Today Midnight, the mysterious and reclusive black bunny of the family, decided that it was time for another appearance because he had read a good book and wanted to share his thoughts on it with the readers of the book bunnies blog. (Also Marshmallow is still working hard on her college applications.) Below is Midnight’s review of Augustus, a historical novel by John Williams, that was published originally in 1972 and that received the National Book Award for Fiction in 1973. Sprinkles is taking notes and asking questions.
Sprinkles: It is so neat to have you join us today Midnight!
Midnight: I am filling in because Marshmallow is busy working on college applications.
S: But you also have a good book you want to talk to us about, yes?
M: Indeed. A friend of mine recommended several books to me recently and this is the first one I have completed.
S: That sounds great! You seem to have enjoyed this a lot. Hopefully you will appreciate the other ones too.
M: One may hope.
S: Okay, so tell us a bit about Augustus.
M: It’s historical fiction. But it is written not in third person but rather through letters written between many characters, of greater or lesser importance, at the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire. The focus overall is on Octavius, later to be known as Augustus Caesar. We read letters from his friends, associates, and relatives, and toward the end, even from the man himself.
S: I didn’t know this was an epistolary novel, written in letters! That is really cool. And all of them are fictional, right? I know many of the main events should be historical, but the book has so many details, a lot should be the author’s creation.
M: That is my understanding. My memory of those events is hazy, since I was only a young rabbit at the time-
S: Wait, what do you mean? The events retold in the book are supposed to have happened at least two thousand years ago.
M: I can tell this makes you uncomfortable. Let’s move on.
S: Okay….
S: So tell us a bit more about the book. It is written in the form of a series of letters. But it is also split into three books, right?
M: Perhaps it is better to describe them as a series of letters, because we don’t get responses to letters. We read stories from one side sometimes. One of the great strengths of the book is that Williams gives each character their own distinct voice and style.
S: That is impressive.
M: And the letters are organized into three books, yes. The first book is about his childhood and his rise to power. The second is about him already an emperor, tackling the challenge of finding an appropriate successor. One issue that constantly arises is that Augustus lived so long that most of his friends passed away long before he did. His preferred successors predeceased him, leaving him to settle for Tiberius, whom he did not care for. The third book is really a single long letter, from Augustus to a friend, reflecting upon his life and his reign.
S: Then there is an epilogue.
M: Yes, that is supposedly written forty-one years later, by Philippus of Athens, Augustus’s last doctor, who was a young man back then. The letter is directed to Seneca. Philippus looks back on the long reign of Augustus, the subsequent harshness of Tiberius, the cruelty of his successor, Caligula, and the ineptness of Claudius. Having read Graves’s I Claudius and Claudius the God, I tend to have a softer view of Claudius than Williams’ Philippus.
S: Oh, maybe you will tell us about those books some day.
M: Maybe I will. In any case Philippus might not be the greatest judge of men, since he speaks hopefully about the newly crowned emperor Nero.
S: And we all know now that Nero did not turn out to be a great emperor!
M: Those were dark times. It is still difficult for me to talk about them.
S: Wait, are you implying that you were around during Nero’s time?
M: Let’s get back to the book, shall we?
S: Okay, sure. Whatever you say.
M: Much of the latter half of the book consists of journal entries of Julia, Augustus’s daughter, written in exile.
S: And Julia is a real person, right?
M: Yes, definitely. Let’s say he loved his daughter very much, but political realities in the circles that she frequented put him in a bad situation. I don’t want to spoil the book.
S: That is kind of interesting. All these people lived and died many centuries ago and their stories are actually all written down. But this book somehow manages to make them come alive so that you want to know what will happen next.
M: Right. But any student of history will know that Augustus’s story goes on for a long time and most of the people around at the start of the book are dead well before the end. While Augustus starts as a teenager, he ends up as an old man, who seems out of place, or maybe somebody whom time has passed by.
S: That is deep Midnight. I also noticed that the book has an introduction written by Daniel Mendelsohn. Did you read it too?
M: I have. It basically contextualizes the book, and says a bit about Williams and his other books.
S: But it seems one can definitely read the book without the introduction.
M: Sure.
S: So this was overall a good book and you seem to have enjoyed it. We can wrap up our review now, I think.
M: Yeah.
S: Okay, then. What would you like to tell our readers as we close this off?
M: I know that this little black bunny does not have quite the following that Marshmallow and Caramel do, and I’m sure their fans will be happy to know that Marshmallow will be back once she finishes some of her college applications.
S: Aw, we love having you over, too, Midnight!
M: To that, and to the readers, I say: Vale! as we used to say…
