I, Claudius

What's to be done about Claudius?

I loved this episode, showing how he developed into a young man. Plenty of comedy too to lighten the darker manipulations of Livia.

I Claudius, continued

I guess Graves deliberately chose a pretty dry style for most of this, as Claudius is supposed to be a historian and an admirer of factual historical accounts. I've also discovered a family tree of the characters - in itself not simple to follow with second and third marriages, step-relationships and so on.
According to the intro, by Barry Unsworth, Livia may not have been as evil as portrayed in the book, though people who got in her way did have a habit of dying conveniently.
We watched the next episode, and my main impression is that people aren't generally very pleasant, especially when political ambitions and wealth enter the equation.

I, Claudius - film and book

Well, it's a TV adaptation from 1976. I think this will keep us occupied for a week or more, since there are around a dozen episodes.

We watched the first couple last night, and I found them much more understandable than the Robert Graves book. The book reads a bit like an academic treatise with bits of gossip intermingled, and the huge number of characters, with their many marriages and interrelationships is difficult to follow. In the TV version with Sian Phillips as evil Livia, and Derek Jacobi as Claw-claw-claudius, things are clearer. So I'm going to read the book alongside the film.

All'aeroporto by Marina Mizzau

This is part of my attempt to keep up my Italian. Ideally I shall read at least a page each day. I'm working my way through a collection of short stories - Italian Women Writing, edited by Sharon Wood.

This is a short story (less than 3 pages) concerning the dilemma of the narrator who has arranged to meet a colleague at the aiport. How is he to recognise the man? Simple. 'Io sono brutissimo.' (I am very ugly). The two pages examine the messages that either recognising the man or not will give. The situation is unresolved at the end.

Of course, holding a placard with his name on it would have solved the quandary, but then there would have been no story.

Catching up

I'm copying down a few notes I made while staying in Tuscany for a week - a quiet cottage, with a few books and no internet connection, except in the office. I have not made any very meaningful comments, here.

Some of the books were there already -

Alexander McCall Smith: The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
No 1 Ladies’ detective agency, with its determinist view of characters – people should be happy as they are and not attempt things that are beyond them.
Problems as her husband Mr J L B Matekoni decides he will investigate a case of an errant husband, and mistakes a photograph for that of his own wife. Then one of his mechanics decides to start a taxi service. Mma Ramotswe’s assistant wants to change her job because she is about to get married.
They investigate thefts from a local office supplier, and only solve it by giving the culprit the keys to the cupboard – he takes the lot. The deaths at the local hospital – the cleaner is turning off the ventilator to plug in her vacuum cleaner.
A general feel-good series, set in Botswana, where McCall Smith spent some time.


Karen Essex – Leonardo’s Swans

Isabelle d’Este, her sister Beatrice, daughters of Ercole d’Este
Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. M. Isabella
Ludovico Sforza of Milan marries Beatrice
There are intrigues involving the French kings etc, and all through this Leonardo is at Milan. Il magistro, who doesn’t eat meat because he doesn’t want his body to be the tomb of another animal, but invents machines of war, never finishes his commissions.
Isabella’s great ambition is to have her portrait painted by Leonardo, though this never happened – there was a drawing, which is now in the Louvre. She also appears as a pregnant muse in the centre of a Mantegna painting – Venus and Apollo on Mount Parnassus, in the Louvre. Soap and sex and history mixed together.

Carol Drinkwater – The Olive Season
An actress and a film producer buy an olive farm in Provence, then get married. She has a miscarriage, and they put all their energy into olive growing. It is full of local characters, such as the Arab gardener, Quashia, the local olive farmer and builder, Rene, the local celebs and minor aristocrats, and the incoming Russian Mafia and a dose of superstition as she employs water-diviners and takes photographs where the subject disappears from the picture, and soon dies. The life-style of jetting off to London, NY, Australia is a little out of my range. Nevertheless, written in a down-to-earth manner, apart from the odd spiritual bits. All in spite of the two MCs not being conventionally ‘religious’.


I bought this one in Radda-n Chianti, when I realised I was running out of reading material.
Anne Tyler –Digging to America
Two families in Baltimore adopt Korean babies and keep in touch as they grow up. The main character (though the viewpoint shifts) is Maryam Yazdan, an Iranian immigrant in her late fifties/early sixties, the ‘grandmother’ of Susan (Sooki), and her relationship with her son, his wife and the child, then later with the other family and in particular Dave, the ‘grandfather’ of Jo-Hin ( the other Korean adopted child). Her difficulties in fitting in either in America, or in Iran even if she were to return. Exile, pride, self-sufficiency – being an outsider. There are also a couple in Vermont, Farah (Maryam’s cousin) and her husband, William – who are more Iranian than the Iranians.

This is a book Harry bought in the airport.
Carolly Erickson – Brief Lives of the English Monarchs
From William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II – well written and researched, easy to read, though I am sure I shall forget all the facts.

Atonement - book and film

Watched the film on 15th April. Very much enjoyed, though the layers (of time and reality) take a bit of getting used to. I am re-reading the book. Watch this space.

Yes, I finished it while on holiday - excellent book with a good strong story, well told, with convincing atmosphere when McEwan depicts inter-war wealthy family life, complete with class differences, and their effect on attitudes. Later the harrowing wartime experiences, of soldiers and nurses are vivid.

All wrapped up in an exploration of the role of a writer of fiction alongside guilt and innocence and self-justification. What is truth?

Jodi Picoult - Plain Truth

A dead premature baby is found hidden in the barn of the Fishers, an Amish family. Eighteen-year-old Katie claims to remember nothing of the birth or her pregnancy, though medical evidence establishes that she is the mother, and circumstantial evidence indicates that she is the likely killer.

Ellie Hathaway, a successful lawyer, is questioning her role as a defense attorney. She believes she has used her skill to allow criminals to evade justice, in the interests of furthering her own career. Ellie has recently become desperate to have a child of her own but has split up with her long-term boyfriend. She is persuaded to defend Katie, and because of the bail conditions imposed finds herself sharing the life of the Fisher family.

As the story unrolls, Picoult examines different value systems, ideas of justice and family relationships. One thing I like about her books is that the choices the characters make are difficult, and the line between good and evil is not entirely clear.