December Books Update 2

Five books I read earlier this year, two of which are combined in one review!

**** 

Not reviewed: Coriolanus

1. Julius Caesar and Antony And Cleopatra

Julius Caesar has returned to Rome after defeating the Pompeiian forces and been awarded a triumph. The somewhat fickle common people are applauding him. At a public celebration Caesar’s close companion Mark Antony offers him the crown of Rome three times; three times he turns it down.

His ambition worries other members of the senate, fearing tyranny. Cassius forms a conspiracy to kill him. They attempt to recruit Brutus, known as an honourable, principled man, the descendant of one of the killers of the last king of Rome. Faced with the growing evidence Brutus reluctantly agrees.

Various attempts to warn Caesar are made, both by those with premonitions and those who have learned about the plot. Separated from his supporters at the Senate, the conspirators waylay him with the pretext of a petition to allow an exile to return. Caesar refuses and at this signal they draw knives and stab him.

The conspirators do not flee, confident that this will show their unselfish motives and allow them to control the situation. Mark Antony confronts them, prepared to die, but they attempt to convert him to their cause. At Caesar’s funeral Brutus makes an oration that leaves the crowd supporting them. Then Mark Antony speaks, ostensibly not blaming them, but his clever praise of Caesar turns the crowd against the conspirators (to the extent that a mob murders a poet with the same name as one of them). They flee Rome, leaving it in the hands of Mark Antony, newly returned Octavian (Caesar’s heir and great-nephew), and Lepidus (Caesar’s deputy).

Cassius and Brutus fall out, Brutus thinking Cassius’s motives impure. They reconcile when Brutus learns his wife has committed suicide. They field an army and meet Mark Antony and Octavian at Phillipi, Brutus confronting Caesar's ghost beforehand. Thinking them defeated and his friend captured Cassius has his servant kill him. The friend, discovering the scene, commits suicide. Brutus now in sole command, wins an inconclusive victory; in the next stage he loses, asks his supporters to kill him rather than be captured. They refuse so he runs onto his sword to be discovered by Mark Antony and Octavian. Mark Antony pays tribute to Brutus, who was if anything too noble.
....
Sometime later Mark Antony is in Egypt where he and the Queen, Cleopatra are lovers. With some effort he’s recalled to Rome to deal with problems there; a pirate nation is causing problems, also his wife, Fulvia, was in rebellion against Octavius. Agrippa, Octavius’s general, suggests they bind themselves closer by Antony marrying Octavius’s sister Octavia*. They do, then parley with Sextus Pompey, making a truce with him to end piracy; they have a big party which Octavius leaves early.

Cleopatra is furious at the marriage, reassured when messengers assure her Octavia is unattractive. The situation in Rome settled, Mark Antony returns to the East. Octavius and Lepidus (the third triumvir) break the truce and defeat Pompey to the annoyance of Antony.

Returning to Egypt Antony and Cleopatra crown themselves co-rulers of both Egypt and the Roman East. Meanwhile Octavius consolidates in the West, first seizing all of Pompey’s lands, then imprisoning and deposing Lepidus. Antony and Octavius send messages back and forth complaining about each others’ behaviour; Octavius manipulates the senate so there is war.

Antony decides to attack Octavius’s fleet; during the battle Cleopatra panics and flees with her royal squadron. Antony goes after her and they are defeated. Antony feels shame, complains to Cleopatra that he loves her too much. Back in Egypt Octavius offers to let Cleopatra join his side and remain queen; after a little considering she rejects this and Antony swears he will fight and win on land to make up for his defeat at sea.

Omens plague Antony’s army. One of his lieutenants deserts; Antony sends his possessions after him and the lieutenant dies of shame at this gallantry. More of Antony’s army deserts and he blames Cleopatra. She pretends she’s killed herself and retreats to her monumental tomb to wait for his return. Rather than rush to her body Antony asks his servant to kill him; the servant refuses, killing himself. Antony tries to fall on his sword but fails, injuring himself. Learning Cleopatra is in fact alive he is hoisted up the monument to die in her arms.

Cleopatra considers suicide but is stopped. Octavius promises she will be treated honourably but she is told she will be paraded as a prisoner. A handmaiden smuggles in an asp and Cleopatra dies of snakebite, imagining meeting Antony again in the afterlife. Octavius is left victorious, ruler of the Roman world, and melancholy now that such great figures no longer exist and orders an honourable funeral.

....
So much for two of Shakespeare’s best known plays, loosely** based on Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. I have, of course, re-read them for a convoluted and ridiculous reason***. It’s a truism that we should not read or watch Shakespeare for history any more than we should from a modern film dramatization of any historical event, but we can get an idea of what people thought, and think about them.

More than that, both plays, especially Julius Caesar, is full of banger bits. I remember seeing Mark Antony’s speech (on a school trip) and the whole play falling into place, how the conspirators lose control over everything. In general Shakespeare doesn’t manage more than one good female role per play, and in Cleopatra he does one of his best. People who’ve forgotten actual Roman history still retain bits of these plays. Still, maybe go and see a production?

Read/Watch/Act This: Classics for a reason, with much to enjoy and learn from
Don’t Bother With This: Maybe read some actual history

* Octavian/Octavius/Octavia were all family names as they were members of the Octavian gens (family lineage or clan). Men of noble families usually had three names (Tria Nomena) a personal name (praenomen); a family, public name (nomen); and a third name, which might be a close family, or might be personal (cognomen). So for example Julius Caesar, a member of the Julian clan was Gaius Julius Caesar; after his adoption by Caesar Octavian took on the cognomen becoming Gaius Octavius Caesar. All this is irrelevant to women, who were usually publicly referred to simply by their father’s family name, hence Octavia (often called the Younger in histories to differentiate her from her older half-sister).

** Or in some cases not so loosely, directly using Sir Thomas North’s translation.

*** After going to Voidspace Live and seeing Hamlet: An Experience, I wrote a horror-adjacent story set at an interactive arts festival that is NOT Voidspace Live. For the Not-Emily-Carding-One-Person-Interactive-Shakespeare I picked Julius Caesar as I thought the assassination scene would be funny. I re-read these two plays to plunder for about a dozen lines.

2. Naamah’s Blessing

Moirin returns to Terre D’Ange (Fantasy France) with husband Bao in tow to discover a tragedy she knew of and one she didn’t. The queen Jehanne, her former lover, died in childbirth. King Daniel has stepped back from ruling in grief, letting his cousin Duc Roger rule as minister. That’s not really anything Moirin can do anything about. What she can is improve things for the child Desirée, fiercely self-willed and intelligent despite her young age, yet lonely and neglected by her father as she is too painful a reminder of her mother's death. As a result of her efforts Moirin is appointed oath-sworn protector.

With another heir, Prince Theirry has been allowed to take his expedition to Terra Nova – the Fantasy Americas. He and his companions are overdue. Moirin becomes more and more concerned about Duc Roger and in particular his family, who wish to marry their son to Desirée, consolidating power. Before she convinces Daniel to act news comes from Terra Nova. Prince Theirry has vanished into the unknown southern regions, and is so badly overdue he must be lost. In despair King Daniel kills himself and Duc Roger is made regent over Moirin’s objections.

Jehanne comes to Moirin in a dream, as she has several times before. Theirry is not dead she insists. Rather than contend and fail with the politics Moirin outfits an expedition to find him. This will take them across the new world, into Fantasy Aztec and Fantasy Inca lands. But there’s more; with Theirry is Raphael de Mereliot, physician and magician, Moirin’s former lover who used her powers to summon a fallen angel. A man who has strange abilities of his own and may still have a fragment of the malice and ambition of the demon.

This brings to an end Moirin’s tale, having been across Fantasy Asia and the newly discovered Fantasy Americas. Everywhere she goes she meets people eager to use her for purposes that she is more or less interested in. Here we return to… not the start as Moirin spent hundreds of pages of her youth in Alba before arriving in Terre D’Ange and meeting Raphael. Still, it was there that the plot began, with Moirin getting involved in magic, intrigue and love.  So it all goes around.

One thing these books note is that D’Angelines honour the local gods when they travel (as good polytheists). This can require accepting rites and sacrifices they find distasteful. The Daoist philosopher that Moirin initially followed out of Terre D’Ange suggested that all ways were the way, that behind every god, no matter how fearsome, is love. There’s been moments in the series where that doesn’t occur (though Phedre does an ill deed in the darkness of Drujan and the realm of an evil god, presumably honouring them while also clearing away the evil, I don’t know). Anyway, I guess it’s nice to have ecumenical thesis, an ending that brings everyone together.

Read This: Love, magic, exploration and politics in a superior fantasy novel
Don’t Read This: Moirin plots badly, people get killed because of it

3. Alexandria (2009 novel)

Falco and family travel to Alexandria, where they stay with his uncle Fulvius and his partner Cassius. Everyone thinks he’s got a mission, but in fact they’re sightseeing, his wife Julia wants to see the Pyramids and the Lighthouse (and the Library) and although Falco tried to get funding from the Emperor he just got told to keep an eye out. Shortly after arriving they have dinner with Theon the Librarian of the Great Library; the next morning he’s found dead, locked in his office.

Egypt, the Library and the entire Museion (the not-really University that includes the Library) are under direct Imperial control. Falco has presented his credentials to the Prefect, who appoints him to investigate. This includes an autopsy (“look for yourself”), dubiously legal, other deaths, jockeying for a replacement Librarian, a scam to do with scrolls, the zoo, people Falco has met before (friends in some cases overstating it) and also his own family.

Falco’s investigation once again lightly takes us through an historical place and setting. If the actual mystery is rather convoluted to the point of being hard to decipher even when explained, this is something that often crops us late entries in a detective series. And the journey is enjoyable.

Read This: Interesting murder mystery in a fascinating setting
Don’t Read This: All of the series’s ticks plus an insistence on visiting everything we’ve heard about

4. Conan The Buccaneer

Conan is a privateer (state-sponsored pirate) in the coastal kingdom of Zingara*. King Ferdrugo is ailing, in part because Menkara, a priest of Set, is controlling him with magic. This is part of a plot of Duke Villagro who wants to marry Princess Chabela, and then take the throne. Menkara can only control one person at a time, so while Ferdrugo is willing, Chabela is not. She flees the palace on a royal ship, heading for Shem** where the King’s brother is on a diplomatic mission. Villagro sends his cohort, the privateer Zarono with Menkara, first to capture Chabela, then to go on to Stygia and Menkara’s master Thoth-Amon, to ask for his aid.

Zarono has had a run in with Conan (trying to order his dinner); later he and Menkara run into a priest of Mitra who is bringing Conan a treasure map. Menkara realises it’s for the Nameless Isle, which notoriously has not just treasure but the ancient magical tome The Book Of Skelos. With that as a gift Thoth-Amon will be sure to help them. They overtake Chabela’s ship, seize her and head for the island. Meanwhile Conan has set sail after them, his smaller, swifter ship able to keep pace without them noticing.

This leads to various fast-paced adventures, Conan picking up a shipwrecked crew then being wrecked himself, Conan and Chabela being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the city of the Amazons, Thoth-Amon learning of a yet more powerful artefact that would let him control not mere handfuls of people but hundreds and so on. This is all fine, if you aren’t interested in Conan’s shiphandling he’ll be on an island facing a curse soon, or satisfying the Amazon queen (Conan is master in the bedroom even as she rules outside it), or fighting a carnivorous tree. Quite a few coincidences, and competently written.

More interestingly though is the introduction by Lin Carter, Buccaneers And Black Magicians in which he defines Swords & Sorcery and then goes on to make the bold claim that it’s pure entertainment, and doesn’t have anything to do with the real world. I disagree***; I suppose it’s possible that one might suggest Conan The Buccaneer has nothing to say about modernity (the Amazon Queen is jealous of Chabela, her obsession with Conan has her court concerned; Carter notes that this world is “blissfully innocent,” of Women’s Lib). Howard’s original stories, concerned with the place of barbarian masculinity in the civilised world do offer opinions. Conan refuses to go quietly or bear witness to police; he’s an outsider who has to demand respect, often at swordpoint; he is disgusted by cities where the poor beg outside palaces where the rich feast****. Did this essay launch a thousand poorly disguised clones of the barbarian warrior who becomes a king, refusing to engage with any actual ideas and so lose the very energy that made these stories entertaining?

No, probably not. But I don’t think it helped.

Read This: Swashbuckling fantasy adventure
Don’t Read This: Conan fights, sails and shags his way through a series of underdone encounters

* Conan’s creator Robert E Howard created the Hyborian Age, Conan’s setting, as a kitchen sink world that would allow him to write, stories of adventure that loosely replicate widely different historical times and places. So sometimes Conan rides with horse warriors on the steppe, sometimes he swashbuckles through a city, and sometimes he’s a pirate. Zingara is, more or less, a version of Spain.

** Shem is a fantasy Middle East, in this case probably the Levant.

*** I might read S&S for pure entertainment but probably not write it.

**** He is, of course, a violent bully, casually sexist and accepts the racialised national characterisation of the Hyborian Age without question, though he does prefer to judge people based on their own merits. And these too raise questions greater than mere entertainment.