Fourth Quarter 2021 Reading

[williamjm]

9 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Have you read The Hallowed Hunt? It takes place about 150 years before the Penric books and now that I’ve finally had a chance to finish it I want to go back and re-read Shaman, one of my favorite books in the series.

I read it last year (I'm still getting used to writing that about 2021), it seems to get a bit forgotten compared to the first two Chalion novels and it's probably not quite as great as they are but I still liked it a lot.

[LongRider]

Finished the Masters of Rome series, seven fictional history books about the fall if the Roman Republic and the genesis of the Roman Empire.  I don't know much about this subject but did learn alot about Ancient Rome even though this was fiction.  First is, I've underlined the word Republic in the first sentence because I now have a basic understanding of the difference between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.  The slide from Republic to Empire was not a sudden event and though this series aren't the books for in depth analysis, it is a place to start. 

Politics in the Roman Senate could apparently get pretty wild, and saw not only brilliant oration, but fist fights, riots and murder!  Their system had become very corrupt, just about anything could be bought, Senators, votes, and governorships among many others.  I also didn't know until this series that Rome suffered through many civil wars, a surprise to me. 

The class system was alive and well and attempts to give the lower/lowest classes such things as improved voting rights, expand Roman citizenship, and land reform for settling retired veteran soldiers on land, were by some, considered very radical and fought very hard against.  Also, slavery was a part of the society and captured peoples were sold into slavery if they weren't killed first.  Brutal. 

This book was about the ruling class and elites, and misogyny was a way of life in these classes.   Daughters were married off for political gain, and women with rich dowries were attractive for their money. Women couldn't vote, they couldn't divorce, but could be divorced and weren't allowed to work.  The classism and misogyny were quite complex and interesting to read about.  

Colleen McCullough's writing and storytelling were overall very good, however, her gushing over Julis Caeser did get a bit tiring.  I definitely recommend this series.

 

[HoodedCrow]

@LongRider I’m glad that you liked the Masters of Rome series, too:) if you think about it, the American Republic was based on the Roman Republic, and it has the same weaknesses. The Senators can self deal. The Senate can abuse “ religious” rules for partisan reasons. Law suits can be abused. Slavery was kept legal, though nowadays there is unofficial slavery( undocumented workers, deep poverty) The demagogues can use violence. Assassination is an option. Yes, they had bitter partisanship, institutionalized bribery and civil war.

[dog-days]

23 minutes ago, LongRider said:

This book was about the ruling class and elites, and misogyny was a way of life in these classes.   Daughters were married off for political gain, and women with rich dowries were attractive for their money. Women couldn't vote, they couldn't divorce, but could be divorced and weren't allowed to work.  The classism and misogyny were quite complex and interesting to read about.  

Actually, I'm pretty sure Roman women - at least those not trapped by circumstances - could divorce. Tullia the daughter of Marcus Tullius Cicero divorced her third husband Dolabella for example. And patrician women or women from wealthy families wouldn't do work outside the home, but plebeians might. 

Back when I was an undergraduate picking modules to study, I veered towards the Romans rather than the Athenians, partly because of the impression that life for a Roman woman could be slightly less shit. Plus the whole autochthony thing gave me the creeps even more than the rape of the Sabine women. 

I haven't read Masters of Rome yet. I do kind of want to, at the same time I think I'd be more interested in a series that wasn't set in the first century BC. Or one that was set in a fairly obscure corner of it. 

[LongRider]

1 minute ago, dog-days said:

Actually, I'm pretty sure Roman women - at least those not trapped by circumstances - could divorce. Tullia the daughter of Marcus Tullius Cicero divorced her third husband Dolabella for example. And patrician women or women from wealthy families wouldn't do work outside the home, but plebeians might. 

About divorce, I missed it, so thanks for the comments.   Yes, plebeian women could work, and I directed my comments to the patrician woman, although I didn't mention patrician or plebian as I should have.  

[LongRider]

14 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

@LongRider I’m glad that you liked the Masters of Rome series, too:) if you think about it, the American Republic was based on the Roman Republic, and it has the same weaknesses. The Senators can self deal. The Senate can abuse “ religious” rules for partisan reasons. Law suits can be abused. Slavery was kept legal, though nowadays there is unofficial slavery( undocumented workers, deep poverty) The demagogues can use violence. Assassination is an option. Yes, they had bitter partisanship, institutionalized bribery and civil war.

Totally agree, sometimes I felt like I was reading current headlines.   

[Lord of Oop North]

Masters of Rome is a great series, one of my favourites. Although after all these years, I have still yet to read the finale, Antony & Cleopatra.

Regarding Roman marriage, at the time of the Late Republic, patrician women did have a great deal of power when compared to noble women in other societies, or even the early Republic. One of the reasons for this is because at that time, a patrician women when married remained under the legal hand of their father, as opposed to their husband. So her rights (and property) were considered separate from that of her husband, as they were still under the purview of her father.

 

[Fragile Bird]

ETA: posted in the wrong thread, of course! Have copied this post and added it to 2022 First Quarter Reading

I just finished The Black Tongued Thief and can’t recommend it enough. First of all, the voice the audiobook narrator uses is that of a working class (?) Irishman and the lilt is just perfect for the character. (Oh, it’s the author! Who has a 25 year background of being an entertainer at Renaissance fairs, as “Christophe the Insultor”) And the profanity and the pithy comments about sex are hilarious, as are many other observations ie “(that nationality) actually had a word for finding something in your shit that wasn’t supposed to be there”. I guffawed a hundred times.

It really is quite different from anything I’ve read recently. Not in plot, which is a fairly common kind, but in the details.

I will confess though, I skipped over a few minutes of the book that I couldn’t bear to listen to, the pulling scene, if those of you who have read the book remember.

It was lovely to realize by the end that there must be more books coming. I looked up the author and the plan is for a trilogy. Risingshadow has a release date set for next year. And there are 39 pages available for preview.