LET THE EMPEROR SPEAK

by Allan Massie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 1987

Massie, a veteran British novelist, turns his talents to ancient Rome and the long career of Augustus Caesar in a fictionalized autobiography of the Emperor that recalls--without equaling--Robert Graves' masterful I, Claudius and Claudius the God. The novel comes wrapped in elaborate layers of fiction; its preface, supposedly written by the scholar Aeneas Fraser-Graham, identifies the volume as the newly translated text of Imperial memoirs found several years ago in a Macedonian monastery. Augustus' long-lost autobiography is composed of two books: The first covers the years between Julius Caesar's assassination and the battle of Actium, when young Octavius (later Augustus, and by Senatorial edict, ""Father of the Country, First Citizen of Rome"") delivered the Empire from the evils of myriad warring factions--among them, that of the megalomaniacal Mark Antony and his Egyptian consort, Cleopatra. The second is a loose chronicle of the last 45 years of Augustus' life, a period of consolidation for the country (""I found Rome of brick and left it of marble"") and of deterioration for the Imperial family: Augustus' daughter, Julia, was exiled for immoral acts, and his cherished grandsons, Gaius and Lucius, died young. Massie's re-creation of the period is concise and orderly; his portrait of a reliable, hard-working, and humble Augustus Caesar, as plausible as any; but his design for the novel--with pompous preface-writer, Fraser-Graham, and a translator guilty of toe-curling aberrations (as when Antony calls Octavius ""laddie,"" warning him, "". . .you're in the minestrone, and it's beginning to bubble"") is too clever by far. Massie is best when he is like his Augustus--straightforward.

Pub Date: Sept. 18, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION