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j_m_alexander 's review for:
Augustus
by John Williams
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The life of Gaius Octavius, later to be named Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, told through letters and journals is a wonderous fictional undertaking of history, tragedy, intrigue, and romance. What we have hear is an infinitely readable patchwork of perspectives that is simultaneously distant from the primary character of Octavius and remarkably intimate with a number of characters within his orbit. Told in three distinctive parts, this book is informative, but constantly asking the reader to question history and truth for it's always a matter of the person doing the telling and, often even more importantly, the audience to whom they are writing.
“It shall be engraved upon bronze tablets and attached to those columns that mark the entrance to my mausoleum. Upon those columns there will be sufficient space for six of these tablets, and each of the tablets may contain fifty lines of about sixty characters each. Thus the statement of my acts must be limited to about eighteen thousand characters.
It seems to me wholly appropriate that I should have been forced to write of myself under these conditions, arbitrary as they might be; for just as my words must be accomodated to such a public necessity, so has my life been. And just as the acts of my life have done, so these words must conceal at least as much truth as they display; the truth will lie somewhere beneath these graven words, in the dense stone which they will encircle. And this too is appropriate; for much of my life has been lived in such secrecy. It has never been politic for me to let another know my heart.”
I found the format, style, and language Williams employed completely immersive, even though I truthfully came to the subject matter with little excitement. Williams' writing always manages to win me over, he had a way of writing both vulnerability and stoicism that has been a winning combination in all three books that I have read of his. There is an introspection and humanity that is beguiling no matter the topic Williams approached; there seems to be some essential John Williams-ness in all of his writing, that while the plots and characters vary greatly an essential quietness pervades. It seems incorrect to think of his writing as romantic, since much of what he writes pointedly deromanticizes his topics - in Augustus he deromanticizes the Roman Empire, and in particular the Emperors themselves; in Butcher's Crossing he very clearly and thoroughly is deromanticizing the Western; in Stoner we have the romanticization of the academic and also of marriage - but, even as he removes the aura from around the writer, the philosopher, the intellectual, the lover, the romantic, the ruler, he seems to always come back to simple love in one form or another and I find some reason to hope because of the love of an individual - I guess another way to say what I thinking is that Williams always managed to humanize his topics.
In reading this book I found that the early political intrigue and machinations of Augustus sucked me in, the frustrations and sexual/romantic awakening of Augustus's daughter Julia held me fast, and the philosophic reminiscence at the end of Augustus's life was poetic, sad, and an exceedingly beautiful way to conclude.
"The young man, who does not know the future, sees life as a kind of epic adventure, an Odyssey through strange seas and unknown islands, where he will test and prove his powers, and thereby discover his immortality. The man of middle years, who has lived the future that he once dreamed, sees life as a tragedy; for he has learned that his power, however great, will not prevail against those forces of accident and nature to which he gives the names of gods, and has learned that he is mortal. But the man of age, if he plays his assigned role properly, must see life as a comedy. For his triumphs and his failures merge, and one is no more the occasion for pride or shame than the other; and nor the protagonist who is destroyed by them. Like any poor pitiable shell of an actor, he comes to see that he has played so many parts that there no longer is himself."
A triumphant, vivid history that firmly secures Williams a top spot on my list of favorite authors. Even though this is not my personal favorite of his works, it is far and away better than it has any right to be or than I could have hoped it would be. How did the guy do it each and every time?