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Ides of March
Drawing on such unique sources as Thornton Wilder's unpublished letters, journals & selections from the extensive annotations he made years later in the margins of the book, Tappan Wilder's Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this internationally acclaimed novel.
The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome. Thornton Wilder called it "a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic." Through vividly imagined letters & documents, he brings to life a dramatic period of world history & one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities.
In this inventive narrative, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being. Wilder also resurrects the controversial figures surrounding Caesar: Cleopatra, Catullus, Cicero & others. All Rome comes crowding thru these pages--the Rome of villas & slums, beautiful women & brawling youths, spies & assassins.
The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome. Thornton Wilder called it "a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic." Through vividly imagined letters & documents, he brings to life a dramatic period of world history & one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities.
In this inventive narrative, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being. Wilder also resurrects the controversial figures surrounding Caesar: Cleopatra, Catullus, Cicero & others. All Rome comes crowding thru these pages--the Rome of villas & slums, beautiful women & brawling youths, spies & assassins.
246 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
386 people are currently reading
4567 people want to read
About the author
Thornton Wilder
222 books508 followersThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 232 reviews
January 30, 2018
Inspired by several Goodreads friends, I decided to slide this book out of one of the TBR shelves, to lighten that load. But before you send smiling emojis, virtual pats on the back, or other huzzahs, please know that other Goodreads friends wrote reviews of books that caused me to engage in a zero sum game with myself and order two new books which even I, a mathematics dullard, can figure out this means I have more, not less, books to read. Sigh.
This 'The Ides of March', though, is the kind of book that would hide for years on a TBR shelf. It's an obscure work by a fairly respected author. It's a beaten-up first edition (sold for $2.75 way back in 1948), the cover embalmed in lamination. And given the title and my elementary school diploma, I pretty much know how it's going to end.
An epistolary novel, I imagine it was inventive for its time. Perhaps it inspired John Williams to write 'Augustus'. In any event, it is clearly a work of considerable scholarship and breathes a lushness into the language. There are even lessons in some of it.
This is what came off the shelf:
I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps. - Caesar.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
My brother and I are giving a dinner on the last day of the month. If any mistakes occur this time I shall replace you and offer you for sale. - Lady Clodia Pulcher, to her steward.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
I was the instrument of a higher wisdom that selected me for my limitations and not my strengths. - Caesar
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Dictators must know the truth, but must never permit themselves to be told it. - Caesar
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
The adherence of a people is not acquired merely by governing them to their best interests. We rulers must spend a large part of our time capturing their imaginations. - Caesar
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
I have often remarked that whereas men say there is a limit beyond which a man may not run or swim, may not raise a tower or dig a pit, I have never heard it said that there is a limit to wisdom. The way is open to better poets than Homer and to better rulers than Caesar. No bounds have been conceived for crime and folly. This also prevents me from reaching any summary conclusions concerning our human condition. Where there is an unknowable there is promise. - Caesar
This 'The Ides of March', though, is the kind of book that would hide for years on a TBR shelf. It's an obscure work by a fairly respected author. It's a beaten-up first edition (sold for $2.75 way back in 1948), the cover embalmed in lamination. And given the title and my elementary school diploma, I pretty much know how it's going to end.
An epistolary novel, I imagine it was inventive for its time. Perhaps it inspired John Williams to write 'Augustus'. In any event, it is clearly a work of considerable scholarship and breathes a lushness into the language. There are even lessons in some of it.
This is what came off the shelf:
I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps. - Caesar.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
My brother and I are giving a dinner on the last day of the month. If any mistakes occur this time I shall replace you and offer you for sale. - Lady Clodia Pulcher, to her steward.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
I was the instrument of a higher wisdom that selected me for my limitations and not my strengths. - Caesar
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Dictators must know the truth, but must never permit themselves to be told it. - Caesar
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
The adherence of a people is not acquired merely by governing them to their best interests. We rulers must spend a large part of our time capturing their imaginations. - Caesar
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
I have often remarked that whereas men say there is a limit beyond which a man may not run or swim, may not raise a tower or dig a pit, I have never heard it said that there is a limit to wisdom. The way is open to better poets than Homer and to better rulers than Caesar. No bounds have been conceived for crime and folly. This also prevents me from reaching any summary conclusions concerning our human condition. Where there is an unknowable there is promise. - Caesar
August 29, 2012
This is the perfect book for lovers of three types of readers: those who love Ancient Roman history, love epistolary novels, and those who love reading the Star Magazine. It's a gossip filled train wreck heading for a certain date in history. If you were turned off Thornton Wilder during high school due to the obligatory reading of Our Town, do yourself a favor and dive into the squirrelly squabbling sneaky lives of the Ides of March. Julius Caesar, Catullus, Brutus and Little Missy Crocodile have never been more real.
I had to buy my own copy because the novel is filled with memorable paragraphs.
It's part Decline Fall of the Roman Empire and part Huffington Post.
Thorton Wilder rocks!
I had to buy my own copy because the novel is filled with memorable paragraphs.
It's part Decline Fall of the Roman Empire and part Huffington Post.
Thorton Wilder rocks!
April 25, 2016
I can’t believe that this was published in 1948! It truly has not aged, possibly because it was dealing with much older history. It still felt fresh and I was intrigued.
I began reading this on the Ides of March (I live in hope that my local Shakespeare Company will perform Julius Caesar in March one year, so that I can attend it on the Ides). I adore books that are written in letter format, so I was predisposed to appreciate this one.
It is surprising how well people can be characterized through their written documents. I felt I came to know the main players remarkably well. I came to love the scheming Roman women and found Cleopatra to be quite fascinating. Wilder included quite a number of female characters, recognizing their political and religious significance.
My studies of classical history took place in my distant past and are hazy in my recollections now. Some courses, I know, were done in summer school, where one tries to distill a whole term’s worth of work and learning into 6 weeks. As a result, I knew it well enough to write the exam, but it has not retained its place in my memory as most other subjects have. I would be most curious now to read some Roman history and refresh my memory concerning Caesar.
I began reading this on the Ides of March (I live in hope that my local Shakespeare Company will perform Julius Caesar in March one year, so that I can attend it on the Ides). I adore books that are written in letter format, so I was predisposed to appreciate this one.
It is surprising how well people can be characterized through their written documents. I felt I came to know the main players remarkably well. I came to love the scheming Roman women and found Cleopatra to be quite fascinating. Wilder included quite a number of female characters, recognizing their political and religious significance.
My studies of classical history took place in my distant past and are hazy in my recollections now. Some courses, I know, were done in summer school, where one tries to distill a whole term’s worth of work and learning into 6 weeks. As a result, I knew it well enough to write the exam, but it has not retained its place in my memory as most other subjects have. I would be most curious now to read some Roman history and refresh my memory concerning Caesar.
May 26, 2025
A book written 80 years ago about events that took place over 2000 years ago, and yet at times it read like a character study of a certain more moronic but equally corrupt 21st century tyrant.
Picture it: Rome, 44 BC. An aging dictator, surrounded by constant gossip and scandal, finds himself questioning whether life has any meaning. Through Julius Caesar and his contemporaries (many of whom were conveniently resurrected for purposes of plot), Wilder ponders love, poetry, death, power, the role of women, and the existence of the Gods and their role in Roman lives. All of which is balanced with a strong dose of soap opera froth. Why does Caesar get divorced and remarried so suddenly near the end of his life/the end of the book? Because Wilder compressed the timeline so that Caesar's last marriage, which took place more than a decade before the end of his life, awkwardly takes place just before his assasination. Which seems a silly thing for a reader to get hung up about, but here we are.
[ ] is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity.Or,
The chief charge laid against him now by his enemies is that he permits his intimates to amass unconscionable fortunes, and the majority of his intimates are scoundrels.A dictator remains a dictator regardless of the time period and sometimes dictators get assassinated. But anyway, where was I?
Picture it: Rome, 44 BC. An aging dictator, surrounded by constant gossip and scandal, finds himself questioning whether life has any meaning. Through Julius Caesar and his contemporaries (many of whom were conveniently resurrected for purposes of plot), Wilder ponders love, poetry, death, power, the role of women, and the existence of the Gods and their role in Roman lives. All of which is balanced with a strong dose of soap opera froth. Why does Caesar get divorced and remarried so suddenly near the end of his life/the end of the book? Because Wilder compressed the timeline so that Caesar's last marriage, which took place more than a decade before the end of his life, awkwardly takes place just before his assasination. Which seems a silly thing for a reader to get hung up about, but here we are.
November 26, 2023
De este excelente libro, leído por febrero de 2005, y cuya historia se ubica en torno a los últimos días del emperador romano Julio César, han quedado en mis registros algunas citas que me parecieron interesantes, para los que pueda interesarle:
De Clodia, en camino hacia Roma, a César.
[…] Tú me enseñaste todo lo que sé, pero te interrumpiste bruscamente, y te reservaste lo esencial. Tú me enseñaste que el mundo no tiene alma. Cuando yo decía (esto por lo menos lo recuerdas, ¿verdad?, y por qué lo decía) que la vida es atroz, tú me contestabas que no, que la vida no es horrible ni hermosa. Que el vivir no tiene carácter ni sentido alguno. Tu afirmabas que el universo no sabe que los hombres están viviendo en él.
Pero no lo crees. Yo sé que no lo crees. Sé que te queda una cosa por enseñarme. Todos pueden ver que te conduces como si algo tuviera para ti razón y sentido. ¿Qué es ese algo? […]
Del libro de apuntes de Cornelio Nepote
[…] Para César el dinero sólo es dinero en el momento en que está haciendo algo. Su opinión es que únicamente deberían poseerlo los que saben qué hacer con él. Ahora bien: es evidente que los multimillonarios no saben qué hacer con su dinero fuera de aferrarse a él o de esgrimirlo como un arma. César, indiferente al oro -actitud que para el rico resulta, como es lógico, desconcertante y hasta aterradora-, siempre encuentra una enormidad de cosas en qué emplearlo. Siempre puede poner en actividad el dinero de los demás y extraer el oro de las cajas fuertes de sus amigos.
De César a Cleopatra
[…] Me dices que vuestra ciencia médica egipcia es diez mil años más antigua que la nuestra, y que los romanos somos unos niños. Sí, sí, pero... Debo hablarte severamente: vuestros doctores tienen diez mil años de insensatez. Piensa, piensa por un instante en lo que es la medicina. La mayoría de los médicos son impostores. Cuanto más viejo y más venerado es un médico, tanto más ha de simular que lo sabe todo. Es natural que se pongan peores con el tiempo […]
De Cicerón, en Roma, a Ático, en Grecia
Sólo uno entre cien matrimonios es feliz, amigo mío. Esta es una de esas cosas que todo el mundo sabe pero que nadie dice. No ha de sorprendernos, pues, que el matrimonio excepcional sea tan celebrado en todas partes, precisamente por su novedad y rareza. Pero lo malo es que los seres humanos, en nuestra locura, tendemos siempre a convertir la regla en excepción. Cada uno de nosotros se cree excepcional y destinado a lo excepcional, y nuestros jóvenes llegan al matrimonio convencidos que de noventa y nueve matrimonios son felices y uno desgraciado o de que, en caso de ser cierta la proporción contraria, les está reservado a ellos la felicidad excepcional.
[…] Por el matrimonio ponemos en manos de las mujeres el gobierno de nuestra casa, que ellas no tardan en extender a todos nuestros bienes. Crían a nuestros hijos, y con ello adquieren cierto derecho a intervenir en sus asuntos cuando llegan a la edad adulta. Y en todas estas cosas persiguen fines totalmente opuestos a los que un hombre se propone […] Un hombre puede haber salvado a su país, puede haber dirigido los asuntos de un mundo y adquirido fama inmortal de sabiduría: para su mujer, de todos modos, sólo será un tonto sin cerebro.
[…] ¡Oh amigo mío, consolémonos con la filosofía! Hay un terreno en el que no han penetrado nunca y por el que nunca se han tomado el menor interés. Agradezcamos a la vejez que nos libera de la necesidad de sus besos, de esos besos que hemos de pagar al elevado precio de todo el orden de nuestra vida y de toda la tranquilidad de nuestro espíritu.
De Cicerón, desde Roma, a su hermano.
[…] Yo sostengo que cada persona tiene una edad hacia la cual apunta toda la vida, como la aguja imantada apunta al norte. Marco Antonio tendrá siempre dieciséis años, y del contraste entre esta edad y los años que realmente cuenta resulta un espectáculo cada vez más lamentable. Mi buen amigo Bruto ha sido un cincuentón reflexivo y juicioso desde la edad de doce años. César está siempre en la cuarentena, como un Jano que mirase irresoluto hacia la juventud y hacia la vejez. Según esta ley, Cleopatra, a pesar de su juventud, tendría cuarenta y cinco [...] Sin embargo, hay que estar muy alerta para advertir tales cosas [...] la belleza de sus ojos y la dulzura de su voz cuando habla, subyagan al incauto.
De Cytheris a Lucio Mamilo Turrino, en la isla de Capri.
[…] Y a pesar de todo, César ha descubierto que no le puede enseñar nada esencial, ya que la esencia de su enseñanza es la responsabilidad y la ética, y Cleopatra no tiene ni el más vago sentido del bien y del mal.
César ignora su propia pasión por la enseñanza, todo esto tiene para él la invisibilidad de las cosas demasiado evidentes. Es, por tanto, un mal educador. Supone que todos los hombres son al mismo tiempo maestros y estudiantes ávidos, que todos los hombres vibran con la vida moral. Las mujeres son educadoras más sutiles […]
De Clodia, en camino hacia Roma, a César.
[…] Tú me enseñaste todo lo que sé, pero te interrumpiste bruscamente, y te reservaste lo esencial. Tú me enseñaste que el mundo no tiene alma. Cuando yo decía (esto por lo menos lo recuerdas, ¿verdad?, y por qué lo decía) que la vida es atroz, tú me contestabas que no, que la vida no es horrible ni hermosa. Que el vivir no tiene carácter ni sentido alguno. Tu afirmabas que el universo no sabe que los hombres están viviendo en él.
Pero no lo crees. Yo sé que no lo crees. Sé que te queda una cosa por enseñarme. Todos pueden ver que te conduces como si algo tuviera para ti razón y sentido. ¿Qué es ese algo? […]
Del libro de apuntes de Cornelio Nepote
[…] Para César el dinero sólo es dinero en el momento en que está haciendo algo. Su opinión es que únicamente deberían poseerlo los que saben qué hacer con él. Ahora bien: es evidente que los multimillonarios no saben qué hacer con su dinero fuera de aferrarse a él o de esgrimirlo como un arma. César, indiferente al oro -actitud que para el rico resulta, como es lógico, desconcertante y hasta aterradora-, siempre encuentra una enormidad de cosas en qué emplearlo. Siempre puede poner en actividad el dinero de los demás y extraer el oro de las cajas fuertes de sus amigos.
De César a Cleopatra
[…] Me dices que vuestra ciencia médica egipcia es diez mil años más antigua que la nuestra, y que los romanos somos unos niños. Sí, sí, pero... Debo hablarte severamente: vuestros doctores tienen diez mil años de insensatez. Piensa, piensa por un instante en lo que es la medicina. La mayoría de los médicos son impostores. Cuanto más viejo y más venerado es un médico, tanto más ha de simular que lo sabe todo. Es natural que se pongan peores con el tiempo […]
De Cicerón, en Roma, a Ático, en Grecia
Sólo uno entre cien matrimonios es feliz, amigo mío. Esta es una de esas cosas que todo el mundo sabe pero que nadie dice. No ha de sorprendernos, pues, que el matrimonio excepcional sea tan celebrado en todas partes, precisamente por su novedad y rareza. Pero lo malo es que los seres humanos, en nuestra locura, tendemos siempre a convertir la regla en excepción. Cada uno de nosotros se cree excepcional y destinado a lo excepcional, y nuestros jóvenes llegan al matrimonio convencidos que de noventa y nueve matrimonios son felices y uno desgraciado o de que, en caso de ser cierta la proporción contraria, les está reservado a ellos la felicidad excepcional.
[…] Por el matrimonio ponemos en manos de las mujeres el gobierno de nuestra casa, que ellas no tardan en extender a todos nuestros bienes. Crían a nuestros hijos, y con ello adquieren cierto derecho a intervenir en sus asuntos cuando llegan a la edad adulta. Y en todas estas cosas persiguen fines totalmente opuestos a los que un hombre se propone […] Un hombre puede haber salvado a su país, puede haber dirigido los asuntos de un mundo y adquirido fama inmortal de sabiduría: para su mujer, de todos modos, sólo será un tonto sin cerebro.
[…] ¡Oh amigo mío, consolémonos con la filosofía! Hay un terreno en el que no han penetrado nunca y por el que nunca se han tomado el menor interés. Agradezcamos a la vejez que nos libera de la necesidad de sus besos, de esos besos que hemos de pagar al elevado precio de todo el orden de nuestra vida y de toda la tranquilidad de nuestro espíritu.
De Cicerón, desde Roma, a su hermano.
[…] Yo sostengo que cada persona tiene una edad hacia la cual apunta toda la vida, como la aguja imantada apunta al norte. Marco Antonio tendrá siempre dieciséis años, y del contraste entre esta edad y los años que realmente cuenta resulta un espectáculo cada vez más lamentable. Mi buen amigo Bruto ha sido un cincuentón reflexivo y juicioso desde la edad de doce años. César está siempre en la cuarentena, como un Jano que mirase irresoluto hacia la juventud y hacia la vejez. Según esta ley, Cleopatra, a pesar de su juventud, tendría cuarenta y cinco [...] Sin embargo, hay que estar muy alerta para advertir tales cosas [...] la belleza de sus ojos y la dulzura de su voz cuando habla, subyagan al incauto.
De Cytheris a Lucio Mamilo Turrino, en la isla de Capri.
[…] Y a pesar de todo, César ha descubierto que no le puede enseñar nada esencial, ya que la esencia de su enseñanza es la responsabilidad y la ética, y Cleopatra no tiene ni el más vago sentido del bien y del mal.
César ignora su propia pasión por la enseñanza, todo esto tiene para él la invisibilidad de las cosas demasiado evidentes. Es, por tanto, un mal educador. Supone que todos los hombres son al mismo tiempo maestros y estudiantes ávidos, que todos los hombres vibran con la vida moral. Las mujeres son educadoras más sutiles […]
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March 15, 2025Холодний як римська статуя роман, який однак не позбавлений інтриги. Мені сподобалось, але вкотре пригадала, що епістолярна форма то не моя історія.
На перший погляд розповідає про вбивство Цезаря, але основна цінність тут, напевне, у висловлених світоглядних позиціях.
Хочеться відмітити просто бомбезну післямову, бо з таким інтересом отих карляк в жодному з видань я ще не читала, а тут прям якісно 💅
Ну і список на читання після Березневих Ід не може не поповнитись, бо тут тобі і К'єркегор, і Ґьоте, і Светоній, кого тільки нема.
На перший погляд розповідає про вбивство Цезаря, але основна цінність тут, напевне, у висловлених світоглядних позиціях.
Хочеться відмітити просто бомбезну післямову, бо з таким інтересом отих карляк в жодному з видань я ще не читала, а тут прям якісно 💅
Ну і список на читання після Березневих Ід не може не поповнитись, бо тут тобі і К'єркегор, і Ґьоте, і Светоній, кого тільки нема.
May 1, 2016
Reading other people's diaries/letters CAN be more tedious than revelatory.
And I've yet to overhear a private mobile call that had me riveted and prepared to miss my train/bus stop.
Here we are plunged into the private conversations of Ancient Rome's
Who's Who...by letter.
AND I'M RIVETED !!!
Gossip, passion, politics, abuse, invites to dinner, cunning, humour philosophising, frustration, manipulation
...and ALL from the pens of such Luminaries as Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Catullus the Poet, Cicero the Lawyer, Caesar's wife, the Upper Crust Women of Rome
...and the Great Unwashed in the form of their Graffiti on Current Affairs.
The Thought of the City lies revealed...with much plotting and scheming.
So far...more refreshingly Human than Ancient.
...beautifully irreverent and amusing.
...not tedious and very revelatory.
...and sobering when we know the Bloodbath soon to come.
March 6, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2021
Це найкраще з того, що я читала за останні років 10. Окремо хочу подякувати перекладачу Назару Ващишину за неймовірну роботу над текстом!
July 31, 2021
i would simply carry this book around with me and quote from it at random
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September 22, 2024Я намагався, але книга так і не змогла зацікавити.
В схожій стилістиці написано «Август» Джона Вільямса, і в цьому тексті все доведено до ідеалу👌🏻
В схожій стилістиці написано «Август» Джона Вільямса, і в цьому тексті все доведено до ідеалу👌🏻
December 30, 2007
Thornton Wilder's Ides of March is a polyphonic improvisation on the events and people surrounding the death of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BCE. This is an epistolary novel, each letter like a set piece, produced as a distinctive monologue and with a distinctive voice. Wilder's most accomplished re-creations are Caesar himself and the poet Catullus. Caesar is depicted as a man so committed to the philosophical notion of skepticism as opposed to his own belief in what is right that he cannot be troubled to hire bodyguards against what he knows is the "Inevitable Occasion," and in the poet Catullus we find a character whose rambling, obsessive letters to Clodia counter the public formality to which so many of the characters must submit.
Though Wilder admits from the get-go that this book is not intended as a piece of history, he rearranges the events in a cohesive way. The book's rhythm and arrangement make it feel like one long drum roll on the way to Caesar's appointment with his betrayers. Along the way we are exposed to a variety of undertones: the gossip and backstabbing of the leading Roman women, the private confessions of public figures, the cool calculations of Cleopatra, and, in the book's loftiest moments, the philosophic musings of Julius Caesar himself.
Though Wilder admits from the get-go that this book is not intended as a piece of history, he rearranges the events in a cohesive way. The book's rhythm and arrangement make it feel like one long drum roll on the way to Caesar's appointment with his betrayers. Along the way we are exposed to a variety of undertones: the gossip and backstabbing of the leading Roman women, the private confessions of public figures, the cool calculations of Cleopatra, and, in the book's loftiest moments, the philosophic musings of Julius Caesar himself.
January 30, 2023
Шось таке трохи інтелектуальне. Тєма сєкаса Цезаря з Клеопатрою не розкрита, але шось є в цій недосказаності.
March 30, 2025
Los idus de marzo. Un libro furiosamente alegre. Reseña.
"Mas es muy cierto que no habrá Edad de Oro y que no puede crearse ningún gobierno que dé a cada hombre lo que le haga feliz, porque la discordia está en el corazón del mundo y presente en cada una de sus partes. Es ciertísimo que todo hombre odia a los que están colocados por encima de él; que los hombres están tan dispuestos a abandonar la propiedad que tienen como lo está un león a dejarse arrancar el alimento que lleva entre los dientes; que todo cuanto un hombre desea realizar ha de llevarse a cabo en esta vida, porque no hay otra; y que ese amor, del cual los poetas hacen tan bello espectáculo, no es sino el deseo de ser amado y la necesidad, en los desiertos de la vida, de ser el centro fijo de la atención de otro".
El discurso sigue, pero vamos a dejarlo ahí. La que habla es Clodia, el vitalismo y la libertad personal personificados, «mujer licenciosa» para las enciclopedias, amante y musa del poeta Catulo para los historiadores, y en realidad un ser adorable, muy inteligente y libre, y que supuso un escándalo para la muy marcial sociedad romana de finales de la República. Como ella no escribió su historia lo que nos quedó fueron las alusiones metafóricas de su presencia en los poemas de Catulo y las alusiones envenenadas de Cicerón, que era rival político de su hermano. Ella no escribió sobre sí misma. Se dedicó a vivir.
Presentado el personaje histórico más fascinante de este libro todo el mundo supondrá que el título y el mismo contenido giran sobre la muerte de Julio César, pero Thornton Wilder fue mucho más allá y a través de cartas, confesiones, pintadas, recuerdos, locuciones en tabletas, etcétera, nos ofrece un fresco muy vivo, muy ingenioso, absolutamente epistolar y que se lee con enorme frescura, el cual en realidad se salta la historia a la torera y destroza los límites de lo que se viene a llamar novela histórica, en ese terreno fronterizo en el que solo se pueden situar sin caerse los escritores con auténtico talento.
El mismo escritor lo confiesa en el Preámbulo: que este libro se toma muchas licencias históricas. La mayor es la presencia de Catulo, que para esos días de complot político contra Julio César ya llevaba unos cuantos años muerto.
Es interesantísimo ver cómo ha retratado Wilder a cada personaje histórico. A través de este rompecabezas epistolar ha escrito un libro en el que las pasiones y el poder juegan y se entremezclan. Asistimos a la recreación de una pérfida Cleopatra, muy calculadora y organizada, siempre movida por puro interés político. Lo que es muy cierto (históricamente) es que se encontraba en Roma invitada por el Senado y que huyó a toda prisa tras el asesinato de César. Yo no estoy muy de acuerdo con esa semblanza literaria de Cleopatra, creo que es muy exagerada y cómica. Por lo que doy por bueno tras leer tantos estudios sobre esta reina es que tenía una conversación muy brillante, una educación griega muy profunda (los Ptolemaicos son absolutamente griegos en espíritu y fondo), y doy por conclusión que la relación con César no solo fue política, sino que se fundamentó en el intercambio cultural, puesto que los dos eran muy aficionados al arte y la literatura. Otra cosa fueron los ardientes y apasionados amores junto a Marco Antonio. Hay hubo más fuego que indagaciones a las obras de Eurípides y Aristófanes, todo sea dicho. Siempre guardo en la memoria esas crónicas dionisiacas en los que los guardias del palacio de Alejandría veían como cada noche los dos amantes, Marco Antonio y Cleopatra, salían disfrazados a perderse por las calles y tabernas de Alejandría, regresaban juntos, algo ebrios y abrazados, mientras el amanecer ya despuntaba en el horizonte.
Veamos a Pompeya, otra mujer con un humor fascinante, dirigirse a la indomable Clodia:
"Te echo siempre de menos, querida ratoncita. Nadie puede comprender por qué te has marchado al campo ahora que suceden tantas cosas en la ciudad. Pregunté a mi marido qué interés podías tener en las matemáticas y dijo que eras muy entretenida en esas cosas y que sabías cuanto hay que saber de las estrellas y de sus caminos. Te concedo diez intentos a ver si adivinas quién se pasa la vida en nuestra casa, por lo menos viene un día sí y otro no y pasamos el tiempo de modo más inusitado. ¡Cleopatra! Y no solo Cleopatra, sino Cytheris, la actriz. Y mi marido es quien lo ha combinado todo. ¿No te parece extraño?
Primero, Cytheris vino a enseñarme ya sabes qué. Luego Cleopatra empezó a venir a aprender algo de eso. Al terminar la lección, la reina pide a Cytheris que recite, y, ¡ay, qué cosas!, se me hiela la sangre. Casandra que se vuelve loca, y Medea que planea el asesinato de sus hijitos, y luego todo el mundo se muere. Y luego, mi marido vuelve a casa temprano y charla, charla, charla sobre comedias griegas. Y se pone en pie y es Agamenón y Cytheris es Clitemnestra y Cleopatra es Casandra, y Octavio y yo teneos que ser el coro, y luego cenamos todos".
Y luego no solo hay que ver el acierto en el concierto de pasiones y enfrentamientos que ha creado Wilder, sino que la obra tiene unas reflexiones profundas sobre el poder, y sobre el estado de putrefacción y corrupción que ya tenía herida de muerte a la República. De hecho, casi todo el mundo tenía presente que César iba a ser asesinado. Faltaba saber cuáles iban a ser sus verdugos y cuál el día elegido. El único que no quería darse por enterado era el propio César, que aquí también es un personaje muy poliédrico, pues no solo hay que apreciarlo desde la visión tiranicida sino desde un punto de vista muy personal. García Márquez siempre dijo que este libro le encantaba y creo recordar que lo leyó por primera vez cuando estaba escribiendo El otoño del patriarca. En todo caso lo leyó y releyó varias veces en la vida y siempre lo comentó con gran alegría; y es que no es para menos: es un libro muy curioso, muy ingenioso, y que resulta furiosamente alegre y vital.
Y ella, Clodia, es la principal culpable de esto:
"No vengas (a su hermano). No quiero ver a nadie. Como estoy soy completamente feliz. Cicerón está en la puerta de al lado quejándose y escribiendo esas dolientes insinceridades que él llama filosofía. Nos hemos encontrado varias veces, pero ahora estamos reducidos a enviarnos mutuamente regalitos de fruta y pastelería. No ha logrado interesarme en filosofía y yo no he podido interesarle a él en matemáticas. Es hombre muy ingenioso, pero, no sé por qué razón, nunca ha sido ingenioso conmigo. Le seco.
No hago nada en todo el día, y sería muy mala compañía para ti. Estudio números, y puedo olvidarme de todo lo demás durante días enteros. Hay propiedades en el estudio del infinito en las que nadie ha soñado".
Qué hermosa frase de Clodia para terminar ya esta aproximación primaveral a este libro tan furiosamente alegre: «Propiedades en el infinito en las que nadie ha soñado». Clodia sí — a través de la invención de la pluma de Thornton Wilder (cuando escribió esta obra a finales de la Segunda Guerra Mundial)— ha soñado con ese dejarse llevar por los grandes estudios, siendo “el estudio del amor y de la libertad personal” en los que destacó con más brillantez
"—Es muy sencillo, Casia. No permitiré a un hombre, ¡a ningún hombre!, figurarse que tiene sobre mí derecho alguno. Soy una mujer completamente libre. Catulo insiste en que tiene derechos sobre mí. Tengo que demostrarle, lo antes posible, que no admito semejante pretensión. Eso es todo".
Quizá la historia en verdad no exista, o exista tan solo como un tentáculo múltiple y más de la ficción. Leemos y estudiamos sobre unos determinados datos. Unos opinan que ciertos acontecimientos son los más destacables; los otros que esos no fueron relevantes y los que en verdad marcaron los tiempos fueron otros que nada tenían que ver con los primeros. Tantos de unos como de otros tenemos las enciclopedias llenas, y a veces entre sí se tiran los trastos, porque no están empeñados en saber realmente nada, sino en desear que una única visión prevalezca, por supuesto sesgada e interesada a sus particulares intereses, casi siempre ideológicos. Verlos a unos y a otros desde la lejanía resulta muy divertido. Son igual de idiotas. En realidad, la única historia relevante es la que se sucede en los corazones humanos, y esa casi nunca es explorada ni citada, como si acaso no decidiese el destino del mundo; pero son las pasiones, ambiciones, querencias, amores, odios, esperanzas y venganzas personales, las que en verdad mueven el reloj interno de las cosas, y esas son las que arrastran, salvan o condenan a los seres humanos. Ningún mandatario decide sobre mi vida si yo no permito que nadie que no sea yo mismo decida sobre la misma.
Por lo tanto, un individuo tan filosóficamente profundo como Bruto no hunde una daga por simple despecho, ni siquiera por la peregrina y esperanzada idea de salvar la República de la tiranía. Tuvo que existir mucho más, pero tanto en el drama de Shakespeare como en esta obra todos los escritores se topan con una auténtica roca de granito. Desentrañar a Bruto es realmente complejo y difícil. Él es la auténtica incógnita por despejar en todo ese drama político y humano que sucedió.
Hasta otra.
"Mas es muy cierto que no habrá Edad de Oro y que no puede crearse ningún gobierno que dé a cada hombre lo que le haga feliz, porque la discordia está en el corazón del mundo y presente en cada una de sus partes. Es ciertísimo que todo hombre odia a los que están colocados por encima de él; que los hombres están tan dispuestos a abandonar la propiedad que tienen como lo está un león a dejarse arrancar el alimento que lleva entre los dientes; que todo cuanto un hombre desea realizar ha de llevarse a cabo en esta vida, porque no hay otra; y que ese amor, del cual los poetas hacen tan bello espectáculo, no es sino el deseo de ser amado y la necesidad, en los desiertos de la vida, de ser el centro fijo de la atención de otro".
El discurso sigue, pero vamos a dejarlo ahí. La que habla es Clodia, el vitalismo y la libertad personal personificados, «mujer licenciosa» para las enciclopedias, amante y musa del poeta Catulo para los historiadores, y en realidad un ser adorable, muy inteligente y libre, y que supuso un escándalo para la muy marcial sociedad romana de finales de la República. Como ella no escribió su historia lo que nos quedó fueron las alusiones metafóricas de su presencia en los poemas de Catulo y las alusiones envenenadas de Cicerón, que era rival político de su hermano. Ella no escribió sobre sí misma. Se dedicó a vivir.
Presentado el personaje histórico más fascinante de este libro todo el mundo supondrá que el título y el mismo contenido giran sobre la muerte de Julio César, pero Thornton Wilder fue mucho más allá y a través de cartas, confesiones, pintadas, recuerdos, locuciones en tabletas, etcétera, nos ofrece un fresco muy vivo, muy ingenioso, absolutamente epistolar y que se lee con enorme frescura, el cual en realidad se salta la historia a la torera y destroza los límites de lo que se viene a llamar novela histórica, en ese terreno fronterizo en el que solo se pueden situar sin caerse los escritores con auténtico talento.
El mismo escritor lo confiesa en el Preámbulo: que este libro se toma muchas licencias históricas. La mayor es la presencia de Catulo, que para esos días de complot político contra Julio César ya llevaba unos cuantos años muerto.
Es interesantísimo ver cómo ha retratado Wilder a cada personaje histórico. A través de este rompecabezas epistolar ha escrito un libro en el que las pasiones y el poder juegan y se entremezclan. Asistimos a la recreación de una pérfida Cleopatra, muy calculadora y organizada, siempre movida por puro interés político. Lo que es muy cierto (históricamente) es que se encontraba en Roma invitada por el Senado y que huyó a toda prisa tras el asesinato de César. Yo no estoy muy de acuerdo con esa semblanza literaria de Cleopatra, creo que es muy exagerada y cómica. Por lo que doy por bueno tras leer tantos estudios sobre esta reina es que tenía una conversación muy brillante, una educación griega muy profunda (los Ptolemaicos son absolutamente griegos en espíritu y fondo), y doy por conclusión que la relación con César no solo fue política, sino que se fundamentó en el intercambio cultural, puesto que los dos eran muy aficionados al arte y la literatura. Otra cosa fueron los ardientes y apasionados amores junto a Marco Antonio. Hay hubo más fuego que indagaciones a las obras de Eurípides y Aristófanes, todo sea dicho. Siempre guardo en la memoria esas crónicas dionisiacas en los que los guardias del palacio de Alejandría veían como cada noche los dos amantes, Marco Antonio y Cleopatra, salían disfrazados a perderse por las calles y tabernas de Alejandría, regresaban juntos, algo ebrios y abrazados, mientras el amanecer ya despuntaba en el horizonte.
Veamos a Pompeya, otra mujer con un humor fascinante, dirigirse a la indomable Clodia:
"Te echo siempre de menos, querida ratoncita. Nadie puede comprender por qué te has marchado al campo ahora que suceden tantas cosas en la ciudad. Pregunté a mi marido qué interés podías tener en las matemáticas y dijo que eras muy entretenida en esas cosas y que sabías cuanto hay que saber de las estrellas y de sus caminos. Te concedo diez intentos a ver si adivinas quién se pasa la vida en nuestra casa, por lo menos viene un día sí y otro no y pasamos el tiempo de modo más inusitado. ¡Cleopatra! Y no solo Cleopatra, sino Cytheris, la actriz. Y mi marido es quien lo ha combinado todo. ¿No te parece extraño?
Primero, Cytheris vino a enseñarme ya sabes qué. Luego Cleopatra empezó a venir a aprender algo de eso. Al terminar la lección, la reina pide a Cytheris que recite, y, ¡ay, qué cosas!, se me hiela la sangre. Casandra que se vuelve loca, y Medea que planea el asesinato de sus hijitos, y luego todo el mundo se muere. Y luego, mi marido vuelve a casa temprano y charla, charla, charla sobre comedias griegas. Y se pone en pie y es Agamenón y Cytheris es Clitemnestra y Cleopatra es Casandra, y Octavio y yo teneos que ser el coro, y luego cenamos todos".
Y luego no solo hay que ver el acierto en el concierto de pasiones y enfrentamientos que ha creado Wilder, sino que la obra tiene unas reflexiones profundas sobre el poder, y sobre el estado de putrefacción y corrupción que ya tenía herida de muerte a la República. De hecho, casi todo el mundo tenía presente que César iba a ser asesinado. Faltaba saber cuáles iban a ser sus verdugos y cuál el día elegido. El único que no quería darse por enterado era el propio César, que aquí también es un personaje muy poliédrico, pues no solo hay que apreciarlo desde la visión tiranicida sino desde un punto de vista muy personal. García Márquez siempre dijo que este libro le encantaba y creo recordar que lo leyó por primera vez cuando estaba escribiendo El otoño del patriarca. En todo caso lo leyó y releyó varias veces en la vida y siempre lo comentó con gran alegría; y es que no es para menos: es un libro muy curioso, muy ingenioso, y que resulta furiosamente alegre y vital.
Y ella, Clodia, es la principal culpable de esto:
"No vengas (a su hermano). No quiero ver a nadie. Como estoy soy completamente feliz. Cicerón está en la puerta de al lado quejándose y escribiendo esas dolientes insinceridades que él llama filosofía. Nos hemos encontrado varias veces, pero ahora estamos reducidos a enviarnos mutuamente regalitos de fruta y pastelería. No ha logrado interesarme en filosofía y yo no he podido interesarle a él en matemáticas. Es hombre muy ingenioso, pero, no sé por qué razón, nunca ha sido ingenioso conmigo. Le seco.
No hago nada en todo el día, y sería muy mala compañía para ti. Estudio números, y puedo olvidarme de todo lo demás durante días enteros. Hay propiedades en el estudio del infinito en las que nadie ha soñado".
Qué hermosa frase de Clodia para terminar ya esta aproximación primaveral a este libro tan furiosamente alegre: «Propiedades en el infinito en las que nadie ha soñado». Clodia sí — a través de la invención de la pluma de Thornton Wilder (cuando escribió esta obra a finales de la Segunda Guerra Mundial)— ha soñado con ese dejarse llevar por los grandes estudios, siendo “el estudio del amor y de la libertad personal” en los que destacó con más brillantez
"—Es muy sencillo, Casia. No permitiré a un hombre, ¡a ningún hombre!, figurarse que tiene sobre mí derecho alguno. Soy una mujer completamente libre. Catulo insiste en que tiene derechos sobre mí. Tengo que demostrarle, lo antes posible, que no admito semejante pretensión. Eso es todo".
Quizá la historia en verdad no exista, o exista tan solo como un tentáculo múltiple y más de la ficción. Leemos y estudiamos sobre unos determinados datos. Unos opinan que ciertos acontecimientos son los más destacables; los otros que esos no fueron relevantes y los que en verdad marcaron los tiempos fueron otros que nada tenían que ver con los primeros. Tantos de unos como de otros tenemos las enciclopedias llenas, y a veces entre sí se tiran los trastos, porque no están empeñados en saber realmente nada, sino en desear que una única visión prevalezca, por supuesto sesgada e interesada a sus particulares intereses, casi siempre ideológicos. Verlos a unos y a otros desde la lejanía resulta muy divertido. Son igual de idiotas. En realidad, la única historia relevante es la que se sucede en los corazones humanos, y esa casi nunca es explorada ni citada, como si acaso no decidiese el destino del mundo; pero son las pasiones, ambiciones, querencias, amores, odios, esperanzas y venganzas personales, las que en verdad mueven el reloj interno de las cosas, y esas son las que arrastran, salvan o condenan a los seres humanos. Ningún mandatario decide sobre mi vida si yo no permito que nadie que no sea yo mismo decida sobre la misma.
Por lo tanto, un individuo tan filosóficamente profundo como Bruto no hunde una daga por simple despecho, ni siquiera por la peregrina y esperanzada idea de salvar la República de la tiranía. Tuvo que existir mucho más, pero tanto en el drama de Shakespeare como en esta obra todos los escritores se topan con una auténtica roca de granito. Desentrañar a Bruto es realmente complejo y difícil. Él es la auténtica incógnita por despejar en todo ese drama político y humano que sucedió.
Hasta otra.
August 4, 2021
"You taught me that the world has no mind. When I said—that you remember and why I said it—that life was horrible, you said no, that life was neither horrible nor beautiful. That living had no character at all and had no meaning. You said that the universe did not know that men were living in it.
You do not believe that. I know, I know that there is one thing more that you have to tell me. Anyone can see that you behave as though something for you holds reason, holds meaning. What is it?"
thornton wilder called this “a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic,” and I think that fantasia is the perfect word to describe this book. don’t approach it as a strictly historical novel - it’s not, as the author’s preface will tell you straight away. more than anything, I think, this book is a kind of subtle dialogue, in the socratic sense: on love, on religion, and most particularly, on meaning. whether life has it and how you can ever begin to tell what it is. wilder was profoundly influenced by his contemporary existentialists when he wrote the ides of march, and you can really, really, really tell; this book just sings existentialism all over, especially in its more profound passages. and it is a very interesting thing to mix together with caesar, with roman history. it makes much more sense, I think, than it may appear to right off the bat. after all, what was caesar if not a viable existentialist figurehead? caesar was all will, all decision, all self-made destiny. wilder sees that and runs with it all the way.
the result is a book that’s gorgeous, and moving, in a way I really didn’t expect it to be. wilder uses the epistolary format, which is often my favorite when done well, superbly to let us glimpse the interior lives of his characters. caesar, julia, clodia, pompeia, catullus, cleopatra, and all the rest escape the confines of antiquity to become comprehensible to us. and oh, how much I loved this novel’s structure! it’s built like a reverse russian nesting doll, or like an eye beginning at a squint and then slowly opening wider and wider. it is divided into four “books,” and each book covers the same span of time as the previous book but goes back just a little further at the beginning and runs just a little later at the end, so that by the time the novel finishes you have read the same events recounted three or four times, with more context and different viewpoints added in each section. this technique gives the ides of march a texture, a richness, a depth that you would probably have to read it at least a second time, or maybe even three, to really fully appreciate.
overall, this book is more cerebral than I expected it to be, and yet it affected me viscerally as well. I loved it by the time I was twenty pages in, and that feeling only strengthened the further on I went. you guys, it was so so so good. it hasn’t left my mind since I finished it several days ago. I’m already looking forward to letting just enough time pass for me to read this once again, and find something new. I know for certain that it has some secrets I haven’t quite discovered yet.
You do not believe that. I know, I know that there is one thing more that you have to tell me. Anyone can see that you behave as though something for you holds reason, holds meaning. What is it?"
thornton wilder called this “a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic,” and I think that fantasia is the perfect word to describe this book. don’t approach it as a strictly historical novel - it’s not, as the author’s preface will tell you straight away. more than anything, I think, this book is a kind of subtle dialogue, in the socratic sense: on love, on religion, and most particularly, on meaning. whether life has it and how you can ever begin to tell what it is. wilder was profoundly influenced by his contemporary existentialists when he wrote the ides of march, and you can really, really, really tell; this book just sings existentialism all over, especially in its more profound passages. and it is a very interesting thing to mix together with caesar, with roman history. it makes much more sense, I think, than it may appear to right off the bat. after all, what was caesar if not a viable existentialist figurehead? caesar was all will, all decision, all self-made destiny. wilder sees that and runs with it all the way.
the result is a book that’s gorgeous, and moving, in a way I really didn’t expect it to be. wilder uses the epistolary format, which is often my favorite when done well, superbly to let us glimpse the interior lives of his characters. caesar, julia, clodia, pompeia, catullus, cleopatra, and all the rest escape the confines of antiquity to become comprehensible to us. and oh, how much I loved this novel’s structure! it’s built like a reverse russian nesting doll, or like an eye beginning at a squint and then slowly opening wider and wider. it is divided into four “books,” and each book covers the same span of time as the previous book but goes back just a little further at the beginning and runs just a little later at the end, so that by the time the novel finishes you have read the same events recounted three or four times, with more context and different viewpoints added in each section. this technique gives the ides of march a texture, a richness, a depth that you would probably have to read it at least a second time, or maybe even three, to really fully appreciate.
overall, this book is more cerebral than I expected it to be, and yet it affected me viscerally as well. I loved it by the time I was twenty pages in, and that feeling only strengthened the further on I went. you guys, it was so so so good. it hasn’t left my mind since I finished it several days ago. I’m already looking forward to letting just enough time pass for me to read this once again, and find something new. I know for certain that it has some secrets I haven’t quite discovered yet.
November 30, 2018
In this work of historical fiction, Wilder uses a combination of letters, diary entries and official documents to tell the story of the last year of Julius Caesar’s life.
Thank heavens I already knew the basic outline of this story. It was simply torture to read. Wilder divides the novel into four “books.” But the time frames overlap. For example, book one begins with a letter dated Sep 1 (45 BC), includes later entries marked “written the previous spring, has a memo dated Sep 30 near the end, followed by two undated notes, and a final document “written some fifteen years after the preceding.” Then we move on to Book Two, which begins with a letter dated Aug 17 (45 BC). S*I*G*H
The second difficulty I had was with the names / relationships. They frequently use nick names or code names when trying to ensure secrecy from prying eyes, should a letter fall into the wrong hands. THEY know who they refer to, but this reader was frequently confused.
And the third reason I found this so challenging are the many asides / footnotes / remarks that the author inserts. For example, in Book I, in the middle of a rather long “historical document” the author writes: Here follows the passage in which cicero discusses the possibility that Marcus Junius Brutus may be Caesar’s son. It is given in the document which opens Book IV..
Now, I appreciate Wilder’s writing, and there were times in the book that I was completely engaged in the story. I was fascinated to read of the intrigue and espionage, the role of Cleopatra, etc. But on the whole … well I think I had more “fun” translating Cicero’s oration against Cataline when I studied Latin in high school (and I hated that).
Thank heavens I already knew the basic outline of this story. It was simply torture to read. Wilder divides the novel into four “books.” But the time frames overlap. For example, book one begins with a letter dated Sep 1 (45 BC), includes later entries marked “written the previous spring, has a memo dated Sep 30 near the end, followed by two undated notes, and a final document “written some fifteen years after the preceding.” Then we move on to Book Two, which begins with a letter dated Aug 17 (45 BC). S*I*G*H
The second difficulty I had was with the names / relationships. They frequently use nick names or code names when trying to ensure secrecy from prying eyes, should a letter fall into the wrong hands. THEY know who they refer to, but this reader was frequently confused.
And the third reason I found this so challenging are the many asides / footnotes / remarks that the author inserts. For example, in Book I, in the middle of a rather long “historical document” the author writes: Here follows the passage in which cicero discusses the possibility that Marcus Junius Brutus may be Caesar’s son. It is given in the document which opens Book IV..
Now, I appreciate Wilder’s writing, and there were times in the book that I was completely engaged in the story. I was fascinated to read of the intrigue and espionage, the role of Cleopatra, etc. But on the whole … well I think I had more “fun” translating Cicero’s oration against Cataline when I studied Latin in high school (and I hated that).
May 1, 2024
книга года, а может и нескольких лет.
September 17, 2020
Se cercate un romanzo ben documentato storicamente non è quello che fa per voi, ci sono diverse imprecisioni: persone che erano già morti li troviamo interagire con i protagonisti, e alcuni fatti vengono posticipati; però l'autore è onesto fin dall'inizio nel dichiarare l'intento che non è una precisa ricostruzione storica.
La narrazione si svolge in modo epistolare, dandoci delle finestre sulla psicologia dei personaggi, che si alternano e affastellano anche andando avanti ed indietro nel tempo. Entriamo nelle feste private romane, nei desideri e timori dei personaggi: un patchwork articolato e coinvolgente, con un'ottima ricostruzione caratteriale, in cui apprezziamo soprattutto la grandezza dello statista Cesare. Ci sono anche riportate poesie di Catullo, e un brano di Sallustio ben integrate nella narrazione. Non tutte le lettere ci portano a capire cosa è successo e perché e quale fosse lo stato d'animo dei coinvolti nelle idi di marzo, anzi per lo più sono narrazioni di eventi collaterali, mondani e quasi insignificanti ma che ci fanno respirare l'atmosfera dell'epoca. Se volete immergervi nella morente Roma repubblicana, con i gossip e le gelosie non potete farvelo mancare: il testo non risulta affatto invecchiato.
La narrazione si svolge in modo epistolare, dandoci delle finestre sulla psicologia dei personaggi, che si alternano e affastellano anche andando avanti ed indietro nel tempo. Entriamo nelle feste private romane, nei desideri e timori dei personaggi: un patchwork articolato e coinvolgente, con un'ottima ricostruzione caratteriale, in cui apprezziamo soprattutto la grandezza dello statista Cesare. Ci sono anche riportate poesie di Catullo, e un brano di Sallustio ben integrate nella narrazione. Non tutte le lettere ci portano a capire cosa è successo e perché e quale fosse lo stato d'animo dei coinvolti nelle idi di marzo, anzi per lo più sono narrazioni di eventi collaterali, mondani e quasi insignificanti ma che ci fanno respirare l'atmosfera dell'epoca. Se volete immergervi nella morente Roma repubblicana, con i gossip e le gelosie non potete farvelo mancare: il testo non risulta affatto invecchiato.
March 21, 2016
In high school we were forced to read Our Town. Didn't much like it--too dated even then. Tried to read The Bridge of San Luis Rey in junior high. Didn't much like it. Don't think I finished it--a rare event. Gave Wilder his, to date, last chance with Ides of March, an epistolary novel leading up to the assassination of Caesar, on the theory that the topic would excite some interest. It didn't. For one thing, Wilder plays loose with the facts, introducing impossible events and meetings. At least four of his characters were already dead before the events he placed them in. What is the point of historical fiction if you don't stay within the realm of possibility? It seems immoral to mislead the reader in such a way. Also, I have yet to find an epistolary novel I like.
August 15, 2018
If I could rate Wilder’s “Ides of March” 10 stars I would. The epistolary style Wilder employs brings Caesar to life as no other has. In spite of knowing exactly how it ends, the tension is ratcheted up until the final blow. When it does, as it must, the reader wants to weep and scream with fury.
It was wonderful seeing all the familiar names from yet another angle, even if a fictitious one.
Recommended.
It was wonderful seeing all the familiar names from yet another angle, even if a fictitious one.
Recommended.
February 13, 2021
This historical novel by Wilder is superb...he used not a narrative style, but told the story leading up to Julius Caesar's assassination using letters, memoirs, and documents which he invented from whole cloth. It certainly made Caesar into a much deeper more ethical and philosophical leader.
July 20, 2012
Three very interesting ideas at work in the Ides of March:
The use of the epistolary novel form. This is a particularly appropriate technique for a novel about ancient Rome, as the Romans were great letter writers. Not only does the form gain plausibility, but the author gains from having so many stylistic models. Not that Wilder necessarily imitates Roman epistolary style, but he does at least reflect the tenor of some of the writers. I don't think imitation was at all a goal for Wilder: rather, I think he chose the form because it allowed him to suggest the contours of the story and characters, while allowing the reader to stitch the whole thing together for themselves. Wilder adds some variety by including some pages from the commonplace book of the historian Cornelius Nepos.
A good portion of the novel concerns the tempestuous relationship of the poet Catullus and his some-time lover Clodia Pulcher. Having absorbed Catullus' style, Wilder is able to convincingly portray the ongoing suffering of the poet. Catullus' unruly passion is a marvelous to the calm and collected Caesar, an obviously handy contrast for the novelist. But beyond that, Catullus was such an outrageous Roman, I don't think Wilder could resist him.
Which leads to the last point, Wilder's use of these characters to illuminate the human condition in general. We recognize this impulse in Wilder from his plays, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth in particular. Caesar the leader, his supporting friends, the love-crazed poet, the poet's cruel lovers--all of these characters were real people, but Wilder lifts them out of time and gives their lives modern significance. Early in the novel, in a letter to his friend Lucius Mamilius Turrinus, Caesar writes, "How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives." Couldn't one of Wilder's many Stage Managers have said that?
The use of the epistolary novel form. This is a particularly appropriate technique for a novel about ancient Rome, as the Romans were great letter writers. Not only does the form gain plausibility, but the author gains from having so many stylistic models. Not that Wilder necessarily imitates Roman epistolary style, but he does at least reflect the tenor of some of the writers. I don't think imitation was at all a goal for Wilder: rather, I think he chose the form because it allowed him to suggest the contours of the story and characters, while allowing the reader to stitch the whole thing together for themselves. Wilder adds some variety by including some pages from the commonplace book of the historian Cornelius Nepos.
A good portion of the novel concerns the tempestuous relationship of the poet Catullus and his some-time lover Clodia Pulcher. Having absorbed Catullus' style, Wilder is able to convincingly portray the ongoing suffering of the poet. Catullus' unruly passion is a marvelous to the calm and collected Caesar, an obviously handy contrast for the novelist. But beyond that, Catullus was such an outrageous Roman, I don't think Wilder could resist him.
Which leads to the last point, Wilder's use of these characters to illuminate the human condition in general. We recognize this impulse in Wilder from his plays, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth in particular. Caesar the leader, his supporting friends, the love-crazed poet, the poet's cruel lovers--all of these characters were real people, but Wilder lifts them out of time and gives their lives modern significance. Early in the novel, in a letter to his friend Lucius Mamilius Turrinus, Caesar writes, "How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives." Couldn't one of Wilder's many Stage Managers have said that?
May 23, 2023
An epistolatory novel set in the months leading up to Julius Caesar’s assassination. The letters are between a variety of characters including Caesar himself, the poet Catullus, and various friends and enemies. Although it is quite amusing, I found the messed up timeline a bit difficult. The scandal of the desecration of the Bona Dea took place many years earlier, Caesar had been married to Calpurnia for years before Cleopatra came to Rome, Catullus died long before etc. This makes it all a bit strange. But still, it is fairly entertaining.
March 27, 2024
A book very much about julius caesar
December 9, 2018
There is nothing new in Facebook stealing our data and using it for their own political and commercial purposes. Apparently Ancient Rome was also awash with such contraband. Julius Caesar - and others - would intercept slave-carried papyri and copy down their contents before they were delivered; or otherwise ransack private homes for their correspondence. The only thing that has changed in two thousand years is the form in which information is stolen.
Completely by chance I came upon this book having just read Augustus. It is hard to believe that this was not the inspiration for John William's later novel, which follows it immediately in chronology and so closely in form. I found the form the most interesting aspect of Wilder's novel. Both are epistolary novels, but Wilder doesn't limit himself to letters, here there are official reports, poems and graffiti copied down from walls: primary source materials for history, just fictional ones - except the poetry, that's real.
These documents are collected into four books. Chronologically each collection sits within the one the follows it, but each book is shorter than the one before. This gives the effect of being accelerated in a widening gyre towards the concluding catastrophe. (There are other references to Yeats.) Each collection erratically orbits a social event; Clodia Pulcher's dinner party, Cleopatra's garden party, the rites of the Good Goddess - a religious event that takes place annually in a private home, and finally a dinner party at Caesar's house on the Ides of March. The whole effect is to apprehend the many layers of intersecting intrigue in Rome in 45/44 BC. I came away with the sense that had he not been assassinated by Brutus et al on March 15, he could have just as well been assassinated by others at any point in the gyre.
Within individual documents there are omissions, suggesting that the information omitted it not relevant to the plot(s). There are also cross references to preceding documents. Obviously, Wilder's intention is that we flick back and forth through the text reading these documents again in the light of new information. I did so in a half-hearted fashion. The problem is that I didn't really care for Caesar, or anybody else. The form of the book doesn't really allow you to engage with any character's story, it is more of a narrative puzzle, the purpose of which is for the reader to fit all the pieces of the story together.
Both writers seem to have recognised this problem with the form, and solve it in similar ways. Both of which, however, stretch the narrative conceit that the story can be told purely in epistolary form. In Augustus, the whole of the last book - some 36 pages long- is meant to be a letter Augustus writes to Seneca, but is actually an 'apologia pro vita mea'. This saved the novel for me, finally giving me what I wanted - the protagonist in his own words. Wilder also has an extended 'document' written by the protagonist, but here it takes the form of Journal-Letter to Caesar's bedridden best friend who never writes back. Parts of this document are scattered through the novel. It's a peculiar device, but it gives Caesar an opportunity to express this sincere views.
These two books have made me realise what an obsession the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire is for writers. You could argue that Shakespeare started a fashion, but I don't see many rewrites of King Lear. There is something about these events and these characters that encourage writers to have a go at this particular historical fiction - sex and violence, I suspect. But Wilder does something here that I found quite shocking, and troubled me all through my reading of the book. In his 'mea culpa' by way of preface, he admits to moving one of the key events he depicts from 62 BC to 44 BC. The result, as he suggests, is historical fantasy rather than historical fiction. It suits his theme, bringing the life of Catullus and the life of Caesar more tightly together. But if the fiction distorts historical events so significantly, in what sense is the fiction historical? What we are left with is brand recognition, something I tried myself at the beginning of this review.
Augustus does not do this, in fact if offers us insight into a historical event - Augustus's banishment of his daughter, Julia - that history with its rigid requirement for documentary evidence cannot offer. This is the historical fiction I prefer.
Completely by chance I came upon this book having just read Augustus. It is hard to believe that this was not the inspiration for John William's later novel, which follows it immediately in chronology and so closely in form. I found the form the most interesting aspect of Wilder's novel. Both are epistolary novels, but Wilder doesn't limit himself to letters, here there are official reports, poems and graffiti copied down from walls: primary source materials for history, just fictional ones - except the poetry, that's real.
These documents are collected into four books. Chronologically each collection sits within the one the follows it, but each book is shorter than the one before. This gives the effect of being accelerated in a widening gyre towards the concluding catastrophe. (There are other references to Yeats.) Each collection erratically orbits a social event; Clodia Pulcher's dinner party, Cleopatra's garden party, the rites of the Good Goddess - a religious event that takes place annually in a private home, and finally a dinner party at Caesar's house on the Ides of March. The whole effect is to apprehend the many layers of intersecting intrigue in Rome in 45/44 BC. I came away with the sense that had he not been assassinated by Brutus et al on March 15, he could have just as well been assassinated by others at any point in the gyre.
Within individual documents there are omissions, suggesting that the information omitted it not relevant to the plot(s). There are also cross references to preceding documents. Obviously, Wilder's intention is that we flick back and forth through the text reading these documents again in the light of new information. I did so in a half-hearted fashion. The problem is that I didn't really care for Caesar, or anybody else. The form of the book doesn't really allow you to engage with any character's story, it is more of a narrative puzzle, the purpose of which is for the reader to fit all the pieces of the story together.
Both writers seem to have recognised this problem with the form, and solve it in similar ways. Both of which, however, stretch the narrative conceit that the story can be told purely in epistolary form. In Augustus, the whole of the last book - some 36 pages long- is meant to be a letter Augustus writes to Seneca, but is actually an 'apologia pro vita mea'. This saved the novel for me, finally giving me what I wanted - the protagonist in his own words. Wilder also has an extended 'document' written by the protagonist, but here it takes the form of Journal-Letter to Caesar's bedridden best friend who never writes back. Parts of this document are scattered through the novel. It's a peculiar device, but it gives Caesar an opportunity to express this sincere views.
These two books have made me realise what an obsession the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire is for writers. You could argue that Shakespeare started a fashion, but I don't see many rewrites of King Lear. There is something about these events and these characters that encourage writers to have a go at this particular historical fiction - sex and violence, I suspect. But Wilder does something here that I found quite shocking, and troubled me all through my reading of the book. In his 'mea culpa' by way of preface, he admits to moving one of the key events he depicts from 62 BC to 44 BC. The result, as he suggests, is historical fantasy rather than historical fiction. It suits his theme, bringing the life of Catullus and the life of Caesar more tightly together. But if the fiction distorts historical events so significantly, in what sense is the fiction historical? What we are left with is brand recognition, something I tried myself at the beginning of this review.
Augustus does not do this, in fact if offers us insight into a historical event - Augustus's banishment of his daughter, Julia - that history with its rigid requirement for documentary evidence cannot offer. This is the historical fiction I prefer.
November 24, 2016
Never read a book quite like this: the layered communications of this epistolary novel, the end days of Julius Caesar. Through this medium, Wilder imagines a man worshipped as a god and reviled as a tyrant, a man beyond both love and susceptibility to adoration, wistfully yearning for a meaningful legacy, to be exalted through poetry, a man still deeply inquiring yet deeply tired by a life that puzzled him, disappointed him, yet still had the power to move him. Wilder evokes Rome at this time most wonderfully.
June 14, 2010
This humorous little book written as a series of letters sent around the Roman Empire from real and fictional characters is a treat to read. Is loaded with witty lines as when Cicero is nicknamed "Nobody up there but smoke." Because of the format of the book and the detail to public and private Roman life, I once found it cataloged as non-fiction history in a school library! To bad the real Rome had a more serious nature.
March 16, 2016
Really enjoyed this book....it is all written by notes passed back and forth by the Roman Republic characters...a historical fiction account...kinda like reading emails of gossip.....funny in places.....I plan to read it again next March......
Get a copy and you do the same....March 15th, THE IDES OF MARCH.
Get a copy and you do the same....March 15th, THE IDES OF MARCH.
June 30, 2022
Блискуча книга! Роман в листах, що розкриває останні місяці римського життя перед убивством Цезаря. Чудове відкриття в особі Торнтона Вайлдера. Однозначно раджу всім любителям Рима і античної філософії - суцільна насолода!
November 27, 2022
Sometimes funny, sometimes mundane, sometimes gossipy, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes enlightening little thought experiment of imagined letters and diary entries by and about Julius Caesar in the last six months of his life. I loved the epistolary format and the four "books" of the novel concerning a different aspect of a gradually expanding reach of time: the first book only concerns the planning of and gossip surrounding a dinner party in the month of September, the second Cleopatra's visit to Rome with documents dated from mid-August to late October, etc. The effect is that of layering a sheet cake: one narrative is placed on top another over the same span of time until one finishes the novel and can look at these disparate narratives as one whole. History is complicated, and it's easy to construct a singular narrative out of a historical time period. This novel resists that notion, showing multiple nearly self-contained narratives that could be constructed from the same "historical" documents alongside one another.
"How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives."
I don't know, through all of Caesar's expoundings of his philosophical views on religion, love, and poetry, through all the gossipy letters about Clodia and Clodius Pulcher, all the reports from Caesar's Secret Police modeled after Mussolini-esque police forces, and all the gossip about "just what is Cleopatra doing in Rome?", I was expecting more. This was fun and interesting, but I just kept wanting it to be more fun and interesting. Oh well!
"How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives."
I don't know, through all of Caesar's expoundings of his philosophical views on religion, love, and poetry, through all the gossipy letters about Clodia and Clodius Pulcher, all the reports from Caesar's Secret Police modeled after Mussolini-esque police forces, and all the gossip about "just what is Cleopatra doing in Rome?", I was expecting more. This was fun and interesting, but I just kept wanting it to be more fun and interesting. Oh well!
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