Antony and Cleopatra, by Colleen McCullough

Posted on March 6, 2008
Filed Under Colleen McCullough, Fiction Books, Historical Fiction |

I like the Masters of Rome by Colleen McCullough a lot, and have read all the books in the series. Therefore I have been looking forward to Antony and Cleopatra for a while.

This is the follow-up to The October Horse. After the death of Julius Caesar in 41 BC, Mark Antony, Caesar’s ambitious and brash cousin, and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and designated heir, agree to jointly administer the far-flung empire: Antony in the East and Octavian in the West. It’s not a happy, nor a very stable, arrangement.

Also in this book, Colleen McCullough turns her attention to the legendary romance of Antony and Cleopatra. The love affair between Mark Antony and Cleopatra is a strange story, in a sense a timeless tale of love, politics, and power. However, in McCullough’s version, it doesn’t really come off as a steaming hot affair, nor as a tale of Mark Antony the seducer, but much more as a story of the seduction of Mark Antony by a determined and strong-willed Cleopatra. Cleopatra has an agenda of her own: to replace Antony and ultimately Octavian with Caesarion, the son she had with Julius when he came courting. This is her motive for wanting to seduce Antony, and she succeeds!

Antony and Cleopatra is another good Masters of Rome entry. I enjoyed reading it. Of course! Colleen McCullough is, after all, a master storyteller. The history is thick with plots and intrigue, the battles are fierce, the characters are brash and haughty, and the female characters every bit as strong willed and determined as the male ones.

Overall, a wonderful set up for a great book. Nevertheless, I have to say that among the books in the Master of Rome series, this is the book I have liked the least. It is hard to pinpoint the exact reason, but there are at least two that comes to mind.

The first is has to do with the characters. Mark Antony and Octavian are simply not nearly as interesting as, say, Caesar and Sulla - neither in a historical perspective, nor as characters in this book. McCullough does not manage to makes these characters, or Cleopatra for that matter, really come alive. Antony is particular comes across as more or less stupid.

Secondly, the action moves too slow in this book, compared to the earlier books in the series, and the battles lack smartness and stuff that make me fascinated.

So, yeah, an ok read, but Antony and Cleopatra is definitely not up to my expectations this time!



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Comments

2 Responses to “Antony and Cleopatra, by Colleen McCullough”

  1. black keytag on June 10th, 2008 3:18

    Yes, I agree that this is by far the weakest in the series. I’m not sure that Octavian or Antony were weak characters; Antony, after all, was not dull and stupid in any of the other books, and the “romance” between them is laughable… I have read that McCullough wanted to end the series with the October Horse, and it shows. The passion of the previous six is just not there with this one.

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