This book sat on my shelves for a longtime before it made its way into my hands. To describe this book in one word it would be, “Charming.” It has all the complexity of a great Russian novel with characters and stories as intertwined as the legs of lovers. The self-aware and brilliant bumbling of the first-person narrator meticulously tells the inside story of intrigue, murder, family, power, and the misperceptions of the physically disabled. Like I said… “Charming.”
Quotes I enjoyed:
“Livy begins his history by lamenting modern wickedness and promising to trace the gradual decline of ancient virtue as conquests made Rome wealthy. He says that he will most enjoy writing the early chapters because he will be able, in doing so, to close his eyes to the wickedness of modern times. But in closing his eyes to modern wickedness hasn’t he sometimes closed his eyes to ancient wickedness as well?”
P. 122
“People love being ‘persuaded to ancient virture’ by a charming writer, particularly when they are told in the same breath that modern civilization has made such virtue impossible of attainment.”
P. 123
“The simpler and sillier the Joke, the better a big crowd likes it. (The greatest applause I ever won for a joke was once in the Circus when I happened to be presiding in Caligula’s absence. The people called out angrily for a sword-fighter called Pigeon who was advertised to perform but had not turned up, so I said “Patience, Friends! First catch your Pigeon and then pluck him!” Whereas really witty jokes of mine have been quite lost on them.)”
P. 410