thepretentiouspoet's reviews
132 reviews

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Cleopatra & Julius by Joanna Courtney

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

For a book supposedly focused on the love story between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, the fact that they did not meet properly until 200 pages into a 350 page novel is baffling.

In setting up the novel's structure to follow Cleopatra from childhood to ascension as queen, this novel implies that her relationship with Caesar was the culmination of her talents - not her leadership. Which, to be fair, is how she is characterised in this novel. I can say with sincerity that she does not make a single decision for herself, despite the fact that the historical figure of Cleopatra did very much make many of the decisions ascribed from everyone to King Ptolemy to her serving girl Eiras in this novel. The reader is told throughout by Julius, Eiras, Charmion, and even unpleasant Romans that Cleopatra is a feared and respected leader, but no evidence is provided as to why anyone believes this. Additionally, in beginning from her childhood, she is set up to be a spineless YA protagonist of a woman, passive and only aware of her "femininity" (read: sex appeal and weaponising of gossip) as a method of obtaining power. She undergoes no character development from age fourteen to her late twenties, meaning that even as she begins a relationship with the fifty year old Julius, she still feels thoroughly (and concerningly) like a child.

And again, for a story focused on their romance, there was very little romance. They were sexually attracted to each other and had two arguments about leadership where Julius then apologised and told Cleopatra she was right about everything. I had no sense of why they enjoyed each other's company besides mutual attraction, which was misleading given the blurb promised that they were the only two people who properly understood each other.

The entire novel sets up women as the problem: Cleopatra's lack of agency leads her to endanger just about everyone, Berenice is comically villainous from the start, Arsinoe is reduced to a brainless femme fatale who has apparently managed to fool everyone into thinking her inept (myself included), Porcia is a school-yard bully of a girl, and Calpurnia and Servilia fight amongst themselves and Cleopatra over who should get Julius. The whole thing reduces every single woman to two-dimensional man-lovers, which was thoroughly disappointing considering the historical evidence for the power Cleopatra and the many Roman wives depicted had in reality. I can only imagine them turning in their graves to find their personal sacrifices reduced to the notion of "feminine wiles" and in-fighting over monogamy with a famously womanising Roman leader.

Similarly, the anachronisms were too much to bear. I do not demand full historical accuracy (although I do expect some respect for historical precedent when this is the basis of a text), but all the characters spoke with anachronistic slang that blended confusingly with the few notions to research that the novel contained. Conversations around calendar years in the East versus the West made me wonder why the Egyptians had "tea" and "dinner" when modern British families would. Ideas around marriage and monogamy were buffered with real Roman marriage traditions ("kidnapping" the bride, for example) but then undone by incredibly modern statements around divorce.

Most egregious, though, was the notion that Cleopatra felt in any way disgusted by her marriage to her two brothers. Very famously the ancient Egyptians had no concept of incest as a taboo and the calculating Cleopatra would have no qualms about such a thing. Giving Eiras dialogue about nobody really expecting Cleopatra to have sex with her brother-husband made me actively roll my eyes - yes they did! This was how the royal family protected their godliness! Suggesting that they would wait until Ptolemy-Theos was eighteen for them to begin having sex similarly baffled me. Why were the ancient Egyptians following modern age of consent laws?

The novel takes great liberty with many very well-recorded historical events. I am not well-versed in Egyptian or Roman history - most of my knowledge comes from reading the Shakespeare plays and watching 'Horrible Histories' as a child - and yet I could spot the holes in history from a mile off. Even overlooking this as creative license, it did not serve the story at all. Cleopatra's characterisation was weak, passive, and entirely unlike the very real records of the woman that we have, and her relationship with Julius was reduced to a sexual affair with very dull fights in between - far from the focus on the real lovers behind the ruling powerhouses that the blurb promised.

I shudder to think what this author has done to Shakespeare's heroines in her other books. Please read anything else rather than sully your own conception of Cleopatra as a powerful woman with this boringly written offense to her memory.

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced