Published in Britain as: Lustrum
Why
I Read This Book
This
is the second book of Robert Harris’s trilogy on the life of Cicero.
The first book, Imperium, I read and reviewed on this blog way back in 2006. Although I gave Imperium a mostly negative review, I said at the time that in spite
of all my complaints, I planned to read the rest of the trilogy when it came
out. I love historical fiction, even bad
historical fiction, and besides which I’m particularly interested in the time
period—the last hundred years of the Roman
Republic—in which these
books take place.
(In
my youth I was particularly fascinated by Colleen McCullough’s epic - Masters of Rome series on the same time
period. Also, back in my
schooldays, whenever I was assigned a research paper and had any flexibility on
the choice of topic, I often picked a topic associated with precisely this time
period. See, for example, my old paper
on the Catiline Conspiracy here, and my paper on Clodius Pulcher here. Both the Catiline
Conspiracy and Clodius figure prominently in Conspirata, so I was eager to read Robert Harris’s take on the
events.)
The
Review
In my 2006
review of Imperium, I had a number of
negative things to say about the book.
And though I stand by everything I said, it does strike me now that
perhaps I put too much emphasis on the little flaws, and ignored the main
merits of the book.
The
main merit of the book is that it is very readable. This is worth mentioning, because there are a
number of books out there that aren’t readable—books that are boring, or filled
with thick unwieldy prose. Like every
other reader, I’ve struggled with these books, or given up on them in
frustration. So when you come across a
book that’s well written, where the prose moves smoothly along and where you
can easily keep turning the pages, it’s worth mentioning. Whatever complaints I may have about Robert
Harris, the man can write very readable books.
When
you add Robert Harris’s very readable prose to the pleasures of learning about
history in the form of a novel, it makes for a very enjoyable book. And I enjoyed this one.
Despite
Robert Harris’s disclaimer at the beginning of the book (“This is a novel, not a work of history: wherever the demands of the two
have clashed, I have unhesitatingly plumped for the former”) the book is,
as far as I can tell, pretty accurate.
(As I usually do when I read historical fiction, I kept double checking
with Wikipedia to see how accurate this book was, and most of the events in the
novel seemed to check out.)
The
biggest compliant I have is the same complaint I had with Imperium. Most historians
don’t seriously think Julius Caesar and Crassus were behind the Catiline
Conspiracy—the Catiline Conspiracy was an act by a desperate group of men who
had nothing to lose, whereas Caesar and Crassus still had very good traditional
political careers open to them, and had no reason to fall in with the
revolutionaries. Robert Harris is well
aware that nothing was ever proven linking Caesar and Crassus to the Catiline
Conspiracy, but for dramatic purposes he finds it useful to imagine they were
secretly behind the whole thing, masterfully pulling all the strings.
Of
course the whole point of a historical novel is that you’re supposed to be free
of the strict rigors of academic history, and you can choose whatever version
of history is the most dramatic. Robert
Harris wants to set up Cicero
as the hero of the story, and every hero needs a good villain, so Caesar is the
villain of the story. In fact, in Conspirata, Caesar becomes an almost
James Bond type villain, deftly manipulating everything, the unseen hand behind
every scandal in Rome. This is the story Robert Harris wants to
tell, and for what it is, he does a good job of telling it.
Except,
I rather think the more interesting story is to imagine the politics as
complex. Instead of only two feuding
groups (Cicero’s allies versus Caesar’s allies), I find it much more
interesting to imagine this period of Roman history as a period of many
different ambitious men with constantly changing alliances. Cicero opposed
Catiline, and Cicero also later opposed Julius
Caesar, but that doesn’t mean that Catiline and Caesar necessarily had to be in league with each other just
because they had a mutual enemy in Cicero.
(I
am also perhaps influenced by the Masters
of Rome series by Colleen McCullough, for the simple reason that I read it
first, and whatever you first read on a subject makes a greater impact on you
than anything you read subsequently.
While McCullough doesn’t attempt to deny that Caesar was ambitious, she
portrays his populist program as motivated by genuine concern for the welfare
of Rome’s
poorest citizens. Robert Harris,
however, portrays Caesar’s populist program as simply demagoguery. But as to which view is right, I cannot say. I imagine a case could be made for either. But I tend to find McCullough’s Caesar much
more interesting.)
Notes:
* Add this book to my list of historical fiction.
Addendum (September 30, 2014)
Inspired by this book, I've been continuing to browse around the historical records. I've been browsing through Plutarch's Lives online [LINK HERE] and have been pleasantly surprised to find how much of this book seems to have been taken directly from Plutarch.
For example, from the section on Cato [LINK HERE]: When the trial was held, Cicero, who was consul at that time and one of Murena's advocates, took advantage of Cato's fondness for the Stoics to rail and jest at length about those philosophers and what were called their "paradoxes," thus making the jurors laugh. Cato, accordingly, as we are told, said with a smile to the bystander: "My friends, what a droll fellow our consul is!"
That scene, and that quote, is directly represented in the novel. I assumed it was improvised by Robert Harris, but it comes directly from the history books.
It is to Robert Harris's credit that he's obviously done his research well. Combining both the talents of an historian with an author is not the easiest thing to do, and, upon reflection, perhaps I've been focused more on criticizing this series for its shortcomings than highlighting its impressive accomplishments as a work of historical fiction.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky: The Difference Between Obama and Bush
Addendum (September 30, 2014)
Inspired by this book, I've been continuing to browse around the historical records. I've been browsing through Plutarch's Lives online [LINK HERE] and have been pleasantly surprised to find how much of this book seems to have been taken directly from Plutarch.
For example, from the section on Cato [LINK HERE]: When the trial was held, Cicero, who was consul at that time and one of Murena's advocates, took advantage of Cato's fondness for the Stoics to rail and jest at length about those philosophers and what were called their "paradoxes," thus making the jurors laugh. Cato, accordingly, as we are told, said with a smile to the bystander: "My friends, what a droll fellow our consul is!"
That scene, and that quote, is directly represented in the novel. I assumed it was improvised by Robert Harris, but it comes directly from the history books.
It is to Robert Harris's credit that he's obviously done his research well. Combining both the talents of an historian with an author is not the easiest thing to do, and, upon reflection, perhaps I've been focused more on criticizing this series for its shortcomings than highlighting its impressive accomplishments as a work of historical fiction.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky: The Difference Between Obama and Bush
3 comments:
I liked Pompeii quite a bit, and have this trilogy sitting on my shelf. I have to admit my appetite for novels of political intrigue has really declined after the Bush-Cheney years. If anything should have worked with Puppet-Master efficiency, their invasion of Iraq should have. Now if anyone wants to float a conspiracy theory by me, I just point to those years and say, "That's how well conspiracies 'work.'"
But I digress. All this to say, experience has bled some of the excitement that accompanies fictional "what if?" thinking.
The majority of the book is actually pretty factual.
The title "Conspirita" refers to the Catiline Conspiracy, which did actually happen, and which ended in disaster (which I suppose would further bolster your conspiracy argument.) Where the book runs into supposition is where Robert Harris imagines Caesar and Crassus were behind the Catiline Conspiracy, which they probably weren't, but the book is still recommended in spite of this flaw.
Actually all things considered, it's a fairly minor flaw. It's a very readable historical fiction.
Kewl! I shall definitely give it a spin. Thanks for the review.
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