Character Connection: Cleopatra

There are a lot of great reviews of Stacey Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life already. I’ll join the chorus of those who think Schiff did a first-rate job of fitting together pieces of Cleopatra’s life that I didn’t know existed, and explaining along with them the geopolitical realities of the Romans’ Mediterranean world. I didn’t know what else I could actually add to the chorus. That’s why after struggling with this review for about a month, I finally decided to write it as a Character Connection.

Cleopatra, like Eleanor of Aquitaine more than a thousand years later, suffers in historical record for being a powerful woman whose legacy was recorded by men – men who had reason to hate her, to say the least. A bit depressing, isn’t it? Schiff’s biography does what so many other feminist-inspired works are forced to do: it imagines the day-to-day life and the motivations of a woman who was not privileged to tell her own story in her own way. Love the method or hate it, we already know Cleopatra’s story from the dominant, hegemonic vantage point: Vamp. Temptress. Usurper. Schiff reconceptualizes Cleopatra as something far more interesting: a woman. I’d call it a valiant effort.

Schiff doesn’t ignore primary accounts, but seeks to contextualize them, giving Cleopatra a complexity impossible to achieve by looking at those texts alone. At one point, she takes issue with Cleopatra’s legendary ability to “bewitch” men:

The consort of two men of voracious sexual appetite and innumerable sexual conquests, Cleopatra would go down in history as the snare, the delusion, the seductress. Citing her sexual prowess was evidently less discomfiting than acknowledging her intellectual gifts. In the same way it is easier to ascribe her power to magic than to love. We have evidence of neither, but the first can at least be explained; with magic one forfeits rather than loses the game. Kindle Location 2604

I read Stacey Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life during the Prince William-Kate Middleton engagement flurry. What struck me most was how William and Kate seemed to be trying so hard to just be like any young couple. The emphasis of the entire public relations campaign – and this royal-commoner engagement represents a massive PR campaign – was on their “love story.” Why? Because a love story is the one thing that royals might have in common with people like us. Sure, making them seem normal might take away some of the monarchy’s mystique – but their PR pros know it also makes them less vulnerable to attack.

In the absence of a personal narrative – even one contrived for public consumption – Cleopatra was easy to vilify. If only Cleopatra had left us her story, others would not have been able to fill the void with venom so easily. I appreciated Schiff’s attempt to give Cleopatra some kind of voice. Like a lawyer making a case, Schiff examines the motives behind the claims made against her. She can’t call her client to the witness stand, so instead she pokes holes in the opposing case. It’s not conclusive in the end, but if posterity is Cleopatra’s jury, Schiff gives it something to ponder. I’d highly recommend this to lovers of history, and for those interested in feminist scholarship. Though well-documented, it is a pretty light read – you certainly don’t have to be a student of history to enjoy reading this book.

Thanks to Jen at the Introverted Reader for hosting Character Connection. And what do you know? She’s also hosting the Dewey Decimal Challenge, which I am currently tearing up, with yet another non-fiction read! So thanks again, Jen.

Astrid & Veronika: A Character Connection

It was not a good idea to read Astrid and Veronika on a plane. Especially sitting next to a stranger. Especially with a colleague dozing a few rows ahead of me. Honestly, by the time I landed in Albuquerque I had cried sad tears, happy tears, hopeful tears and disappointed tears. I was a puffy, sappy mess by the time I exited the aircraft. Linda Olsson’s book wrung me out. That’s mostly because in Astrid Mattson, Olsson has created one of the most surprising characters I have come across in a while. Which is why I decided to review this book with a Character Connection.

When we first meet the solitary Astrid, she is in a quandary: something is definitely wrong at her new neighbor’s house, but she’s sidelined herself from society for such a long time that she doesn’t really know what to do about it.

Astrid could no longer sleep. She wandered between her room and the kitchen, coffee mug in hand. The car was still in the same place. She couldn’t have left. Yet there was no sign of life. She means nothing to me, she told herself. I know nothing about her. I have no business intruding. (p. 14)

Astrid’s humanity conquers her reticence, however, and she finally makes her way to Veronika’s door:

When the door opened and she stood face to face with the young woman, she realised that life had irrevocably returned. She cared. (p. 15)

Because of this choice, this singular act of reaching out to another human being in need, the eighty-year-old Astrid is eventually able to reclaim a part of her life. With the decision to help comes a kind of absolution, and Veronika, a young writer with her own sadnesses to escape, acts as Astrid’s confessor. And with every secret she reveals, Astrid’s character comes more into focus.

Up to the point where she meets Veronika, Astrid’s life has been almost entirely defined by her relationships with two men: her father and her husband. Both are destructive, malevolent forces, and Astrid’s bitterness remains, even when they are both out of her life forever:

“When my father died, I cut up all his clothes and started to weave. When my husband was taken to the rest-home, I began on his.” Astrid stepped onto one of the rugs and let the sole of her foot rub against it. “It gives me pleasure to walk on them,” she said. (p. 56)

But as the book progresses, Astrid learns that she does have control over her reactions to her past. Each secret she reveals to Veronika is a part of herself she can finally face and accept. Her final letter to Veronika crystallizes her understanding of her life and her hard-won philosophy of community. It was one of the most inspirational passages I have read in a very long time, a kind of manifesto for sisterhood. Which is why I cried. Uncontrollably. Astrid is truly unforgettable.

This book will make you reflect on the relationships that have defined your life – the short ones and the long ones. I would recommend it to readers of literary and world fiction, especially those who appreciate a feminist perspective.

This finishes The Black Sheep Dances’ Scandinavian Reading Challenge. I am so happy I participated – I have found two of my favorite books of the year (and maybe of all time) through the challenge! Thanks, Amy, both for hosting the challenge and for the book recommendation! And thanks to Jen at The Introverted Reader for hosting Character Connection. If you’ve never participated in that meme, you don’t know what you’re missing.

The Cookbook Collector: A Character Connection

Yes, Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector tells the absorbing story of two motherless, archetypically opposite sisters finding their way through the Dot.Com Boom in 1990s Berkeley, California. But as much as I liked the book, and I really did, neither of them is the subject of my Character Connection. Because with The Cookbook Collector, Goodman has written one of the absolute sexiest characters I have encountered in a book for quite a while: George Friedman, owner and operator of Yorick’s Used and Rare Books, where the younger and flightier of the beautiful Bach sisters works.

George Friedman has it all. A 40-something Microsoft millionaire, he sold his shares at their peak, and his money now funds a relentless search for authenticity. He doesn’t just want the best of everything – with lots of money that would be easy. What he’s looking for is the rare, the extraordinary, the unique, from Grgich Hill wines to his perfectly restored Maybeck house. He’s honorable. He’s nouveau-patrician. He’s handsome. He’s smart. And he’s a book lover. Are you swooning already?

“He was a reader, an autodidact with such a love for Great Books that he scarcely passed anymore for a Berkeley liberal. Strange to say, but at this time in his life George would have a happier conversation with Berkeley, the philosopher, than with most of his old Berkeley friends.”

Now anyone who has ever read an Austen novel knows that an unmarried, handsome, wealthy man, especially one who comes off as just a bit too self-sufficient, must be “in want of a wife.” And there’s also no doubt that George owes a great deal to Austen’s own legendarily wealthy, difficult but ultimately noble heroes, particularly my best crush forever, Mr. Darcy. So I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that I anticipated the potential outcome of George’s storyline within the first page of his appearance, cranky and authoritarian – but still quite endearing – shouting out orders to Jessamine. Still, the novel has some major twists, so it didn’t seem at all contrived or predictable.

But what I really like is how Goodman has reimagined the Darcy-model for the beginning of the 21st century. George is a fabulous cook, a runner and definitely not a smotherer. He is selfish, certainly. How can anyone who bases his life on acquiring the nextest, bestest, shiniest thing fail to be a selfish? But it’s clear from the beginning that what George really needs someone to share his collections with. In fact, if he had someone to share them with – if he could actually find the one, truly unique thing in the world, someone to love him completely – he wouldn’t need the collections at all. And I really couldn’t help rooting for him to find that person throughout this really enjoyable book, because he struck me as the most decent character in it.

I’m really glad George Friedman was my first Character Connection – it was kind of like a good first date, if my husband will forgive the analogy. I have never participated in a meme before, but I have read a few of these and truly enjoyed them. Writing this has definitely given me a different perspective on my book reviews, and I’m sure I’ll participate again. So thanks to the Introverted Reader for hosting Character Connections, and thanks to my awesome buddy Jess at Desperado Penguin who suggested we read this book together and “simul-blog.”

Move over, Mr. Darcy. There’s a new literary crush on the block. And he’s even awesome in the kitchen. I’m in literary love.