cicero's shoulder, through the eyes of Tiro.
One of the few books/series that brought a tear to my eye but then Cicero always does that.
Long live the Republic. Long live Cicero.
ristopakarinen's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic book by a masterful storyteller. Harris makes history come alive.
rshirtliff's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
jakejake's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
art_h's review against another edition
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
isabelle_963's review against another edition
"Cycero jest psychicznym i moralnym tchórzem, człowiekiem próżnym i chełpliwym, a przede wszystkim hipokrytą, wiecznie zmieniającym front, żeby przypodobać się różnym frakcjom, do tego stopnia, że nawet jego własny brat i bratanek, opuścili go i zadencjunowali Cezarowi"
gilroi's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
How do you rate a book that is, in matters of prose and pacing and theme, excellent, but utterly fails what you, personally, want it to do? This is a problem I've wrestled with in the entirety of Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy, and at its closing, I am left unable to answer.
The book itself is entirely concerned with Cicero. Cicero's life, and Cicero's dreams, and Cicero's death. Cicero as a man, and Cicero's ambitions. It is barely interested in Rome as a polity, largely letting any commentary on the state of Rome serve as a metaphor for the state of either Germany before and during Hitler's rise to power, or a sort of warning for England-- pick your least favorite PM, and Caesar is him, just as Caesar is occasionally Hitler.
I am not interested in this metaphor. I am barely interested in Cicero as a man. Cicero has received an amount of attention, since his death and during his life, that was controlled expertly from beyond the grave. The book plays with this theme a little, but it's afraid to castigate Cicero, who it places in a role of most atheistic martyrdom. Cicero's reputation is sacrosanct within the book and outside it-- people love Cicero today, piling him with praise and adulation, writing fiction about him, studying his words two millennium after his death. That's the world we live in, and it's the world of the book.
And that's the <i>scope</i> of the book. The book doesn't <i>want</i> to talk about Cicero's flaws-- the big flaws, the human failings, not the political missteps and gaffes-- and that's usually fine for me. I try to pay attention to what a book actually <i>wants</i> to do, so I'm not disappointed by it failing to live up to an impossible standard that I've created in my head.
So why am I so disappointed with this book and the series in general, even though it expertly does everything it sets out to do?
The books are narrated by Tiro, an enslaved man. Tiro is possibly one of, if not the most, famous enslaved people to have lived in ancient Rome. Tiro tells this story, but it's not Tiro's story. Tiro talks about Cicero, a man who owned him, with rapturous praise. Cicero never mistreats Tiro, because Cicero is a good master. Indeed, there is almost no mistreatment of slaves throughout the entire trilogy, because then the writing would have to focus on the lives of slaves and question whether a state that allowed, endorsed, and arguably <i>ran on</i> slavery was moral or immoral. Harris doesn't care about that, so he skips it, but I care about it, and its total absence from this trilogy, written from the perspective of an enslaved man, feels like a yawning chasm at the heart of the story.
The book itself is entirely concerned with Cicero. Cicero's life, and Cicero's dreams, and Cicero's death. Cicero as a man, and Cicero's ambitions. It is barely interested in Rome as a polity, largely letting any commentary on the state of Rome serve as a metaphor for the state of either Germany before and during Hitler's rise to power, or a sort of warning for England-- pick your least favorite PM, and Caesar is him, just as Caesar is occasionally Hitler.
I am not interested in this metaphor. I am barely interested in Cicero as a man. Cicero has received an amount of attention, since his death and during his life, that was controlled expertly from beyond the grave. The book plays with this theme a little, but it's afraid to castigate Cicero, who it places in a role of most atheistic martyrdom. Cicero's reputation is sacrosanct within the book and outside it-- people love Cicero today, piling him with praise and adulation, writing fiction about him, studying his words two millennium after his death. That's the world we live in, and it's the world of the book.
And that's the <i>scope</i> of the book. The book doesn't <i>want</i> to talk about Cicero's flaws-- the big flaws, the human failings, not the political missteps and gaffes-- and that's usually fine for me. I try to pay attention to what a book actually <i>wants</i> to do, so I'm not disappointed by it failing to live up to an impossible standard that I've created in my head.
So why am I so disappointed with this book and the series in general, even though it expertly does everything it sets out to do?
The books are narrated by Tiro, an enslaved man. Tiro is possibly one of, if not the most, famous enslaved people to have lived in ancient Rome. Tiro tells this story, but it's not Tiro's story. Tiro talks about Cicero, a man who owned him, with rapturous praise. Cicero never mistreats Tiro, because Cicero is a good master. Indeed, there is almost no mistreatment of slaves throughout the entire trilogy, because then the writing would have to focus on the lives of slaves and question whether a state that allowed, endorsed, and arguably <i>ran on</i> slavery was moral or immoral. Harris doesn't care about that, so he skips it, but I care about it, and its total absence from this trilogy, written from the perspective of an enslaved man, feels like a yawning chasm at the heart of the story.
hans_erik's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
3.5
jackevans1295's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0