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blueyorkie 's review for:
Memórias de Adriano
by Marguerite Yourcenar
Convinced that humans are immortal as an animal species and finite as individuals, Adriano, the most powerful man of the Roman Empire, exposes the essential characteristics of human nature with minute details and beautiful metaphors.
Despite having absolute power, he feels incapable of modifying the natural development of his own life. With a lucid mind, full of wisdom and knowledge of the desires of human beings of all social conditions, he regrets the contradiction between his body and his mind, old and sick.
Reflect, comparing if it has been worth playing the role of omnipresent and all-powerful with the immense loneliness he has felt countless times at night in his rooms for many periods of his reign after participating in orgies, official acts, religious ceremonies, or deciding the fate of life or death of another human being.
All earthly joys, sexual experiences without limit, trips by the empire's territory, participation in the rites of diverse religions, and the birth of a new belief, Christianity, were considered inoffensive. For being directed to the poor and enslaved people, the knowledge of various cultures, his admiration for the Greek culture, his successes in front of the military legions, the official banquets, the eternal adulation, the conspiracies, the political assassinations, everything seems to have turned into a bucket full of ashes.
Winner of many military and political battles, he feels humiliated when his favorite servants must constantly help him perform the simplest acts of daily life.
At the end of his life, the human established throughout the Pax Romana empire cannot achieve his inner peace. A historical novel fully shows the permanence and complexity of the human condition over the centuries.
Despite having absolute power, he feels incapable of modifying the natural development of his own life. With a lucid mind, full of wisdom and knowledge of the desires of human beings of all social conditions, he regrets the contradiction between his body and his mind, old and sick.
Reflect, comparing if it has been worth playing the role of omnipresent and all-powerful with the immense loneliness he has felt countless times at night in his rooms for many periods of his reign after participating in orgies, official acts, religious ceremonies, or deciding the fate of life or death of another human being.
All earthly joys, sexual experiences without limit, trips by the empire's territory, participation in the rites of diverse religions, and the birth of a new belief, Christianity, were considered inoffensive. For being directed to the poor and enslaved people, the knowledge of various cultures, his admiration for the Greek culture, his successes in front of the military legions, the official banquets, the eternal adulation, the conspiracies, the political assassinations, everything seems to have turned into a bucket full of ashes.
Winner of many military and political battles, he feels humiliated when his favorite servants must constantly help him perform the simplest acts of daily life.
At the end of his life, the human established throughout the Pax Romana empire cannot achieve his inner peace. A historical novel fully shows the permanence and complexity of the human condition over the centuries.