The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Historical Fiction You Cannot Do Without, 14 Dec 2004
Barry Unsworth's novel does deserve the Booker Prize that it won. From the moment I picked it up it was impossible to put down. The novel starts with a description of two classes in 18th century England: the working class and the burgeoning mercantile class exemplified by Erasmus Kemp. I particularly like the way Barry Unsworth portrays bawdy tavern speak using its clipped sounds and mispronounced words.

Sacred Hunger races between gaudy mansions of the nouveau riche in the English countryside and the slave dealers abode in humid, hot West Africa. It underlines the common humanity in us all and the questions that injustice raises. The novel's ace-in-the-hole is that he does not adopt a moralizing tone on the issue of slave trade. The novel is a stark description of our pitiful, insatiable greed, which was the cause of the the injustice that was the Slave Trade.

If you are a serious history buff looking for some perspective into the Slave Trade then this is not the book for you. However, if you want a fantastic bit of storytelling with the slave trade as a backdrop then you must read this one.

Fantastic piece of history, 23 Feb 2004
What a wonderful book! The amount of research required for such an epic must be mind boggling. This is not just a novel about the slave trade, but a close look at the two very different personalities of the main protagonists, (as relevant today, as in 1752), and the justifcation, or not, of the Sacred Hunger of the title. We are treated to a graphic description of the terrible privations suffered by both the crew and their human cargo, and reminded of how human beings in certain parts of the world were treated worse than any animal, simply because of the colour of their skin. What more can I say? read it!

Powerful, immediate and disturbing - a wonderful novel, 25 Oct 2001
This epic of the eighteenth century British Slave Trade works at two levels. The first is as a straight and exciting narrative of the different stances to it of the two main characters, one who profits from it, and is at last morally enslaved by it himself while the other recognises its evil and attempts his own ultimately futile protest against it. At the second level the novel serves as a meditation on the nature of greed - the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, and the extent to which it can become a justification for any excess. Mr.Unsworth's genius in this book is however that the does not adapt a simplistic moralising tone but writes with understanding of the society that produced this abuse, and shows how potentially decent people could be drawn, unthinkingly, into the position of profiteers and exploiters. One does not get a sense here of modern perceptions and values being projected back on to an earlier age - the weakness which destroys so much serious fiction set in the past - and the characters' behaviour and attitudes, whether sympathetic to the Slave Trade or not , are consistent with those of eighteenth century British society. Like other novels of Unsworth's, this work has many echoes of Conrad, in its depiction of the depths to which humanity can so quickly plunge once the restraints of law and custom are relaxed. Though gripping from the first page it is disturbing work and the vividness of its plot and imagery will not quickly leave the reader. Very highly recommended.

The finest piece of historical fiction I've ever read., 21 Feb 2001
Unsworth's Booker prize sharing _Sacred_Hunger_ is a book of virtually unparalleled beauty. It sustains you, beckens you along, and leaves you heartbroken, with an entire new lexicon of heroes, villians, and victims. Ruthless in its intensity, unforgiving in its accusation and sparing of no detail, this monumental novel should be considered a landmark on the horizon of late 20th century literature.

Far superior to _Pascli's_Island_, another Booker nominee by Unsworth and the only other book of his I've read, I can only pray that this was not a solitary effort. How it was the co-winner with _The_English_Patient_ I'll never know. This surpasses that text in every respect.

This novel was semi-good compared to others i've read., 10 Dec 2000
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth was a moderate novel. It took well into the 400's to get interesting enough to make myself not want to put it down. Unsworth's discriptiveness makes the novel hard to read, but not as hard as when he starts writing the conversations at the settlement they form in "pidgin" language. This book is definately for someone who is interested in historical events, as it takes place in the 1700's during the slave trade. The characters are hard to relate to, and the chapters are broken apart between two storylines, making the novel hard to follow. Overall, I'd give this novel an average rating because it was well written, but not all that easy to read and not all that interesting.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Historical Fiction You Cannot Do Without, 14 Dec 2004
Barry Unsworth's novel does deserve the Booker Prize that it won. From the moment I picked it up it was impossible to put down. The novel starts with a description of two classes in 18th century England: the working class and the burgeoning mercantile class exemplified by Erasmus Kemp. I particularly like the way Barry Unsworth portrays bawdy tavern speak using its clipped sounds and mispronounced words.

Sacred Hunger races between gaudy mansions of the nouveau riche in the English countryside and the slave dealers abode in humid, hot West Africa. It underlines the common humanity in us all and the questions that injustice raises. The novel's ace-in-the-hole is that he does not adopt a moralizing tone on the issue of slave trade. The novel is a stark description of our pitiful, insatiable greed, which was the cause of the the injustice that was the Slave Trade.

If you are a serious history buff looking for some perspective into the Slave Trade then this is not the book for you. However, if you want a fantastic bit of storytelling with the slave trade as a backdrop then you must read this one.

Fantastic piece of history, 23 Feb 2004
What a wonderful book! The amount of research required for such an epic must be mind boggling. This is not just a novel about the slave trade, but a close look at the two very different personalities of the main protagonists, (as relevant today, as in 1752), and the justifcation, or not, of the Sacred Hunger of the title. We are treated to a graphic description of the terrible privations suffered by both the crew and their human cargo, and reminded of how human beings in certain parts of the world were treated worse than any animal, simply because of the colour of their skin. What more can I say? read it!

Powerful, immediate and disturbing - a wonderful novel, 25 Oct 2001
This epic of the eighteenth century British Slave Trade works at two levels. The first is as a straight and exciting narrative of the different stances to it of the two main characters, one who profits from it, and is at last morally enslaved by it himself while the other recognises its evil and attempts his own ultimately futile protest against it. At the second level the novel serves as a meditation on the nature of greed - the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, and the extent to which it can become a justification for any excess. Mr.Unsworth's genius in this book is however that the does not adapt a simplistic moralising tone but writes with understanding of the society that produced this abuse, and shows how potentially decent people could be drawn, unthinkingly, into the position of profiteers and exploiters. One does not get a sense here of modern perceptions and values being projected back on to an earlier age - the weakness which destroys so much serious fiction set in the past - and the characters' behaviour and attitudes, whether sympathetic to the Slave Trade or not , are consistent with those of eighteenth century British society. Like other novels of Unsworth's, this work has many echoes of Conrad, in its depiction of the depths to which humanity can so quickly plunge once the restraints of law and custom are relaxed. Though gripping from the first page it is disturbing work and the vividness of its plot and imagery will not quickly leave the reader. Very highly recommended.

The finest piece of historical fiction I've ever read., 21 Feb 2001
Unsworth's Booker prize sharing _Sacred_Hunger_ is a book of virtually unparalleled beauty. It sustains you, beckens you along, and leaves you heartbroken, with an entire new lexicon of heroes, villians, and victims. Ruthless in its intensity, unforgiving in its accusation and sparing of no detail, this monumental novel should be considered a landmark on the horizon of late 20th century literature.

Far superior to _Pascli's_Island_, another Booker nominee by Unsworth and the only other book of his I've read, I can only pray that this was not a solitary effort. How it was the co-winner with _The_English_Patient_ I'll never know. This surpasses that text in every respect.

This novel was semi-good compared to others i've read., 10 Dec 2000
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth was a moderate novel. It took well into the 400's to get interesting enough to make myself not want to put it down. Unsworth's discriptiveness makes the novel hard to read, but not as hard as when he starts writing the conversations at the settlement they form in "pidgin" language. This book is definately for someone who is interested in historical events, as it takes place in the 1700's during the slave trade. The characters are hard to relate to, and the chapters are broken apart between two storylines, making the novel hard to follow. Overall, I'd give this novel an average rating because it was well written, but not all that easy to read and not all that interesting.

Fantastic stuff, 24 Oct 2007
Coming after the incredibly good novel "I, Claudius", this second part describes the actual reign of Claudius until his death AD54. There may be some controversy about how much is fact and how much is fiction (Graves himself claimed everything is based on ample contemporary and later sources, and he says in the foreword 'few incidents here given are wholly unsupported by historical authority of some sort') but in fact that's besides the point. This is if nothing else a fabulous re-telling of one of the most influential and fascinating periods in Western history.

More importantly, it's also a riveting story with powerful insights into the nature and influence of power, ambition versus decency, etc. etc. so even if you couldn't care less about Rome it's still a great read.

My God, nothing at all like the TV Series, and far more boring for it., 07 May 2007
I, Claudius was fine. I liked I, Claudius; its mix of soap opera and real history so skillfully ripped from Suetonius's "Life of the Twelve Caesars" makes it a cracking good read. So naturally i was expecting about the same calibre from this.
Trouble is, it turns out to be either a supremely skilled satire, a veiled attack on his (Graves') publishers (he supposedly wrote his miniseries on the stuttering emperor for the money), or just boring.
Typically, you would want the book to start off straight after the events which concluded the last book. It takes a quarter of the book to get to there, the intervening period being filled with a small biography on Claudius's friend Herod Agrippa. An introduction is fine; the biography inside the book however could be published on its own merit, but nevertheless is almost totally irrelevent to the plot.
When it comes to the actual story line again, Claudius then goes on ceaselessly about reforms, or "how i alone conquered Britain", or fiddling with trade monopolies. This is not the stuff gripping dramas are made out of; i can see know why I, Claudius the series missed out all of this crap and only made around 4 episodes out of the book, compared to the other eight the previous one managed. Some of these descriptions are vaguely interesting, and thread into the plot , but only after sixty pages on riots in Alexandria, and by that time your exhausted.
But i may be missing the point. As a work of literature alone this is a boring bundle of paper that deserves to be thrown onto the fire. As a satire on Roman autobiographies, that needs to be said; it is only in the course of writing this review that i have realised this, and others will most likely go for my former expierience (i didnt actually throw it onto the fire, but gave up 3/4 of the way through). As a veiled attack on his publishers, that is a fine achievement; writing a whole book that is boring beyond belief must have tested Graves.
Overall i dislike this book. There is hardly any drama, and where there is its bookended with crap about trade deficits in Rome, senatorial expenditure and military campaigns which bear no relevance to the piece unless as a full assesment of the subject. It is not worth it to read it as purely a satire on Roman autobiographies; from the histories we know (as most likely Graves did) that the Emperor Claudius was a twitchy psychopath at heart, as were all but two of the later Julio-Claudian line. So, unless your as boring as hell, dont read this book; its a monumental waste of time, with no comparison to its sister book.

More diverse than I, Claudius, 30 Dec 2006
This is the second volume of Graves' fictional autobiography of the emperor Claudius, and, in some ways, the more interesting for being far less well-known.

Claudius has become emperor against his will, and now recounts the story of his reign: the roman engagement with the middle east in the figure of Herod Agrippa; the second (and successful) invasion of Britain; the re-establishment of some kind of order after the mad predations of Caligula. But all is not well in Claudius' 'happy' marriage to the depraved and decadent Messalina, and, when Claudius discovers the truth about her, he is so disillusioned that he withdraws from active engagement from life and leaves Rome in the hands of his murderous nephew, Nero.

As with the first volume, Graves has fun here with the historical sources (principally Suetonius and Tacitus) and interprets them fictionally to make a compelling and psychologically astute novel. However, this isn't history but fiction, and paints a very different picture of Claudius from the one more generally accepted now by classicists working in this field.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Historical Fiction You Cannot Do Without, 14 Dec 2004
Barry Unsworth's novel does deserve the Booker Prize that it won. From the moment I picked it up it was impossible to put down. The novel starts with a description of two classes in 18th century England: the working class and the burgeoning mercantile class exemplified by Erasmus Kemp. I particularly like the way Barry Unsworth portrays bawdy tavern speak using its clipped sounds and mispronounced words.

Sacred Hunger races between gaudy mansions of the nouveau riche in the English countryside and the slave dealers abode in humid, hot West Africa. It underlines the common humanity in us all and the questions that injustice raises. The novel's ace-in-the-hole is that he does not adopt a moralizing tone on the issue of slave trade. The novel is a stark description of our pitiful, insatiable greed, which was the cause of the the injustice that was the Slave Trade.

If you are a serious history buff looking for some perspective into the Slave Trade then this is not the book for you. However, if you want a fantastic bit of storytelling with the slave trade as a backdrop then you must read this one.

Fantastic piece of history, 23 Feb 2004
What a wonderful book! The amount of research required for such an epic must be mind boggling. This is not just a novel about the slave trade, but a close look at the two very different personalities of the main protagonists, (as relevant today, as in 1752), and the justifcation, or not, of the Sacred Hunger of the title. We are treated to a graphic description of the terrible privations suffered by both the crew and their human cargo, and reminded of how human beings in certain parts of the world were treated worse than any animal, simply because of the colour of their skin. What more can I say? read it!

Powerful, immediate and disturbing - a wonderful novel, 25 Oct 2001
This epic of the eighteenth century British Slave Trade works at two levels. The first is as a straight and exciting narrative of the different stances to it of the two main characters, one who profits from it, and is at last morally enslaved by it himself while the other recognises its evil and attempts his own ultimately futile protest against it. At the second level the novel serves as a meditation on the nature of greed - the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, and the extent to which it can become a justification for any excess. Mr.Unsworth's genius in this book is however that the does not adapt a simplistic moralising tone but writes with understanding of the society that produced this abuse, and shows how potentially decent people could be drawn, unthinkingly, into the position of profiteers and exploiters. One does not get a sense here of modern perceptions and values being projected back on to an earlier age - the weakness which destroys so much serious fiction set in the past - and the characters' behaviour and attitudes, whether sympathetic to the Slave Trade or not , are consistent with those of eighteenth century British society. Like other novels of Unsworth's, this work has many echoes of Conrad, in its depiction of the depths to which humanity can so quickly plunge once the restraints of law and custom are relaxed. Though gripping from the first page it is disturbing work and the vividness of its plot and imagery will not quickly leave the reader. Very highly recommended.

The finest piece of historical fiction I've ever read., 21 Feb 2001
Unsworth's Booker prize sharing _Sacred_Hunger_ is a book of virtually unparalleled beauty. It sustains you, beckens you along, and leaves you heartbroken, with an entire new lexicon of heroes, villians, and victims. Ruthless in its intensity, unforgiving in its accusation and sparing of no detail, this monumental novel should be considered a landmark on the horizon of late 20th century literature.

Far superior to _Pascli's_Island_, another Booker nominee by Unsworth and the only other book of his I've read, I can only pray that this was not a solitary effort. How it was the co-winner with _The_English_Patient_ I'll never know. This surpasses that text in every respect.

This novel was semi-good compared to others i've read., 10 Dec 2000
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth was a moderate novel. It took well into the 400's to get interesting enough to make myself not want to put it down. Unsworth's discriptiveness makes the novel hard to read, but not as hard as when he starts writing the conversations at the settlement they form in "pidgin" language. This book is definately for someone who is interested in historical events, as it takes place in the 1700's during the slave trade. The characters are hard to relate to, and the chapters are broken apart between two storylines, making the novel hard to follow. Overall, I'd give this novel an average rating because it was well written, but not all that easy to read and not all that interesting.

Fantastic stuff, 24 Oct 2007
Coming after the incredibly good novel "I, Claudius", this second part describes the actual reign of Claudius until his death AD54. There may be some controversy about how much is fact and how much is fiction (Graves himself claimed everything is based on ample contemporary and later sources, and he says in the foreword 'few incidents here given are wholly unsupported by historical authority of some sort') but in fact that's besides the point. This is if nothing else a fabulous re-telling of one of the most influential and fascinating periods in Western history.

More importantly, it's also a riveting story with powerful insights into the nature and influence of power, ambition versus decency, etc. etc. so even if you couldn't care less about Rome it's still a great read.

My God, nothing at all like the TV Series, and far more boring for it., 07 May 2007
I, Claudius was fine. I liked I, Claudius; its mix of soap opera and real history so skillfully ripped from Suetonius's "Life of the Twelve Caesars" makes it a cracking good read. So naturally i was expecting about the same calibre from this.
Trouble is, it turns out to be either a supremely skilled satire, a veiled attack on his (Graves') publishers (he supposedly wrote his miniseries on the stuttering emperor for the money), or just boring.
Typically, you would want the book to start off straight after the events which concluded the last book. It takes a quarter of the book to get to there, the intervening period being filled with a small biography on Claudius's friend Herod Agrippa. An introduction is fine; the biography inside the book however could be published on its own merit, but nevertheless is almost totally irrelevent to the plot.
When it comes to the actual story line again, Claudius then goes on ceaselessly about reforms, or "how i alone conquered Britain", or fiddling with trade monopolies. This is not the stuff gripping dramas are made out of; i can see know why I, Claudius the series missed out all of this crap and only made around 4 episodes out of the book, compared to the other eight the previous one managed. Some of these descriptions are vaguely interesting, and thread into the plot , but only after sixty pages on riots in Alexandria, and by that time your exhausted.
But i may be missing the point. As a work of literature alone this is a boring bundle of paper that deserves to be thrown onto the fire. As a satire on Roman autobiographies, that needs to be said; it is only in the course of writing this review that i have realised this, and others will most likely go for my former expierience (i didnt actually throw it onto the fire, but gave up 3/4 of the way through). As a veiled attack on his publishers, that is a fine achievement; writing a whole book that is boring beyond belief must have tested Graves.
Overall i dislike this book. There is hardly any drama, and where there is its bookended with crap about trade deficits in Rome, senatorial expenditure and military campaigns which bear no relevance to the piece unless as a full assesment of the subject. It is not worth it to read it as purely a satire on Roman autobiographies; from the histories we know (as most likely Graves did) that the Emperor Claudius was a twitchy psychopath at heart, as were all but two of the later Julio-Claudian line. So, unless your as boring as hell, dont read this book; its a monumental waste of time, with no comparison to its sister book.

More diverse than I, Claudius, 30 Dec 2006
This is the second volume of Graves' fictional autobiography of the emperor Claudius, and, in some ways, the more interesting for being far less well-known.

Claudius has become emperor against his will, and now recounts the story of his reign: the roman engagement with the middle east in the figure of Herod Agrippa; the second (and successful) invasion of Britain; the re-establishment of some kind of order after the mad predations of Caligula. But all is not well in Claudius' 'happy' marriage to the depraved and decadent Messalina, and, when Claudius discovers the truth about her, he is so disillusioned that he withdraws from active engagement from life and leaves Rome in the hands of his murderous nephew, Nero.

As with the first volume, Graves has fun here with the historical sources (principally Suetonius and Tacitus) and interprets them fictionally to make a compelling and psychologically astute novel. However, this isn't history but fiction, and paints a very different picture of Claudius from the one more generally accepted now by classicists working in this field.


A Mediterranean romance, 10 Apr 2008
At the heart of this novel is the age-old tension between Christendom and Islam. Set after the second failed crusade in twelfth-century Sicily which is a melting pot of Christians and Moslems - mainly Normans, Latins, Franks, Turks and Arabs. King Roger is seen to encourage all to work together in harmony.
We are introduced to Thurstan, whose father gave up the rat race to become a monk, thus removing Thurstan's chances of knighthood, leaving him to work as a procurer of entertainers for the king. Thurstan is rather an innocent and is easily manipulated by those in power and when he gets invited to a gathering at the king's country retreat and meets his childhood sweetheart Alicia, he falls for her again and thus starts a whole chain of events. Meanwhile he found a troupe of belly dancers and musicians and entranced by the dancer Nesrin, brings them back to Palermo to perform for the king.
This is a novel of romance and high intrigue, and of a young man gaining adulthood. Thurstan is a thoughtful chap, and as the tale is told in the first person, we get all his thinking written down on the page.
Underneath all the pondering, is a first rate historical thriller with a good love element trying to get out, however it does rather get bogged down in the philosophising.

Impeccable historical fiction, 14 Feb 2008
"The ruby in her navel" is a delight to read! It pleased and impressed me as no other historical novel has done in a very long time, and many are the reasons why. First of all there's the setting: 12th-century Sicily was completely unknown to me, and Unsworth depicts and describes it as if he's been there. Particularly the fact that Christians, Muslims, Jews, Byzantines etc all tried to co-exist there made, in real life, the ideal setting for intrigues at court and makes, in the novel, for countless twists and turns in the plot.

Secondly, and this is to me the hallmark of a truly exceptional historical novel, what happens to the characters and specifically to the protagonist Thurstan Beauchamp could have happened anywhere and at any time because it is really a superb story of love, hope, betrayal, deceit and deception which costs Thurstan dearly but ultimately leaves him a more experienced and more mature man.

Barry Unsworth's previous works already set a very high standard but this his latest novel doesn't fail to live up to that standard making it very hard indeed to choose a favorite, they're quite simply all very very good.

Excellent, 04 Feb 2008
Unsworth is a much underrated writer. Yes it's historical fiction - historic romance even - but this is Patrick O'Brian rather than Georgette Heyer.

The novel is illuminating on an aspect of history that is, I am sure, obscure to most people. It has a rewardingly complex plot for a relatively short book. Unsworth is obviously intending to make a point about the lessons that the twenty-first century can learn from the mistakes of the twelth. The surface reading is that we should live in peace with one another. The sub-text is perhaps that we should look to the motives of those who try tell us that we cannot so do.

Always worth reading, 27 Dec 2007
As always with Barry Unsworth, this is a book well worth the reading. You get the sense that every word counts. For example, when Thurstan first meets Alicia he is standing on a mosaic of a peacock... By the time I finished the book I realised that there must be many more references that I'd missed. Colours are important, and the "sense of balance" is a theme running through.

But overall, I suppose, the theme of the book has to do with religious intolerance, mixed with greed for power. Although set in Sicily in the 1100's these themes are still important today.

Europe revisited, reinterpreted, 21 Nov 2007
A Ruby in Her Navel is yet another superb historical novel by Barry Unsworth. By his phenomenal standards, this book might at first appear somewhat one-paced, even one-dimensional, with its action set firmly in the place and time of its main character, Thurston Beauchamp, a young man in the service of King Roger of Sicily in the twelfth century. But if A Ruby in Her Navel might lack the immediacy and complexity of Stone Virgin, it approaches the beautifully portrayed picture of medieval life presented in Morality Play. Indeed, a group of travelling players also features in this novel, as in Morality Play, but this time it's a troupe of belly dancers from Anatolia, on tour in southern Italy. The ruby and navel of the title both belong to Nasrin, the youngest, most beautiful and most provocative member of the group. But having written that they were touring Italy, a country name that in our eyes is merely mundane and perhaps innocuous, I am reminded of one of the most enduring features of Barry Unsworth's book, which is its ability to re-draw one's understanding of who we were.

It was Alison Weir who first did this for me, if you see what I mean. I read her biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the marriageable lady who became King Henry the Second of England's queen. Again, there's the name of a country... You see, at school we British school children learned a variety of history that filtered everything through a sieve of contemporary national requirements. I can remember being taught that during the medieval era, the English ruled most of France and largely held onto it until the Wars of the Roses (I was brought up in Yorkshire, another irrelevant aside). Possessions remained until Queen Mary finally gave up Calais with a cardiac etch. Alison Weir undid a school lifetime of history when she described the Angevin Empire, part of the pan-European expansion of the Franks. Based in Anjou, this empire comprised what we now call southern, western and northern France, plus all of England and Wales, and other bits at times (though never Scotland, hence that nation's long-lasting alliance with the rival empire based on the Ile de France). When interpreted this way, it wasn't English kings that ruled France, or vice-versa. It was an empire with its own lingua franca, langue d'oc. The countries, and with them the geographical, ethnic and cultural assumptions upon which we falsely base our interpretation of the past, simply did not exist. Thus the paradigms upon which we base our understanding of English-ness or French-ness become both irrelevant and inapplicable. And thus the troupe of belly dancers in A Ruby in Her Navel weren't, therefore, in Italy. They were in the Kingdom of Sicily, a small but powerful and ambitious little Norman empire created out of the same Frankish expansion that spurned the enduring conquest of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066.

In A Ruby in her Navel Barry Unsworth presents medieval Europe in a way that brings the historical issues into focus and gives them life. Lands were conquered and their Muslim leaders deposed. But the new rulers had to politic their way to continued incumbency, recognising the interests of land-hungry knights, only temporarily defeated Muslim predecessors with friends nearby, Jewish merchants who did pragmatic business with anyone and everyone. And even within these groups there were divisions. Amongst the Christians there were two competing blocks, the Germanic Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine remnants of Imperial Rome. And then there was the Pope with his own empire, interests and ability to raise an army. And then there were those who aspired to power from within and sought to depose a rival in their own house. The Crusades that primary school history presents has having something to do with religion thus become mere wars of conquest for booty.

In A Ruby in Her Navel Barry Unsworth thus gives immediate, tangible life to the feudalism of the time. We really do understand the politics, the interests, the motivations of the era. But we are led to it by our experience of the characters' lives, not via instruction or polemic. And the message is more powerful for Thurston Beauchamp, because he aspires to the knighthood his father relinquished in favour of monasticism. Thurston is currently King Roger's entertainments manager and has to travel to Italy (I am doing it again!) to buy herons, caged prey for the King's peregrines. He does his deal, but meets the troupe of dancers and the resulting stirrings of the spirit provoke him to ship them back home to do the same for his master. He falls in love with Nasrin, one of the group. Meanwhile Alicia, Thurston's childhood sweetheart, suddenly reappears in his life. They were at school together until she was whisked away at a marriageable fourteen to be conjoined to a knight with a big sword and real estate in the Middle East, the Norman Outremer. Alicia's husband, it seems, has now snuffed it, and again Thurston's spirits rise when he realises that she is again available, again an unaccompanied, unclaimed, newly-vacated vessel.

The belly dancers go down well at home, of course, and so Thurston's star is in the ascendant. He gets a new mission, commissioned by he knows not who and which causes accounting difficulties for the Muslim "head of civil service" to whom he reports.

By now you have probably guessed that there is a plot. And it's a vast one, involving insiders, outsiders, a pope or two, Muslims, Germans, Jews, Byzantines and all the other interests competing their share of or their consolidation of feudal power. This really is top-down government, but the trick, once power is achieved, clearly is just to hold on. And sometimes you consolidate your home base by having a fiddle or two on foreign soil, a political strategy not unknown in our own times.

Our Thurston analyses the plot, works it all out and then acts to influence the outcome. Along the way he grapples with his rising dilemma in relation to Nasrin and Alicia, and thus his life is eventually transformed. As in all ages, he follows his heart (by which, of course, I mean his brain). A Ruby in Her Navel thus reveals that, as ever with Barry Unsworth, it is a multi-layered, complex, surprising and yet deeply human tale.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Historical Fiction You Cannot Do Without, 14 Dec 2004
Barry Unsworth's novel does deserve the Booker Prize that it won. From the moment I picked it up it was impossible to put down. The novel starts with a description of two classes in 18th century England: the working class and the burgeoning mercantile class exemplified by Erasmus Kemp. I particularly like the way Barry Unsworth portrays bawdy tavern speak using its clipped sounds and mispronounced words.

Sacred Hunger races between gaudy mansions of the nouveau riche in the English countryside and the slave dealers abode in humid, hot West Africa. It underlines the common humanity in us all and the questions that injustice raises. The novel's ace-in-the-hole is that he does not adopt a moralizing tone on the issue of slave trade. The novel is a stark description of our pitiful, insatiable greed, which was the cause of the the injustice that was the Slave Trade.

If you are a serious history buff looking for some perspective into the Slave Trade then this is not the book for you. However, if you want a fantastic bit of storytelling with the slave trade as a backdrop then you must read this one.

Fantastic piece of history, 23 Feb 2004
What a wonderful book! The amount of research required for such an epic must be mind boggling. This is not just a novel about the slave trade, but a close look at the two very different personalities of the main protagonists, (as relevant today, as in 1752), and the justifcation, or not, of the Sacred Hunger of the title. We are treated to a graphic description of the terrible privations suffered by both the crew and their human cargo, and reminded of how human beings in certain parts of the world were treated worse than any animal, simply because of the colour of their skin. What more can I say? read it!

Powerful, immediate and disturbing - a wonderful novel, 25 Oct 2001
This epic of the eighteenth century British Slave Trade works at two levels. The first is as a straight and exciting narrative of the different stances to it of the two main characters, one who profits from it, and is at last morally enslaved by it himself while the other recognises its evil and attempts his own ultimately futile protest against it. At the second level the novel serves as a meditation on the nature of greed - the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, and the extent to which it can become a justification for any excess. Mr.Unsworth's genius in this book is however that the does not adapt a simplistic moralising tone but writes with understanding of the society that produced this abuse, and shows how potentially decent people could be drawn, unthinkingly, into the position of profiteers and exploiters. One does not get a sense here of modern perceptions and values being projected back on to an earlier age - the weakness which destroys so much serious fiction set in the past - and the characters' behaviour and attitudes, whether sympathetic to the Slave Trade or not , are consistent with those of eighteenth century British society. Like other novels of Unsworth's, this work has many echoes of Conrad, in its depiction of the depths to which humanity can so quickly plunge once the restraints of law and custom are relaxed. Though gripping from the first page it is disturbing work and the vividness of its plot and imagery will not quickly leave the reader. Very highly recommended.

The finest piece of historical fiction I've ever read., 21 Feb 2001
Unsworth's Booker prize sharing _Sacred_Hunger_ is a book of virtually unparalleled beauty. It sustains you, beckens you along, and leaves you heartbroken, with an entire new lexicon of heroes, villians, and victims. Ruthless in its intensity, unforgiving in its accusation and sparing of no detail, this monumental novel should be considered a landmark on the horizon of late 20th century literature.

Far superior to _Pascli's_Island_, another Booker nominee by Unsworth and the only other book of his I've read, I can only pray that this was not a solitary effort. How it was the co-winner with _The_English_Patient_ I'll never know. This surpasses that text in every respect.

This novel was semi-good compared to others i've read., 10 Dec 2000
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth was a moderate novel. It took well into the 400's to get interesting enough to make myself not want to put it down. Unsworth's discriptiveness makes the novel hard to read, but not as hard as when he starts writing the conversations at the settlement they form in "pidgin" language. This book is definately for someone who is interested in historical events, as it takes place in the 1700's during the slave trade. The characters are hard to relate to, and the chapters are broken apart between two storylines, making the novel hard to follow. Overall, I'd give this novel an average rating because it was well written, but not all that easy to read and not all that interesting.

Fantastic stuff, 24 Oct 2007
Coming after the incredibly good novel "I, Claudius", this second part describes the actual reign of Claudius until his death AD54. There may be some controversy about how much is fact and how much is fiction (Graves himself claimed everything is based on ample contemporary and later sources, and he says in the foreword 'few incidents here given are wholly unsupported by historical authority of some sort') but in fact that's besides the point. This is if nothing else a fabulous re-telling of one of the most influential and fascinating periods in Western history.

More importantly, it's also a riveting story with powerful insights into the nature and influence of power, ambition versus decency, etc. etc. so even if you couldn't care less about Rome it's still a great read.

My God, nothing at all like the TV Series, and far more boring for it., 07 May 2007
I, Claudius was fine. I liked I, Claudius; its mix of soap opera and real history so skillfully ripped from Suetonius's "Life of the Twelve Caesars" makes it a cracking good read. So naturally i was expecting about the same calibre from this.
Trouble is, it turns out to be either a supremely skilled satire, a veiled attack on his (Graves') publishers (he supposedly wrote his miniseries on the stuttering emperor for the money), or just boring.
Typically, you would want the book to start off straight after the events which concluded the last book. It takes a quarter of the book to get to there, the intervening period being filled with a small biography on Claudius's friend Herod Agrippa. An introduction is fine; the biography inside the book however could be published on its own merit, but nevertheless is almost totally irrelevent to the plot.
When it comes to the actual story line again, Claudius then goes on ceaselessly about reforms, or "how i alone conquered Britain", or fiddling with trade monopolies. This is not the stuff gripping dramas are made out of; i can see know why I, Claudius the series missed out all of this crap and only made around 4 episodes out of the book, compared to the other eight the previous one managed. Some of these descriptions are vaguely interesting, and thread into the plot , but only after sixty pages on riots in Alexandria, and by that time your exhausted.
But i may be missing the point. As a work of literature alone this is a boring bundle of paper that deserves to be thrown onto the fire. As a satire on Roman autobiographies, that needs to be said; it is only in the course of writing this review that i have realised this, and others will most likely go for my former expierience (i didnt actually throw it onto the fire, but gave up 3/4 of the way through). As a veiled attack on his publishers, that is a fine achievement; writing a whole book that is boring beyond belief must have tested Graves.
Overall i dislike this book. There is hardly any drama, and where there is its bookended with crap about trade deficits in Rome, senatorial expenditure and military campaigns which bear no relevance to the piece unless as a full assesment of the subject. It is not worth it to read it as purely a satire on Roman autobiographies; from the histories we know (as most likely Graves did) that the Emperor Claudius was a twitchy psychopath at heart, as were all but two of the later Julio-Claudian line. So, unless your as boring as hell, dont read this book; its a monumental waste of time, with no comparison to its sister book.

More diverse than I, Claudius, 30 Dec 2006
This is the second volume of Graves' fictional autobiography of the emperor Claudius, and, in some ways, the more interesting for being far less well-known.

Claudius has become emperor against his will, and now recounts the story of his reign: the roman engagement with the middle east in the figure of Herod Agrippa; the second (and successful) invasion of Britain; the re-establishment of some kind of order after the mad predations of Caligula. But all is not well in Claudius' 'happy' marriage to the depraved and decadent Messalina, and, when Claudius discovers the truth about her, he is so disillusioned that he withdraws from active engagement from life and leaves Rome in the hands of his murderous nephew, Nero.

As with the first volume, Graves has fun here with the historical sources (principally Suetonius and Tacitus) and interprets them fictionally to make a compelling and psychologically astute novel. However, this isn't history but fiction, and paints a very different picture of Claudius from the one more generally accepted now by classicists working in this field.


A Mediterranean romance, 10 Apr 2008
At the heart of this novel is the age-old tension between Christendom and Islam. Set after the second failed crusade in twelfth-century Sicily which is a melting pot of Christians and Moslems - mainly Normans, Latins, Franks, Turks and Arabs. King Roger is seen to encourage all to work together in harmony.
We are introduced to Thurstan, whose father gave up the rat race to become a monk, thus removing Thurstan's chances of knighthood, leaving him to work as a procurer of entertainers for the king. Thurstan is rather an innocent and is easily manipulated by those in power and when he gets invited to a gathering at the king's country retreat and meets his childhood sweetheart Alicia, he falls for her again and thus starts a whole chain of events. Meanwhile he found a troupe of belly dancers and musicians and entranced by the dancer Nesrin, brings them back to Palermo to perform for the king.
This is a novel of romance and high intrigue, and of a young man gaining adulthood. Thurstan is a thoughtful chap, and as the tale is told in the first person, we get all his thinking written down on the page.
Underneath all the pondering, is a first rate historical thriller with a good love element trying to get out, however it does rather get bogged down in the philosophising.

Impeccable historical fiction, 14 Feb 2008
"The ruby in her navel" is a delight to read! It pleased and impressed me as no other historical novel has done in a very long time, and many are the reasons why. First of all there's the setting: 12th-century Sicily was completely unknown to me, and Unsworth depicts and describes it as if he's been there. Particularly the fact that Christians, Muslims, Jews, Byzantines etc all tried to co-exist there made, in real life, the ideal setting for intrigues at court and makes, in the novel, for countless twists and turns in the plot.

Secondly, and this is to me the hallmark of a truly exceptional historical novel, what happens to the characters and specifically to the protagonist Thurstan Beauchamp could have happened anywhere and at any time because it is really a superb story of love, hope, betrayal, deceit and deception which costs Thurstan dearly but ultimately leaves him a more experienced and more mature man.

Barry Unsworth's previous works already set a very high standard but this his latest novel doesn't fail to live up to that standard making it very hard indeed to choose a favorite, they're quite simply all very very good.

Excellent, 04 Feb 2008
Unsworth is a much underrated writer. Yes it's historical fiction - historic romance even - but this is Patrick O'Brian rather than Georgette Heyer.

The novel is illuminating on an aspect of history that is, I am sure, obscure to most people. It has a rewardingly complex plot for a relatively short book. Unsworth is obviously intending to make a point about the lessons that the twenty-first century can learn from the mistakes of the twelth. The surface reading is that we should live in peace with one another. The sub-text is perhaps that we should look to the motives of those who try tell us that we cannot so do.

Always worth reading, 27 Dec 2007
As always with Barry Unsworth, this is a book well worth the reading. You get the sense that every word counts. For example, when Thurstan first meets Alicia he is standing on a mosaic of a peacock... By the time I finished the book I realised that there must be many more references that I'd missed. Colours are important, and the "sense of balance" is a theme running through.

But overall, I suppose, the theme of the book has to do with religious intolerance, mixed with greed for power. Although set in Sicily in the 1100's these themes are still important today.

Europe revisited, reinterpreted, 21 Nov 2007
A Ruby in Her Navel is yet another superb historical novel by Barry Unsworth. By his phenomenal standards, this book might at first appear somewhat one-paced, even one-dimensional, with its action set firmly in the place and time of its main character, Thurston Beauchamp, a young man in the service of King Roger of Sicily in the twelfth century. But if A Ruby in Her Navel might lack the immediacy and complexity of Stone Virgin, it approaches the beautifully portrayed picture of medieval life presented in Morality Play. Indeed, a group of travelling players also features in this novel, as in Morality Play, but this time it's a troupe of belly dancers from Anatolia, on tour in southern Italy. The ruby and navel of the title both belong to Nasrin, the youngest, most beautiful and most provocative member of the group. But having written that they were touring Italy, a country name that in our eyes is merely mundane and perhaps innocuous, I am reminded of one of the most enduring features of Barry Unsworth's book, which is its ability to re-draw one's understanding of who we were.

It was Alison Weir who first did this for me, if you see what I mean. I read her biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the marriageable lady who became King Henry the Second of England's queen. Again, there's the name of a country... You see, at school we British school children learned a variety of history that filtered everything through a sieve of contemporary national requirements. I can remember being taught that during the medieval era, the English ruled most of France and largely held onto it until the Wars of the Roses (I was brought up in Yorkshire, another irrelevant aside). Possessions remained until Queen Mary finally gave up Calais with a cardiac etch. Alison Weir undid a school lifetime of history when she described the Angevin Empire, part of the pan-European expansion of the Franks. Based in Anjou, this empire comprised what we now call southern, western and northern France, plus all of England and Wales, and other bits at times (though never Scotland, hence that nation's long-lasting alliance with the rival empire based on the Ile de France). When interpreted this way, it wasn't English kings that ruled France, or vice-versa. It was an empire with its own lingua franca, langue d'oc. The countries, and with them the geographical, ethnic and cultural assumptions upon which we falsely base our interpretation of the past, simply did not exist. Thus the paradigms upon which we base our understanding of English-ness or French-ness become both irrelevant and inapplicable. And thus the troupe of belly dancers in A Ruby in Her Navel weren't, therefore, in Italy. They were in the Kingdom of Sicily, a small but powerful and ambitious little Norman empire created out of the same Frankish expansion that spurned the enduring conquest of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066.

In A Ruby in her Navel Barry Unsworth presents medieval Europe in a way that brings the historical issues into focus and gives them life. Lands were conquered and their Muslim leaders deposed. But the new rulers had to politic their way to continued incumbency, recognising the interests of land-hungry knights, only temporarily defeated Muslim predecessors with friends nearby, Jewish merchants who did pragmatic business with anyone and everyone. And even within these groups there were divisions. Amongst the Christians there were two competing blocks, the Germanic Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine remnants of Imperial Rome. And then there was the Pope with his own empire, interests and ability to raise an army. And then there were those who aspired to power from within and sought to depose a rival in their own house. The Crusades that primary school history presents has having something to do with religion thus become mere wars of conquest for booty.

In A Ruby in Her Navel Barry Unsworth thus gives immediate, tangible life to the feudalism of the time. We really do understand the politics, the interests, the motivations of the era. But we are led to it by our experience of the characters' lives, not via instruction or polemic. And the message is more powerful for Thurston Beauchamp, because he aspires to the knighthood his father relinquished in favour of monasticism. Thurston is currently King Roger's entertainments manager and has to travel to Italy (I am doing it again!) to buy herons, caged prey for the King's peregrines. He does his deal, but meets the troupe of dancers and the resulting stirrings of the spirit provoke him to ship them back home to do the same for his master. He falls in love with Nasrin, one of the group. Meanwhile Alicia, Thurston's childhood sweetheart, suddenly reappears in his life. They were at school together until she was whisked away at a marriageable fourteen to be conjoined to a knight with a big sword and real estate in the Middle East, the Norman Outremer. Alicia's husband, it seems, has now snuffed it, and again Thurston's spirits rise when he realises that she is again available, again an unaccompanied, unclaimed, newly-vacated vessel.

The belly dancers go down well at home, of course, and so Thurston's star is in the ascendant. He gets a new mission, commissioned by he knows not who and which causes accounting difficulties for the Muslim "head of civil service" to whom he reports.

By now you have probably guessed that there is a plot. And it's a vast one, involving insiders, outsiders, a pope or two, Muslims, Germans, Jews, Byzantines and all the other interests competing their share of or their consolidation of feudal power. This really is top-down government, but the trick, once power is achieved, clearly is just to hold on. And sometimes you consolidate your home base by having a fiddle or two on foreign soil, a political strategy not unknown in our own times.

Our Thurston analyses the plot, works it all out and then acts to influence the outcome. Along the way he grapples with his rising dilemma in relation to Nasrin and Alicia, and thus his life is eventually transformed. As in all ages, he follows his heart (by which, of course, I mean his brain). A Ruby in Her Navel thus reveals that, as ever with Barry Unsworth, it is a multi-layered, complex, surprising and yet deeply human tale.


Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Historical Fiction You Cannot Do Without, 14 Dec 2004
Barry Unsworth's novel does deserve the Booker Prize that it won. From the moment I picked it up it was impossible to put down. The novel starts with a description of two classes in 18th century England: the working class and the burgeoning mercantile class exemplified by Erasmus Kemp. I particularly like the way Barry Unsworth portrays bawdy tavern speak using its clipped sounds and mispronounced words.

Sacred Hunger races between gaudy mansions of the nouveau riche in the English countryside and the slave dealers abode in humid, hot West Africa. It underlines the common humanity in us all and the questions that injustice raises. The novel's ace-in-the-hole is that he does not adopt a moralizing tone on the issue of slave trade. The novel is a stark description of our pitiful, insatiable greed, which was the cause of the the injustice that was the Slave Trade.

If you are a serious history buff looking for some perspective into the Slave Trade then this is not the book for you. However, if you want a fantastic bit of storytelling with the slave trade as a backdrop then you must read this one.

Fantastic piece of history, 23 Feb 2004
What a wonderful book! The amount of research required for such an epic must be mind boggling. This is not just a novel about the slave trade, but a close look at the two very different personalities of the main protagonists, (as relevant today, as in 1752), and the justifcation, or not, of the Sacred Hunger of the title. We are treated to a graphic description of the terrible privations suffered by both the crew and their human cargo, and reminded of how human beings in certain parts of the world were treated worse than any animal, simply because of the colour of their skin. What more can I say? read it!

Powerful, immediate and disturbing - a wonderful novel, 25 Oct 2001
This epic of the eighteenth century British Slave Trade works at two levels. The first is as a straight and exciting narrative of the different stances to it of the two main characters, one who profits from it, and is at last morally enslaved by it himself while the other recognises its evil and attempts his own ultimately futile protest against it. At the second level the novel serves as a meditation on the nature of greed - the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, and the extent to which it can become a justification for any excess. Mr.Unsworth's genius in this book is however that the does not adapt a simplistic moralising tone but writes with understanding of the society that produced this abuse, and shows how potentially decent people could be drawn, unthinkingly, into the position of profiteers and exploiters. One does not get a sense here of modern perceptions and values being projected back on to an earlier age - the weakness which destroys so much serious fiction set in the past - and the characters' behaviour and attitudes, whether sympathetic to the Slave Trade or not , are consistent with those of eighteenth century British society. Like other novels of Unsworth's, this work has many echoes of Conrad, in its depiction of the depths to which humanity can so quickly plunge once the restraints of law and custom are relaxed. Though gripping from the first page it is disturbing work and the vividness of its plot and imagery will not quickly leave the reader. Very highly recommended.

The finest piece of historical fiction I've ever read., 21 Feb 2001
Unsworth's Booker prize sharing _Sacred_Hunger_ is a book of virtually unparalleled beauty. It sustains you, beckens you along, and leaves you heartbroken, with an entire new lexicon of heroes, villians, and victims. Ruthless in its intensity, unforgiving in its accusation and sparing of no detail, this monumental novel should be considered a landmark on the horizon of late 20th century literature.

Far superior to _Pascli's_Island_, another Booker nominee by Unsworth and the only other book of his I've read, I can only pray that this was not a solitary effort. How it was the co-winner with _The_English_Patient_ I'll never know. This surpasses that text in every respect.

This novel was semi-good compared to others i've read., 10 Dec 2000
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth was a moderate novel. It took well into the 400's to get interesting enough to make myself not want to put it down. Unsworth's discriptiveness makes the novel hard to read, but not as hard as when he starts writing the conversations at the settlement they form in "pidgin" language. This book is definately for someone who is interested in historical events, as it takes place in the 1700's during the slave trade. The characters are hard to relate to, and the chapters are broken apart between two storylines, making the novel hard to follow. Overall, I'd give this novel an average rating because it was well written, but not all that easy to read and not all that interesting.

Fantastic stuff, 24 Oct 2007
Coming after the incredibly good novel "I, Claudius", this second part describes the actual reign of Claudius until his death AD54. There may be some controversy about how much is fact and how much is fiction (Graves himself claimed everything is based on ample contemporary and later sources, and he says in the foreword 'few incidents here given are wholly unsupported by historical authority of some sort') but in fact that's besides the point. This is if nothing else a fabulous re-telling of one of the most influential and fascinating periods in Western history.

More importantly, it's also a riveting story with powerful insights into the nature and influence of power, ambition versus decency, etc. etc. so even if you couldn't care less about Rome it's still a great read.

My God, nothing at all like the TV Series, and far more boring for it., 07 May 2007
I, Claudius was fine. I liked I, Claudius; its mix of soap opera and real history so skillfully ripped from Suetonius's "Life of the Twelve Caesars" makes it a cracking good read. So naturally i was expecting about the same calibre from this.
Trouble is, it turns out to be either a supremely skilled satire, a veiled attack on his (Graves') publishers (he supposedly wrote his miniseries on the stuttering emperor for the money), or just boring.
Typically, you would want the book to start off straight after the events which concluded the last book. It takes a quarter of the book to get to there, the intervening period being filled with a small biography on Claudius's friend Herod Agrippa. An introduction is fine; the biography inside the book however could be published on its own merit, but nevertheless is almost totally irrelevent to the plot.
When it comes to the actual story line again, Claudius then goes on ceaselessly about reforms, or "how i alone conquered Britain", or fiddling with trade monopolies. This is not the stuff gripping dramas are made out of; i can see know why I, Claudius the series missed out all of this crap and only made around 4 episodes out of the book, compared to the other eight the previous one managed. Some of these descriptions are vaguely interesting, and thread into the plot , but only after sixty pages on riots in Alexandria, and by that time your exhausted.
But i may be missing the point. As a work of literature alone this is a boring bundle of paper that deserves to be thrown onto the fire. As a satire on Roman autobiographies, that needs to be said; it is only in the course of writing this review that i have realised this, and others will most likely go for my former expierience (i didnt actually throw it onto the fire, but gave up 3/4 of the way through). As a veiled attack on his publishers, that is a fine achievement; writing a whole book that is boring beyond belief must have tested Graves.
Overall i dislike this book. There is hardly any drama, and where there is its bookended with crap about trade deficits in Rome, senatorial expenditure and military campaigns which bear no relevance to the piece unless as a full assesment of the subject. It is not worth it to read it as purely a satire on Roman autobiographies; from the histories we know (as most likely Graves did) that the Emperor Claudius was a twitchy psychopath at heart, as were all but two of the later Julio-Claudian line. So, unless your as boring as hell, dont read this book; its a monumental waste of time, with no comparison to its sister book.

More diverse than I, Claudius, 30 Dec 2006
This is the second volume of Graves' fictional autobiography of the emperor Claudius, and, in some ways, the more interesting for being far less well-known.

Claudius has become emperor against his will, and now recounts the story of his reign: the roman engagement with the middle east in the figure of Herod Agrippa; the second (and successful) invasion of Britain; the re-establishment of some kind of order after the mad predations of Caligula. But all is not well in Claudius' 'happy' marriage to the depraved and decadent Messalina, and, when Claudius discovers the truth about her, he is so disillusioned that he withdraws from active engagement from life and leaves Rome in the hands of his murderous nephew, Nero.

As with the first volume, Graves has fun here with the historical sources (principally Suetonius and Tacitus) and interprets them fictionally to make a compelling and psychologically astute novel. However, this isn't history but fiction, and paints a very different picture of Claudius from the one more generally accepted now by classicists working in this field.


A Mediterranean romance, 10 Apr 2008
At the heart of this novel is the age-old tension between Christendom and Islam. Set after the second failed crusade in twelfth-century Sicily which is a melting pot of Christians and Moslems - mainly Normans, Latins, Franks, Turks and Arabs. King Roger is seen to encourage all to work together in harmony.
We are introduced to Thurstan, whose father gave up the rat race to become a monk, thus removing Thurstan's chances of knighthood, leaving him to work as a procurer of ente