A Troubled Greatness

This is a review of the book ‘Augustus’ by John Williams which first appeared here.

[5/5] ‘Augustus’ starts with a letter written by Julius Caesar to his niece, where he proclaims his decision to bring Octavius, her son, under his tutelage, appoint him as the commander of the cavalry, and position him as his successor. He writes – “The fact is accomplished, and it will not be changed. Thus, if either you or your husband should intervene, there will be upon your house a public wrath of such weight that beside it my private scandals will seem no heavier than a mouse.” With this and the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC, begins John William’s novel about the boy Octavius, and his journey to become Augustus, the first and arguably the greatest emperor of the Roman Empire.

John Williams, in his lifetime, wrote four books, the first of which he denounced as it did not meet the levels of quality he had set for himself in the later years. His remaining three works were lost in oblivion till New York Review of Books republished them to rave reviews. Of them, ‘Stoner has now become something of a cult classic (New Yorker playfully called it ‘The Greatest American Novel You’ve Never Heard Of’). While I am yet to read his ‘Butcher’s Crossing’, I can, with very high confidence, say that ‘Augustus’ is one of the most accomplished works of English Literature.

The book is constructed in the epistolary format; we get to know our lead character through a series of letters, decrees, journal entries, and even a poem, written by a host of characters surrounding him – from his closest of the family members and friends to the most wrathful foes and mute observers. When I started the book, this format seemed to me an unnecessary quest to embark upon, further accentuated by the fact that in the first 85% of the book, we do not read the words of Octavius (I will use Octavius and Augustus interchangeably) from his own pen. However, as I started the final section of the book when a septuagenarian Augustus writes a letter to the only surviving friend of his, the genius of the author began to make sense – John Williams could not have chosen a better format to tell this story.

The book is divided into three broad sections – (a) The first focuses on the rise of Octavius, his pursuit of revenge against the murder of Julius Caesar, and his external wars and conquests positioning him as the worthy ruler of Rome, (b) The second looks inward into the private lives of Augustus and his closest ones and the internal struggles of a man trying to build an empire and hold together its greatness amidst treacheries, tested loyalties, animosities, conspiracies, doubts, hopes, and despairs, and (c) The last is dedicated to the words of Augustus himself where we are made privy to his points of view on all the events described in the previous chapters, and more. And through these sections and constituting narratives runs a strong aura of melancholy and emotional girth.

The aspect of John Williams’s writing in ‘Stoner’ I liked the most was his control over the language, intimacy of the narration, and elegance of the prose; they together made him my favorite author of English language. With ‘Augustus’, he pushes these aspects to multiple notches higher by creating an illusion that he had been shadowing Octavius/Augustus throughout his life, noticing every minute detail of his actions, words, and thoughts, painting precisely every scene of the daily life and cultural nuances of the Rome of his time, and transporting us, as if in a time machine comprised of nothing but words, right at the center of Roman Forum. It’s nearly impossible to imagine writing a historical fiction of the BC era with such an acute sense of confidence and awe, but here is one.

Needless to say, the most captivating part of the book are its final pages. Of the ~200+ books I have read, never have I been moved so dramatically in the final chapters as I did in ‘Stoner’, ‘Augustus’, ‘Wonder’ (a book by the charming RJ Palacio), and ‘A Fine Balance’ (a book by the brilliant Rohinton Mistry). The modulation in Augustus’s self-realization goes from the trough of self-criticism (“…perhaps we all died then, when we were young”) to the crest of universal truth (“…gods, if they exist, do not matter.”). It feels unfortunate and bemusing, to read, from one of the greatest emperors of the world, these lines – “I have come to believe that in the life of every man, late or soon, there is a moment when he knows beyond whatever else he might understand, and whether he can articulate the knowledge or not, the terrifying fact that he is alone, and separate, and that he can be no other than the poor thing that is himself.” However hard-hitting this realization is though, it does not take a genius to realize that this in fact is true, truer than the truth of one’s death.

Written in 1960s and 70s, when the world was (and still is, although in gradually declining quanta) unwilling to accept the concept of inclusion and equality, Williams makes it a point to paint the female characters with the same brush-strokes and shades as the ones he used for the male characters – their strengths, might, and flaws equaling those of the men they often found at the mercy of. The strongest character, next to Augustus, is without doubt, his daughter Julia. While Williams, at one point, writes “…For Octavius Caesar is Rome; and that, perhaps, is the tragedy of his life.”, it is Octavius himself who later writes that. for him, Julia and Rome were his two interchangeable daughters (along with a shocking revelation that comes in the very last few pages that I will leave for you to read).

‘Augustus’ is a painstakingly perfect work of art of highest quality. How can I put myself in a position to further dissect perfection? Please read this book; it is an essential reading for anyone who loves reading. I will carry with me one of the many impactful lines that resonates in every aspect of the limited life I have lived –

“One does not deceive oneself about the consequences of one’s acts; one deceives oneself about the ease with which one can live with those consequences.”