The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The First Man in Rome
Book Review: TREMENDOUS HISTORICAL FICTION
Summary: 5 Stars
A truly fantastic read filled with detail, both historical and sociological. Miss Mccullough uses all the available sources to create a enjoyable and as close as possible to historical fact thrill ride of a read. Not only that but it is so pleasently free of the trite political correctness of so many historical novels so the reader can truly immerse himself in the roman world. Book Review: Impressive scholarship but a turgid read
Summary: 2 Stars
At its best the book does give you some feeling for times, their historical situation and especially the early Roman class, legal and poltical systems. There is some impressive scholarship behind this though I can't agree with other reviewers that i really felt I could inhabit the minds of early Roman's from this book. A much better attempt at such a mental projection - albeit covering a later period - is Marguerite Yourcenar's book on Hadrian. Graves' Claudius books portray a more fantastic version of Rome but are utterly compelling in narrative and character. By comparison this sometimes read more like a soap opera with the occasional laudry list thrown in for period detail.
The real problem is that it is a bit repetative and gets more turgid as it goes on. McCullough keeps using the same terms to describe characters and its not clear whether this is supposed to be a literary device or whether she has already forgotten similar decriptions 200 pages earlier (whichever these just jar with the reader). The book had enough to keep me going for 800 pages but in the end I ran out of steam and left the last 200 odd. One for the committed ancient-historical novel buff only I'm afraid.
Book Review: Well researched.
Summary: 4 Stars
Colleen McCullough has obviously spent a lot of time ensuring that, to the last detail, this book is as close to the reality of events as can possibly be. She explains in great detail, the intricacies of the most august Roman families and the part they played in the ancient republic.
It centres around Gaius Marius a so called 'Italian hay-seed, with no Greek in him', and his determination to become consul (The First Man) in Rome, and also Lucius Cornelius Sulla; A young man from one of the oldest, most respected patrician families who - due to his father drinking away the family fortune - finds himself so poor that he can't even afford one slave (imagine it!) but is desperate to reclaim the status his family once held.
A word of warning though; if you haven't read anything on this period of Rome's history before, I recommend that you do. Having read Conn Iggulden's Emperor series previous to these, I felt that I at least had a basic knowledge of ancient Rome (seeing as Iggulden made no attempt at historical accuracy, prefering good, old-fashioned adventure) but at times, the barage of names, places and going-ons in and around the Forum Romana - from McCullough's Rome - had my head slightly rotating, if not spinning!
This book misses out on the whole five stars as I beleive that McCullough - in this first book of the series, at least - is still finding her feet when it comes to story telling. Having said that, there is nothing particularly wrong with the writing, she just occasionally goes off on a tangent; trying to explain too much and veering from the original point.
Book Review: Excellent historical fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
McCullough is superb on ancient Rome and genuinely does bring it to life without resorting to any spurious and trite fictional claims that the Romans were just like us. She has read all the sources and sticks to them, simply fleshing out the characters and events so that they make narrative sense. This isn't by any means an easy read, since she delves into the intracacies of senate debates and internal politics, but it is quite unlike anything else that has been published on Rome.
This is the first volume of her massive 6 book series, and probably covers the least-known period of Republican history: the rise of Marius and Sulla, and the transformation of the Roman army, arguably the first steps towards civil war and the fall of the Republic.
There are times where (in this book) the characters slightly tend to the soap opera, but they are few. Overall, a superb read. This only lost 1 star because the middle books are even better!
Book Review: Best of the very best
Summary: 5 Stars
For those of you who know how scathing I can be with regards to the usual rubbish reader's encounter I have this message. Read this and the others in the series - you will never find a better series of historical fiction. I cannot praise it highly enough. Robert Graves eat your heart out! Collen McCullough is the master of Rome and I would give a years salary to find another author writing in the same vein who is even half as good.