Claudius the God (1935)

Claudius the God is at least as good as its forerunner published the year before, I, Claudius, and they are probably most usefully considered as a single long work. This second historical novel focuses on Claudius's time as a Roman emperor and his ultimate deification. In one way it might be inferior to the first in that it feels like it has one eye cocked on Jesus and the Christians, which were unknown to most Romans in the time of Claudius but likely of greater interest to Robert Graves and his publisher's target market in the 1930s. But the story of Herod Agrippa and Claudius and their friendship is compelling. In fact, generally I enjoyed this even more than the first. Graves feels more comfortable with the material, just rearing back and letting it fly, with broad themes of Claudius's political reforms, his engineering projects, and his taking of Britain, with more backstories of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and others. Claudius is always interesting, realized extraordinarily well by Derek Jacobi in the PBS production. He is intellectually formidable yet physically disabled and the butt of Roman society for most of his life until he became emperor (and even then). Yet the way he wields power is remarkable. He is a transformed character from the first book, with confidence and a fierce sense of justice. Some of his actions are positively alarming. He orders many, many casual executions. But he is also paradoxically a humanitarian with sincere compassion and ideals. At least, that is, until the story of his wife Messalina reaches its conclusions, when he becomes almost unrecognizable. I know Graves is grounding everything in historical fact, but the change is shocking. So is Messalina's behavior. "You can't make this stuff up." The ways of the Romans are deeply human and recognizable, but don't always fit well with our sense of what a civilization is and is not. Are there lessons for our age here? Perhaps—it does feel like extreme times now, but they may have been even more so when Graves wrote, with democracy besieged by fascism and communism. Mostly what I like is the rolling anecdotal way Graves unlocks Claudius and lets him tell his story.

In case it's not at the library.

I, Claudius (1934)

I liked Robert Graves's historical-fiction treatment of Roman times in the era of Augustus Caesar and after, but it does present another point for complaining about the Modern Library list of greatest 20th-century novels, certainly for anyone familiar with the '70s PBS TV miniseries. I, Claudius makes the list but its sequel, Claudius the God—equally source material for the excellent TV show—does not. In others case, such as John Dos Passos's USA trilogy, James Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy, and most obviously Anthony Powell's 12-volume Dance to the Music of Time, "extra" books are included. I haven't yet read Graves's sequel, but the notices seem to generally regard both together as a long single work, and certainly the TV show did. But never mind that. Do like me and plan to read them both—and don't miss the show either, though I see now it's rather different. In the book, the wit and intelligence of Claudius is much more readily apparent. In the TV series, the garish, entertaining, and appalling decadence of Rome's ruling class is more the point of interest, for better or worse. Both views are worth experiencing. If I have any quibble, it's the one you hear about Russian novels—tracking all these characters who at once have multiple names and similar names. There are numerous people here named Agrippa, Nero, Drusus, Germanicus, and even Claudius. I read a kindle edition of this first one, and for once found the X-Ray feature useful, even indispensable (I bought a paper version of Claudius the God, so we'll see how that goes). Graves was a poet and critic as well as novelist, and considered his Claudius books as commercial work. Yet I, Claudius is entirely convincing as the personal record of a historian. Claudius declares himself forever resisting the temptation of getting into too much detail in certain areas, and sometimes he cannot resist it, so down the rabbit hole we go on specific battles, for example, or the German wars. I don't read history as much as I wish but this has all the things I like about it, especially with its narrative sweep and authoritative voice, and little that I don't like, usually along the lines of deadening uninspired soporific language. I, Claudius can get dense with blizzards of detail, but the threads and connections never feel lost. It's discursive, chatty, and disarmingly fascinating all the way. If it's a bit coy about some transgressions, it's absolutely frank about others. It makes me want to try Suetonius or Tacitus again. I'll have more on Claudius the God when I get to it. But this is one case where I think book and film production are both worth looking into—not one over the other but both equally. And maybe I can get back to that miniseries again myself too.

In case it's not at the library.