Julian: A Novel by Gore Vidal Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Julian: A Novel
Book Review: APOSTATE
Summary: 5 Stars
The fourth century AD is a period I have never known much about. The first I ever heard about the emperor Julian the Apostate was actually the unflattering caricature by St Gregory Nazianzen, quoted here again in the novel. There is a plus-side and there is a minus-side to reading a historical novel from ignorance of the background, the plus-side being obviously that one is not distracted from appreciating it for what it is - creative writing. I feel sure the downside outweighs that, all the same. There is obviously considerable erudition behind this book, and if I ever improve my grasp of the background I would expect to find real historical insights, whatever the author may have adapted, removed or added. What is clear to me is that Vidal at least thinks as a genuine historian - his narrative is about the right things that should go into a historical analysis.
The novel is partly concerned with rehabilitating Julian, but it is about more than that, indeed about more than his life-story altogether. It is about early Christianity and the mind-sets that went with that. Julian was appalled by Christianity, and so, quite evidently, is Vidal. For him, early Christianity was a noxious perversion of human thought-processes. Christianity of this period tried to enforce beliefs, and would stop at nothing in the process. This should make us pause to ask - how can any belief be obligatory? Only our actions can be subject to our own will, let alone anyone else's, and holding a belief is not an action. There is a restricted sense in which it could be described as that, namely the sense in which `holding' means `propounding', as in a book or a lecture. In more normal usage to `hold' a belief is just to `have' a belief, and we either do or do not believe something - it's a state of affairs like having a headache, not a voluntary or enforceable act like holding a sword or holding a meeting. On top of that there is the question - what, if anything, did the doctrines the Christians were slaughtering one another over even mean? The doctrine of the Trinity was something to kill for, it seems. Even in my time the answer to rational questioning was that some `truths' (in whatever sense) were above reason but revealed by God, but of course one had to take someone's word for that. It was all of a piece with mortification of the flesh and repression of natural instincts, as Vidal quietly implies - any faculties, brain or body, that the Creator may have given us, presumably to use, were not only suspect but evil and those who saw the matter otherwise would be dealt with, as Julian himself was finally dealt with at the age of 32.
The book ends with a fascinating question left suspended, as much good history does. Julian was killed in his early prime, through treachery by one of his own officers, at Ctesiphon on the Tigris, the scene of new unresolved issues even as I write. He had made a serious error in that battle, the first of his brilliant military career, but all was not lost by any means. If he had lived out a natural lifespan, or even postponed being murdered for some years, would he have stopped Christianity in its tracks throughout the Roman empire? Vidal does not go into the question of its origin in any depth, but what he highlights clearly is that it was unique among religions in being new. The associated myths and legends that in other faiths had grown up gradually from the dawn of time were being strenuously created for Christianity at top speed and even more strenuously enforced. Julian and his author saw it as still having only shallow roots, but it was an idea whose time had come, it commanded fierce loyalty as Julian's own beliefs did not, and the odds must have been against him.
Julian's reign is well documented, not least by himself, and the story rests on his own accounts supplemented by those of two familiars. The narrative is accomplished, the writing style elegant and often ironic and witty as one would expect. However the reasons that led Vidal to put nearly five years of his life into writing about Julian in particular go far beyond the availability of copious source-material. There is nothing mysterious about these reasons - the author makes them abundantly clear. The real mystery, as he leaves me in no doubt either, is how human beings in the mass manage to think the way they seem to.
Book Review: Aesthetically and historically superb, but not very exciting
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the little-known but stirring tale of Flavius Claudius Julianus, who reigned as sole emperor of the Roman world for less than two years in AD 361-363. Having been born in 331 (or thereabouts), he lived to be just 30 - an even shorter span than Alexander the Great. Moreover, as cousin of the emperor Constantius II, most of his life was spent under the threat of arrest and execution. He never knew whether Constantius would decide to keep him alive, as a potential supporter and successor, or to have him killed "just in case". The career of his older half-brother Gallus stacked the deck heavily against him. (After Constantius made him Caesar in the East and gave him the hand of his own sister Constantina in marriage, Gallus is said to have followed in the footsteps of Caligula and Nero, looting and killing his subjects; when Constantius sent for him he rebelled openly, and was killed). Julian, always a studious and thoughtful youth, much preferred the life of a philosopher and asked only to be left alone to his books, lectures, and conversation. Remarkably, he turned out to be not only extremely cool-headed but also a master military tactician and strategist. When Constantius sent him off to be Caesar in the West (facing an apparently unstoppable invasion by ferocious German tribes) he amazed everyone by utterly routing the barbarians and packing them back across the Rhine. These successes inevitably scared Constantius, who probably started planning to overthrow Julian. Getting his retaliation in first, however, Julian invaded the East and was near Constantinople when Constantius suddenly died of natural causes.
As Emperor, Julian seems to have been astonishingly self-possessed and modest, dismissing hordes of imperial servants and eunuchs and living far more modestly then any of his immediate predecessors - although perhaps his lifestyle was not very different from those of Julius Caesar and Augustus 350 years before. His grand ambition was to roll back the tide of Christianity and restore the worship of the old Roman and Greek gods, but before he could make a start on that he launched an invasion of Sassanid Persia. Despite early successes, he died of wounds sustained in battle - which, it has been rumoured, may have been inflicted by disaffected Christians in his own entourage.
Most of the book purports to be Julian's own journal (or the notes he dictated for it), but it is interspersed with the correspondence between the elderly scholars Libanius and Priscus, who provide context and criticize Julian's views, as well as injecting a little Shakespearean background comedy. It gives a breathtakingly panoramic view of the mid-to-late Roman Empire, just as Christianity was taking hold as the official religion. It soon becomes clear that a large part of Vidal's agenda is to deconstruct Christianity, demonstrating vividly (and sometimes sickeningly) how it was assembled from popular elements of Mithraism, the cult of Isis, and many other religions - and the ghastly mob violence with which its adherents destroyed anyone who stood in their way. The parallel with crazed Islamist mobs, and their leaders, in our own day is much too close for comfort. In contrast, Julian comes across as pleasantly rational and logical, although he did have his own set of pagan beliefs and rituals.
I don't suppose anyone who knows Gore Vidal's work would expect his biography of Julian to be rivetingly dramatic - even though he chose to write it as fiction. For a start, you will find very little in this novel that has not been in the pages of history for nearly 2000 years. So why did Vidal choose the novel format? Presumably so that he could add some intricate "embroidery" around the fixed structure of known facts - mostly in the form of Julian's journal and the letters written after his death by Libanius and Priscus. It certainly isn't a page-turner - more the kind of book that you read 50 pages an evening until you are done. But it is far more satisfying than any thriller, and you will probably find that some of the thoughts it puts into your mind stay there for a lifetime.
Book Review: An Amazing Read
Summary: 5 Stars
Historical fiction does not get any better than this, and I'm
a tough audience. It is far and away one of my favorite books, and I only wish I could have the experience of reading it again for the first time. As far as I'm concerned this is Gore Vidal's finest work. Julian, the orphaned nephew of Constantine, raised in seclusion as a devout Christian, now a young nerdy philosophy student, is suddenly elevated to Ceaser and thrust into Gaul to quell the revolting German tribes with inadequate troops and commanders who have been instructed to
ignore him. Neither his cousin, the Emperor Constantius, or even Julian himself, realize that this unlikely prince is the greatest military genius since Alexander.
Vidal does a very credible job of describing Julian's early life and the conflicts and intrigues within his family and the imperial court. Julian comes across as a very real, complex, and even likable human character, as do the uniquely vivid secondary characters. Vidal is at his ironic and sometimes hilarious best in his discriptions of the conflicts in the early Christian church, and the correspondence and comments about Julian's diary between two philosophers who knew him are brilliant. Julian's unlikely conversion to Paganism is very vivid and believable. After all he DID try to restore the worship of the old gods, so he obviously felt pretty strongly about it. One is left feeling a sad "what if...." at his death, and cannot help but feel that history would be very different had he lived.
It's a case of not knowing where to start in recommending it. This is definately the alternate view of history, one the Christian church has been at pains to obliterate for centuries.
Book Review: Another winner by Gore Vidal
Summary: 4 Stars
I'd read this book many years ago and enjoyed it tremendously. I still believe it's one of the best autobiographical novels I've ever read, but found this time around that it was too heavily loaded with paragraph after paragraph of ancient philosophy. Other than that, a very enjoyable read.
Vidal describes a young Julian, whose father died at the hands of the Emperor Constantius, and follows him through the remainder of his life. The youth was fearful of his life for being a possible threat to Constantius from the time he was six years old until he grew to manhood. As a result, he hoped to make himself invisible by turning to the study of philosophy. Finally, with no other heir to the throne, Constantius appointed the student Julian to be Cesaer of Gaul, where his first task was to lead the army against German tribes moving in on the Roman Empire. He proves to be a natural leader and his success is phenomenal. When Constantius demands that Julian's army march off to Antioch to fight the Persians, leaving Julian behind, his soldiers demand that he take over the throne--and of course he does.
Julian is skeptical of the new religion Christianity that has pretty much overwhelmed the older gods of the Greeks and Romans. He seeks to reinstate the old gods and rebuild their temples destroyed by zealous Christians. As one of his friends tell him, he's three centuries too late.
Book Review: Brilliant Historical Narrative
Summary: 5 Stars
Vidal's novel is on the ascension and fall of Julian the Apostate, Constantine the Great's nephew and emperor of Rome: the last pagan emperor. A unique and powerful historical narrative depicting the clash of paganism in its decline vs. the nascent Christian religion that would inevitably change the world we live in.
The triple narrative technique is brilliantly executed in allowing the expression of several historical norms and points of view that are not always in agreement. In the story, Julian's pseudo memoirs are interspersed with correspondence and commentaries by two of his acquaintances: a philosopher and a rhetorician. The philosopher tends to follow Neo-platonic pagan thoughts while the sophist seems more agnostic. The ascension of Christian values are objectively accounted for but are inevitably mentioned with a strong air of cynicism. Julian is shown as a true leader who chose to stand against the hippocricy of christian thought by embracing the glorious yet fading pagan past. Nevertheless, this narrative structure gives the novel a strong sense of impartiality and legitimacy: particularly since the commentators lament and concede the fact that paganism and traditional platonic philosophy are inevitably becoming extinct modes of thought throughout the book.
Not only does the narrative allow a strong character development, the reader is also drawn and plunged into the religious turmoil of the day. With this context well established and explored by Vidal, Julian's actions and attitudes are better understood by the reader. As with "I Claudius" by Robert Graves, the book is primarily a social and political analysis of the period with strong character development as its medium. This results in the book having only summary reviews of Julian's military exploits.
Altogether a brilliant work as worthy of praise as Grave's "I Claudius." This one of Vidal's best historical novels and is worth reading. Again, for those who are primarily interested in historical novels for battles or campaigns, this may not be their cup of tea: for such readers I would recommend Stephen Pressfield's novels or other similar writers.