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A review by corvy707
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
2.0
2.5/5
If I'm too harsh on this, blame Suetonius. I came out of The Twelve Caesars with an appetite for a tale of Claudius' life in particular, and the very man who translated it promised an explanation of the lame Emperor's life. I wanted so dearly to feel the humanity behind the unwilling ruler, the struggles of growing up with a disability in an ancient aristocracy, the world he surrounded himself with. Trustworthy translator Robert Graves deigned to include splashes of all of these things, but I Claudius is not a tale, an epic, nor an exploration of Claudius, but a recitation, nigh a non-fiction.
That would be fine in itself. I'm not impartial to a good history book, and I suspect one hashed out by Graves would be worthy of my time. But, for a litany of reasons, chief of all money, I Claudius has instead been released in a fictive form. So we hear the facts and the figures filtered through Claudius' perception of them, spanning from those directly related to him to those so far-off that you wonder why this was ever formatted as an autobiography. Of course Tiberius' rise to power and Germanicus' varied tribulations are relevant, but sometimes it just flings itself too far from the point. You don't need me to tell you that, Graves says it himself through the voice of Claudius at several points!
Thankfully, whenever the point is close to home, its a riveting work. Claudius' true friends are all a window of humanity in otherwise dry spells - the caring tutor Athenodorus, the faithful brother Germanicus, and the frank but warm mistress Calpurnia in particular kept me afloat. The last of those especially, for Graves' depiction of women otherwise is questionable. Others have detailed it better than I could, but the nearly one-note wicked interpretation of Livia became tiresome to revisit again and again. If the German translation, which brought this volume and its sequel into a much leaner single piece, were available in English, I would likely be able to love this a lot more. But as is, I'm afraid I'll stick to Suetonius.
If I'm too harsh on this, blame Suetonius. I came out of The Twelve Caesars with an appetite for a tale of Claudius' life in particular, and the very man who translated it promised an explanation of the lame Emperor's life. I wanted so dearly to feel the humanity behind the unwilling ruler, the struggles of growing up with a disability in an ancient aristocracy, the world he surrounded himself with. Trustworthy translator Robert Graves deigned to include splashes of all of these things, but I Claudius is not a tale, an epic, nor an exploration of Claudius, but a recitation, nigh a non-fiction.
That would be fine in itself. I'm not impartial to a good history book, and I suspect one hashed out by Graves would be worthy of my time. But, for a litany of reasons, chief of all money, I Claudius has instead been released in a fictive form. So we hear the facts and the figures filtered through Claudius' perception of them, spanning from those directly related to him to those so far-off that you wonder why this was ever formatted as an autobiography. Of course Tiberius' rise to power and Germanicus' varied tribulations are relevant, but sometimes it just flings itself too far from the point. You don't need me to tell you that, Graves says it himself through the voice of Claudius at several points!
Thankfully, whenever the point is close to home, its a riveting work. Claudius' true friends are all a window of humanity in otherwise dry spells - the caring tutor Athenodorus, the faithful brother Germanicus, and the frank but warm mistress Calpurnia in particular kept me afloat. The last of those especially, for Graves' depiction of women otherwise is questionable. Others have detailed it better than I could, but the nearly one-note wicked interpretation of Livia became tiresome to revisit again and again. If the German translation, which brought this volume and its sequel into a much leaner single piece, were available in English, I would likely be able to love this a lot more. But as is, I'm afraid I'll stick to Suetonius.