Augustus: A Novel

Ad oggi sono pochi i veri romanzi storici. Quelli che ti descrivono un'epoca, uma storia, ma in chiave romamzata.Quelli che comunemente chiamiamo come romazi storici sono più che altro saggi; o se si è fortunati romanzi ambiemtati in un'epoca storica definita.Ecco, questo invece è un romanzo storico dove la vita di Augusto viene descritta secondo vari punti di vista (in buona parte veri, per altri inventati, ma tutti verosimili...) Ed alla fine ci credi. Perché la bravura del romanziere è quella. Consigliato!

Regardless of the general weather conditions of the present, it always broadens the view to deal with history. It relativizes one's own state of mind and leads to insights of various kinds. Sometimes we see parallels, which leads to astonishment, because we are, as we so often mistakenly think, standing on the high pinnacle of enlightened, modern and cosmopolitan knowledge and carrying deep in our unconscious the misconception that everything that already was has something to do in its fatal development with the underestimation of those who were active at the time. And sometimes, rather more rarely, we are astonished because we discover a wisdom in the long past that we ardently desire, because the present in its narrow-mindedness seems all too overwhelming.John Williams, an American author less well known in our latitudes, whose "Stoner" and "Butchers Crossing" are great narratives, had also taken up the challenge of rewriting a historical material without immediately turning it into a mass-market thriller. With "Augustus", first published in 1971, he achieved great things. Like a criminological reconstruction in the form of testimonies in letters, Williams retells the story of the great Roman Emperor Augustus, that Gaius Octavius Thurinus, adopted son of Julius Caesar, who brought order to the Roman circumstances after his murder and presided over the world empire from 31 B.C. to 14 A.D., i.e. for 45 years as Roman emperor.It is the long road from young man to emperor, who grows up in a society in which corruption, decadence, intrigue and self-interest were the predominant characteristics. After the first necessary military conflicts with other factions, Caesar succeeds in restoring the rule of law, promoting social equality and suggesting to the privileged a way of life that corresponds to the official state doctrine of a Roman bourgeoisie. This Augustus succeeded in all this through the right friends, through iron discipline against himself, through tolerance and what is so often aptly called a sense of proportion.Beyond the concrete biography, which is traced by contemporary witnesses with their documents, the themes that are actually at issue shimmer through. It is about a state that is on the verge of ruin due to the obstinacy and licentiousness of its agents, it is about reasons of state and consistency, it is about measures of good governance, it is about discipline and tolerance, and it is about domination. Augustus, one can conclude from William's brilliant narrative, brought with him one thing above all else that dominance demands, namely the ability to distinguish between person and function.Augustus made many decisions that were powerfully opposed to him as a person and that hurt him, but he made them because the office, the function, required it. He was aware of that and that was the key to success. It is redundant to refer to this necessary differentiation alone in relation to current events. How there is no lack of topicality at all. Like Augustus' reference to the disintegrating power of moralism or to the mistaken belief that law and sanction are capable of awakening the virtue of the governed, but require the inner conviction that the laws are in accordance with one's own interests.John Williams "Augustus" illuminates an important chapter of the past and contains useful hints for the present.

In my opinion Butcher's Crossing and Stoner are two of the greatest American novels of the 20th Century. This is a meticulously-researched historical novel about the first, and most enigmatic, Emperor of Rome. If not quite in the same class as the two other mature novels, it remains a brilliant masterpiece that is worth your time. Told through letters and journals it provides a convincing psychological portrait of its times and the characters that shaped it. Williams has set himself a very difficult task here, since he must convincingly characterise the various authorial voices that he summons from the past. I don't think that he quite pulls it off but I still think that the multiple narratives are better differentiated and more vivid than in any comparable work. The main voices of Marc Anthony, Maecenas (Octavius's close friend and adviser), Julia (Octavius/Augustus's daughter) and, finally, Augustus himself are vividly done. It is probably closest to "I, Claudius" in personality but very different in style. I really enjoyed this book and found it hard to put down. If not the transcendent masterpiece that is Butcher's Crossing, it is still a wonderful historical novel, full of incident and insight. Highly recommended.

Para quem gosta de romances históricos e, além disso, de "tramas epistolares", esta é a pedida.Leitura deliciosa, este livro nos transporta para a Antiguidade, no tempo em que o Império Romano se estabelecia como tal. A ação, toda narrada por meio de cartas, trechos de diários, fragmentos de documentos históricos e até mesmo poemas, se passa entre os "Idos de Março", como ficou conhecido o assassinato de Júlio César, em 44 a.C, e a morte de seu sobrinho e filho por adoção, Caio Otávio César, Augusto, em 14 d.C., primeiro imperador de Roma.É como se estivéssemos lendo uma obra histórica, só que ficcionalizada. E que deleite!O livro é escrito com tanta maestria de estilo e conteúdo, que não podemos largá-lo. O autor não nega ter tomado liberdades na (re)criação de fatos e pessoas verídicos, e é justamente isso que enriquece seu trabalho.Os personagens históricos ganham vida e humanidade. Conhecemos seus feitos e seus sentimentos. Além daquelas relativas ao protagonista, seus familiares e amigos, nos banqueteamos com as descrições acerca das existências de Marco Antônio e Cleópatra, bem como dos escritores Cícero, Horácio, Ovídio e Virgílio. Este último, lembremos, é autor de Eneida, épico sobre a fundação de Roma, que, conforme predito por Augusto no final do livro, sobreviveria ao próprio Império.Vale destacar trechos do "Diário de Júlia", filha de Otávio. Seus escritos, dos mais interessantes, são impressionantes pela qualidade e expressividade, em consonância com sua fama de mulher culta, inteligente e vivida. Ademais, ressaltam-se em meio a um ambiente dominado por feitos masculinos. Júlia não sente pejo em falar de seus sentimentos, sensações e reflexões mais íntimos, ao contrário do pai.Aliás, ela trata abertamente de sua sexualidade, o que torna seus relatos fortemente feministas, ao menos aos olhos contemporâneos. Sem dúvida, o livro se enriquece com sua contribuição, que oferece um contraponto à personalidade de Augusto, ensimesmada e contida.Em verdade, a não ser pelo final, quando o próprio imperador fala por si mesmo, ao fazer um balanço de sua vida e seus atos, na maior parte do romance ele é retratado pelos olhos de outrem. Esse recurso gera curiosidade no leitor e torna o relato mais rico, pois a personagem principal é construída com base numa miríade de visões e opiniões. É como se Otávio Augusto fosse descrito por várias e diversas mãos, e não uma só. Bastante engenhoso.De modo geral, o livro é uma meditação sobre a existência humana, sobre a dicotomia entre liberdade de ação e imposições do destino. O questionamento que propõe é: até que ponto somos livres ou conduzidos pelas vicissitudes da vida?Com a palavra, o "Imperador do Mundo". Ou seria escravo das contingências?P.S.: De maneira geral, a edição da Rádio Londres é muito boa. A tradução é de qualidade e a composição do livro não fica atrás. Contudo, há erros ortográficos e de concordância na obra em quantidade quase alarmante... Aos editores, recomenda-se fazer uma revisão mais apurada...

Augustus by John Williams was my favorite book read of 2015. John Williams is a relatively obscure author who produced only five novels, most of which he penned while serving as a literary professor at the University of Denver. What he lacked in volume, he made up for in quality in this powerful novel alone, which was published in 1971.Augustus imagines the rise, reign, and ultimately the death (both physically and politically) of the Emperor Augustus. The novel is purely historical fiction, with much of the writings in the epistolary format in the form of letters and journal entries between and by the main characters. While the pace of the events is consistently marked by actual events that are known to us by virtue of being handed down by Roman historians, the dialogue that tracks the meteoric rise of Augustus to the Roman throne shortly after the assassination of Julius Caesar are masterfully created works of fiction and provides an imagined sense of the types of political rivalries, the machinations that occurred, the friendships betrayed, and lovers won and lost in such a world in which power becomes the sole pursuit of one's life and the reason for one's existence. The reader is treated to a panoply of famed historical figures throughout, including: Marcus Agrippa, the poet Ovid, the future Emperor Tiberius, King Herod, Cleopatra, Marcus Antonius (more commonly called Mark Antony), and many more.Fascinatingly, it is not these well-known figures that deliver the best narratives, rather the book's most poignant moments arise from the journal writings of the exiled Julia, Augustus's beloved and highly intelligent but ultimately tragically flawed daughter. Julia is exiled to the island of Pandateria upon the order of her own father, who has his hand forced politically by an adultery law that he implemented in a vain attempt at changing the morality of Rome. Due to other political maneuvers by Julia's husband, Tiberius, Augustus's unfortunate alternative was to allow Julia to be subjected to a public trial of treason, so exile seemed to him to be the lesser of two evils. I won't provide any more details than that so as not to spoil the enjoyment of anyone that picks up the book, but the despairing diary entries that Julia enters from her lonely island of exile provides a melancholic sense of a life wasted and perhaps a life that was born in the wrong time, as powerful and intelligent women could only advance themselves through hidden alliances and marriages to the men around them. Indeed, some of the most profound philosophical musings come from Julia's diaries on this topic. Of her both stepmother and mother-in-law, Livia (the mother of Tiberius, a husband Julia detested), Julia observes, "Of all the women I have ever known, I have admired Livia the most. I was never fond of her, nor she of me; yet she behaved toward me always with honesty and civility; we got along well, despite the fact that my mere existence thwarted her ambitions, and despite the fact that she made no secret of her impersonal animosity towards me. Livia knew herself thoroughly, and had no illusions about her own nature; she was beautiful, and used her beauty without vanity; she was cold, and thus could feign warmth with utter success; she was ambitious, and employed her considerable intelligence exclusively to further her ambition's end. Had she been a man, I do not doubt that she would have been more ruthless than my father, and would have been troubled by fewer compunctions. Within her nature she was an altogether an admirable woman."This challenge of craving power in subtle and hidden ways is something that Julia would turn to later, only remarking on her own inner pangs on the subject: "In this island prison, my life over, I wonder without caring at things I might not have wondered at, had that life not come to an end...It is odd to wait in a powerless world, where nothing matters. In the world from which I came, all was power; and everything mattered. One even loved for power; and the end of love became not its own joy, but the myriad joys of power...I have often wondered how I might have managed the power I had, had I not been a woman. It was the custom for even the most powerful of women, such as Livia, to efface themselves and to assume a docility that in many instances went against their natures."Aside from Julia's powerful writings, the most compelling dialogue happens at the twilight of Augustus's own life at the end of the book, when the reader finally gets to view Augustus's life from the contemplative and often regretful musings of a dying emperor who seems to be asking the painful question through his letters to Nicolaus of Damascus of whether his life devoted to ambition and power was actually worth the high cost of losing most of his friends and loved ones in the end. Interestingly, much of what we learn from Augustus in the preceding pages is indirectly from the writings of others, or when he does speak, it is in the form of commands or is in the form of active plotting for gaining power or keeping it. The writings at the closing of the book are the reader's first glimpse into the emperor's soul. Williams sets up the contemplations beautifully, as Augustus writes out to Nicolaus what he wants inscribed as a historical self-serving paean to himself to be posted on tablets at the Senate Forum, but then Augustus turns to how much folly is in those inscriptions and how much reality they fail to capture; how much ugliness of power that he can't possibly divulge. He writes these introspections to seemingly the one man he can trust with them. One of my favorite paragraphs will give the reader of this review a small taste of the ability of Williams to bring a character to life and to infuse philosophy into the narrative attributed to the imagined words of Augustus:"Mankind in the aggregate I have found to be brutish, ignorant and unkind, whether those qualities were covered by the coarse tunic of the peasant of the white and purple toga of a senator. And yet in the weakest of men, in moments when they are alone and themselves, I have found veins of strength like gold in decaying rock; in the cruelest of men, flashes of tenderness and compassion; and in the vainest of men, moments of simplicity and grace.”I have put my focus on the writings of Julia and Augustus, and in so doing perhaps I have neglected the significant components of the book that are devoted to Augustus's ascent to power and his lifelong struggle to maintain that control. Indeed, this is perhaps part of the book that moves the quickest, as there are plenty of moving scenes and lines delivered within the subtext of dark plots, friends betrayed, friends that betray Augustus, political marriages devoid of true love, significant battles, and the paradoxical weaknesses and strengths of man on full display throughout.