Monthly Archives: June 2012

I, Claudius: Part Four

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Rating: 3 out of 5

I’ve exceeded my own expectations and finished Robert Graves’ I, Claudius a day ahead of schedule! I must say that the last 150 pages went by so much faster, not only because I was determined to beat the clock, but also because the book finally gets to my favorite part: Caligula’s reign as Roman emperor!

Chapters 22-34 narrate the downfall of Tiberius, who in his 70′s is smothered on the whim of his grand-nephew Caligula. Tiberius had appointed Caligula as the next emperor because he thought someone even more evil than he would make him seem virtuous.

At first, the people rejoice that Germanicus’ son has taken the throne. But sure enough, Caligula proves to be one of the cruelest, craziest emperors of Rome. He succumbs to a grave fever, and even though he survives, he becomes absolutely mental.

He believes himself to be a god, and condemns anyone who doubts his immortality. In the vein of Jove, he decides to engage in incest with his three sisters. He also makes his favorite horse a senator. Not to mention, his lavish parties, festivals, fights, and orgies completely bankrupt the empire, so he has to murder rich Romans left and right to steal their assets.

The best scenes include Claudius’ clever responses to Caligula’s madness. He manages to save his own skin multiple times by depicting himself as the poor buffoon of an uncle. This tactic works, because eventually a group of conspirators corners Caligula after a theatrical performance and stabs him to death.

The novel ends with a huge riot between Caligula’s devoted German army and the Roman populace. The soldiers find Claudius hiding behind a palace curtain and declare him emperor, as he is one of the only remaining members of the Julio-Claudian family and a pretty weak one at that. Claudius’ hilarious final thought is that as the ruler of the empire, he can finally force people to read and listen to his histories. The ending sets up Graves’ sequel Claudius the God, which covers his  years as emperor until his own assassination.

As I’ve said in previous parts, I love the history of this novel. No one can determine how much of it is factual, but at least it draws from the accounts of a few ancient writers. If only the HBO show “Rome” was still airing, because this story would make for excellent television. Sex and violence galore!

Unfortunately, though, I have to mark I, Claudius down for missing that entertainment quality that is so essential to historical fiction. I felt myself relieved to finish it, when I should feel depressed that it had to end. I would only recommend this book to die-hard Roman history buffs–and even then, I think the original Latin texts (such as Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis) are better reads.

And speaking of Latin, I am going to carpe the heck out of the diem when my brother and I jet off to Tokyo in a couple days! We just received our yen in the mail and now all that’s left is to pack! I will be bringing books with me, of course, for the 10-12 hour plane rides, but no promises on being able to blog while I’m there! I’ll try my best, but if I can’t, I will return the first week of July!

Stay tuned!

Masterpiece Monday: “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath

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Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This Sunday is Father’s Day, and the first thing that I thought of to commemorate the holiday was Sylvia Plath’s famous poem “Daddy,” which was written in 1962, a few months before she took her own life at 30 years old. It’s a shame that Plath suffered from such depression, because she was a gifted writer. It’s no wonder that she was the first person to win a Pulitzer posthumously, as can be seen in this poem.

“Daddy” (Oct. 12 1962)

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time–
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You–

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I’m finally through.
The black telephone’s off at the root,
The voices just can’t worm through.

If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two–
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

This beautifully raw poem tells of Plath’s relationship with her father Otto. “The cleft in your chin instead of your foot” refers his foot being amputated after a case of untreated diabetes. Believing his illness to be lung cancer, he died shortly after.

His death affected Plath tremendously. “Daddy” uses the Nazi as a metaphor to describe how oppressed Plath felt by her father. However, even though she characterizes him as a black-hearted, brutish fascist, she still grieved him enough to attempt suicide by sleeping pills when she was 20.

The poem tells of her solution to her pain after her recovery: to marry an imitation of her father. Plath married poet Ted Hughes, known for dressing all in black, in 1956. They had two children together. Plath calls him a “vampire” who sucked her blood for seven years, because she discovered that he was having an affair with a woman named Assia Wevill.

Plath committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas oven. Hughes was rumored to have been abusive, given that Wevill killed herself and her four-year-daughter from Hughes in the same manner six years after Plath’s death. In 2009, Plath and Hughes’ son Nicholas hanged himself after suffering from depression as well.

I love this poem for its melodic rhythm and powerful emotion. It reminds us how love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Our relationships with our fathers, especially for women, often mold our perspectives and decisions in life. The Plath family lived and died tragically, but every family goes through struggles.

I can only hope that you all love and support your dads enough to wish them a wonderful Father’s Day. Since I’m leaving for Japan on Friday, we’ll be celebrating early!

Feel free to share your thoughts on this poem and others related to fatherhood!

I, Claudius: Part Three

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Well, I’m back from Vegas, only to find out that a literary legend has been lost. Even though I have only read one novel of Ray Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, I will definitely read more of his work, as he is celebrated as one of the greatest speculative fiction writers of all time. We owe so much to his words, and for that he will be missed.

In other news, I’m 300 pages into I, Claudius (only 150 pages to go!). I really hope I can finish it before I hop the pond to Japan, because my package from Amazon just showed up at my door today with some new books and manga.

Don’t you hate it when your to-read list is taunting you, reminding you of how impossible it is to even make a decent dent in the amount of fantastic literature out there?

Anyway, Chapters 15-21 are an improvement from the previous 100 pages. After Augustus dies, the Roman soldiers start to create mutinies due to the limited reward they received from his will. Tiberius proves to be an ineffective ruler, so his commander son Germanicus must forge a letter in his name to appease the troops.

This doesn’t work too well, and Germanicus has to send his family away for their own safety. This decision upsets the soldiers even more, as they have fallen in love with Germanicus’ son Caligula. They agree to behave if the little boy can return to camp.

One hilarious scene narrates an exchange between Hermann, a German chieftain, and his brother Flavius, who served in the Roman army. On opposite ends of the Rhine, they yell at each other about their treacheries–Hermann in German and Flavius in Latin, as neither man wants to offend their fellow soldiers.

The dialogue is so funny, since the brothers shout insults, ranging from one’s drinking problem to losing an eye in battle. Things get especially cruel when they each lie about their mother and wives’ lack of love for the brothers. It was amusing to picture these armed men yelling essentially what were “Yo Mama” jokes to each other across a river.

Meanwhile, Claudius moves to Capua and spends his days writing and enjoying time with his beloved prostitute-companion Calpurnia. He receives a secret message that Postumus is still alive (as his doppelganger slave was executed in his place), but sadly Tiberius finds out the news as well. Postumus is soon captured, tortured, and beheaded.

Tiberius then plots against his own son Germanicus. He sends Germanicus to Syria and appoints a man named Piso as governor to spy on him. Piso poisons the emperor’s mind, convincing him that his son is trying to overthrow him.

Eventually, Germanicus gets sick and strange things start occurring. He finds bloody rooster feathers and dead babies and animals hidden in his home. Suspicious of witchcraft, he keeps a talisman under his pillow. After 25 days (25 being Germanicus’ most-feared number), the talisman goes missing and he dies.

The rest of this section follows Rome’s mourning of Germanicus and anger at their despicable emperor. Livia convinces Piso’s wife Plancina to murder Piso and stage it as a suicide, in exchange for her own freedom. Germanicus receives many semi-divine honors, and his wife Agrippina becomes a martyr among the Roman populace.

These chapters further illustrate how messed up this imperial family is, with all the back-stabbing and assassinations. The only reason Claudius has lasted this long is because none of his relatives consider him a threat. I enjoyed this section much more than the previous, because I remember studying Germanicus’ death in Roman history class and finding it fascinating. So I’m intrigued to read how the rest of the story will go!

If I read 30 pages a day, I can wrap up I, Claudius by Thursday. Wish me luck!

I, Claudius: Part Two

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Cover of "I, Claudius : From the Autobiog...

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Realizing my slow reading pace and the fact that I have two vacations this month, I might not be able to reach my reading goal of 25 books this year. But here’s to hoping! There are SO many awesome books coming out this summer that it would be a shame if I couldn’t fit them all in!

And because of my impending vacations, I won’t be able to blog Masterpiece Monday next week, as I’ll be back in Vegas with a bff! Not to mention, in two weeks, my little brother and I will officially be in Tokyo!!! I’ve been spending my post-grad life job searching, working, and blogging, but I’m managing to study a bit of Japanese before we leave. Going to Tokyo is a dream come true, and I can only imagine how much crazy fun it will be!

Anyway, I’m over 200 pages, or 40%, into Robert Graves’ I, Claudius, so I wanted to summarize my thoughts on Chapters 8-14. The previous chapters discussed Claudius’ failed marriages, his current which produces his son Drusillus. He also talks about his historian role models, Livy and Pollio.

It gets interesting when Augustus’ wife Livia begins to eliminate her enemies to ensure that her son Tiberius will fill the throne. Postumus is still Augustus’ son and potential heir, so Livia falsely accuses him of raping Claudius’ sister Livilla. Postumus manages to tell Claudius the truth before he’s banished to a small island in the Mediterranean.

The wars in Germany escalate, and although Claudius begs Augustus for permission to fight, his physical conditions are too much of an obstacle. So he continues to write history, while keeping informed by his beloved brother Germanicus, who’s serving as a commander.

Eventually Germanicus tells Augustus the truth about Postumus. Augustus then secretly exchanges Postumus with a slave who looks very similar to him. Livia suspects something’s afoot, and is determined to rid herself of her husband. Given all the rumors of Livia poisoning various relatives, Augustus refuses her cooking and instead only eats figs off their trees. Unfortunately, Livia is able to smear poison on the figs, and Augustus dies. All her lies and murders prove fruitful as Tiberius becomes the second emperor of Rome.

Although there’s enough family drama in I, Claudius to make a soap opera, it’s clear that this story would be better suited for television or the big screen than in print. Claudius’ mission is to tell the history of his family accurately, but he could use an entertainment factor. I appreciate all the facts and details, but I only wish this novel could be less dry and more conversational.

If I want to be able to read the summer bestsellers, I better finish this book this month. You can bet that if I don’t have it done by the time I leave for Japan, I will make use of my 11 hour flights!

Don’t miss me too much, I’ll be back blogging sometime next weekend!