I, Claudius has resettled me. I'm reading it for the next meeting of the Yorkshire Museum Bookclub - the group that I facilitate, which brings together reading and the handling of objects from the period covered in the novel. I came to the book without preconceptions, with only the vaguest impression of Derek Jacobi at the back of my mind (I've never seen the famed BBC adaptation). A member of the group warned me that the first fifty pages were 'a genealogical mire', and that I would have to grit my teeth to get through them, but the first sentence won me over so thoroughly that I've lapped it all up. It establishes Claudius' tone, which is both self-deprecating and self-important at once:
I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other..., who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as 'Claudius the Idiot', or 'That Claudius', or 'Claudius the Stammerer', or 'Clau-Clau-Claudius, or at best as 'Poor Uncle Claudius', am now about to write this strange history of my life...
And it sets the tempo, which is leisurely and measured. Measured, in part, because Claudius is a pedant, who takes chronology seriously as the order for his narrative. He even helpfully inserts the date of the action into the margin of his text at intervals, so the reader can keep proper track. I for one was grateful, as I'm only barely familiar with the story of Claudius' family: his indomitable grandmother Livia, his step-grandfather Augustus and the circle of uncles, adopted sons, sisters and favourites that circle them.
The measuredness would suggest a trustworthy telling of events, but Claudius is not an impersonal narrator, despite his efforts. He eulogises his father, Drusus, in contrast to his uncle Tiberius, and he demonises Livia while apologising for the dictatorship of Augustus. He's gossipy, and sometimes petty, and spices things up with snippets of reported speech. The genealogical mire is actually quite soapy, and not very serious at all.
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It's spirit contrasts very much with Daniel Deronda. I'm almost 300 pages through Eliot's last novel now, and have been tackling it slowly at a rate of one chapter before bed. I like it very much, but I'm finding it a claustrophobic read. Middlemarch is a such an expansive novel, with a whole town for its subject, and the quality and density of its detail is relieved by variety. Whereas Daniel Deronda is really a study of two people - the spoilt and beautiful Gwendoline Harleth, and the enigmatic, noble Daniel Deronda. The epigram begins 'Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul', and the book is an intensely close analysis of interiority. It is measured like I, Claudius, but entirely in earnest and not the least gossipy. A whole chapter given over to Gwendoline's feelings as she waits for a visitor; another that follows Daniel as he rows down the Thames. The omnipotent narrator has out her scalpel on them, and she probes. What I like about Eliot is that her narrator's judgements are never final. The narrator doesn't make statements about charactor; she makes suggestions, and then she probes, and then she suggests, and then expands, and then retracts before sallying forth again. They give the impression of discovering characters, rather than of creating them.
Gwendoline is difficult to like, and I'm finding Daniel difficult to trust (his motives can't be so innocent!); it makes them both equally as compelling. In some ways the plot - the scenarios that Eliot contrives - get in the way of the characters, and I'm not entirely sure how the strand which places Mirah, a frail and vulnerable Jewish girl, under Daniel's protection will spool out, and how Klesmer the musician and his wealthy bride will earn their place.
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Finally I've started reading Michael Pollan's book, In Defence of Food. I didn't realise that it was a sort of sequel to The Omnivore's Dilemma, otherwise I would probably have read that first. I'm sure it doesn't matter though. It opens with the memorable assertion: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan suggests that we should replace all the complex nutritional advice we're given with this simple mantra. Food, he clarifies, means actual food and not the edible foodlike substances in packets that comprises an increasing proportion of the Western diet. Mostly plants means not making meat the centre of every meal, but treating it more like a side-dish. This sounds very sensible to me, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.
In other news, I think the shortlist for the Warwick Prize for Writing looks very interesting. I've put Derek Walcott on my library holds list; and the book about literary apartheid has been on my wishlist since it was recommended in the Guardian over Christmas.
~~Victoria~~