Augustus by John Williams (1972)

Augustus is the third novel by John Williams (1992 to 1994, USA) I have recently read.  I first read his set in American academia novel Stoner and then Butcher's Crossing, a stunning and horrowing work set in the American west in the 1870s.  Obviously I greatly admire his books.  I have no favorites among his novels but Stoner is, I think the most read so I guess you might start there.  Williams wrote another novel based loosely on his World War II experiences but he later repudiated it so probably I won't read it.

Augustus is a very interesting work centering on the life and reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus who ruled the empire from 27BC to 14AD.  The work is narrated through a series of letters, journal entries, historical works, and official texts, all created by Williams but based on long research. Augustus lived a very long time, up to seventy seven, in a job not known for security.  Much of the deeper meaning of the novel is about living a long life, about out living the friends of your youth, about pondering or trying to impose a meaning on your experiences as you reach the end of days, about how history is wriiten.

There are lots of voices in this work, from Egyptian priests to Augustus's daughter Julia, whom he exhiled  to a small island for violating his dictates on sexual morality., We see the same events from different  perspectives.  We see the incredible cruelty of the times combined with exquiste cultivation.  Virgil and Ovid play minor roles and Cicero a larger part.  Cleopatra crosses our path in a very interesting segment.  We learn a lot about imperial family life.  Of course everywhere slaves make the empire run. In one very moving segment we see the reaction of a now very old woman who once nursed Augustus on seeing him as Emperor. Each letter and journal from a different writer is well individuated.  Some writers recur, others only have one brief moment upon the stage.  The closing forty pages or so is devoted to a long letter of Augustus to his only still living friend in which Augustus reflects on his life.  Herod appeard as do other lesser known figures from history.  We go to Roman games, Augustus did not really care for them but put them on to keep the masses happy.  We learn a good bit about the extreme importance of the army.  I think some of the most interesting letters were from minor lost to history figures who appear but once.  We see how marriage among the nobility was very political.  We see some writers are deeply sincere, others the most venal of obsequious suck ups.

In several of the letters from Roman nobility written in advanced years, they said all they wanted now was the time to read great literature and philosophy.  The wealthiest men in the Roman Empire after long years in power yearned for the time to live the reading life.  Being able to live out any fantasy they saw reading as the greatest thing they wanted from life.  One of the wonderful things about the very rich Augustus is that you can see what you want in it and I am open to the idea that this is what I was meant to see.

A good picture of life in the times emerges.  I have been fascinated with this era in Roman history ever since loving and still missing the TV series Rome.  

E

It really is a great pleasure to read a book this marvelous. 

Please share your experiences with John Williams with us.

Mel u

Butcher's Crossing by John Williams (1960)

My Post on Stoner by John Williams

I wish to thank James of James Reads Books for suggesting I read Butcher's Crossing by John Williams.  I don't know for sure if I prefer it to Stoner but I hope to read John Williams much acclaimed novel based on the life of a Roman emperor, Augustus, very soon.

Butcher's Crossing is set in the American West in the 1870s.  I think this is a book which will resonate most strongly with Americans, for people who grew up with the myth of the cowboy and American manifest destiny and exceptionalism as nearly part of their DNA.   

Michelle Latiolais in her very interesting introduction to the New York Review of Books edition of Butcher's Crossing points out that the book was first published when the United States was engaged in it's very controversial now clearly absurd war in Vietnam.  Latiolais leans toward the view that the barbaric events in Butcher's Crossing, the incredibly wasteful and cruel killing of huge numbers of buffaloes, the evidence of the destruction of aboriginal culture, the sense that land was limitless, and the rampant environmental destruction reflect the attitude of cowboy righteousness that pushed Americans into believing violent action was the solution to all problems.

The lead character in the novel is a young man from Boston, Will Andrews, who just completed three years at Harvard, the premier American university then and now.   His intellectual idol was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most American of intellectuals.  Will has caught the fever in the slogan, "go West, young man" and has left Boston and security to seek a deeper experience of life out west.  

I do not wish to restate much of the plot but will just go over some of the great things I found in this book.  Will winds up in the small town of Butcher's Crossing, it got that name because it centers around the ecomonics of killing buffaloes.  Will wants to make a lot of money, he has six hundred dollars with him, and he decides to try his luck hunting buffaloes, American Bisons.  At the time buffalo skins were desired highly for coats and such.  Millions were slaughtered and skinned with their bodies left for the vultures.   In this he meets four men that will play an important part in the story.  Each one can be seen as representing an aspect of the American dream, one, a buffalo skinner, is a German immigrant as is a prostitute who plays a big part in the story.  Mr. McDonald is a broker and financier of buffalo hunts.  Miller is a very experienced buffalo hunter who knows the west and the buffalo.  His side kick is harder for me to categorize.  He is addicted to whiskey, reads the Bible a lot, and slavishly devoted to Miller.  

The very long, maybe fifty pages, description of the slaughter of the buffalo was very powerful, quite nearly overwhelming.  It is very vivid and detailed.  We see the sufferings of the hunters and the hunted.  We watch Will change from an idealistic Emersonian boy from Harvard into a filth incrusted killer thinking only of profit.  The hunt was meant to take about six weeks but they ended up trapped by winter in a mountain valley for six months.  The trip back was horrible, I won't spoil any of the plot turns for new readers though it was tremendously exciting.   

I guess this is a darker work than Stoner, the most read, I think, of his novels.  They are both superb works of art.

(1922 to 1994, USA)

Stoner by John Williams (1965)

I have been wanting to read Stoner by John Williams (1922 to 1994, USA) for couple of years.  It was the Guardian book of the year for 2013. I am kind of reeling now from the impact of the telling of the life of William Stoner, trying to decide if is a work of terminal sadness or if there is redemption under the pain of Stoner's life.  My blog is in theory about literary works devoted to people who lead reading centered lives and this is just what Stoner did.  Stoner started college at The University of Missouri around 1908 or so.  He grew up on a simple farm owned by his parents.  He goes to college to study agriculture science, planning on returning to the farm on graduation.  He takes a class in literature and starts to love reading classical texts above all else.  I don't feel like telling the plot.  Stoner makes a terrible marriage, sticks with it for life, has a daughter but above all he loves reading.  He never leaves the university, teaching there for forty plus years.

Stoner is an excellant view of the petty world of academic politics.  Pedagogical professionals may be made to feel uncomfortable by the reasons offered as to why people choose to teach  at universities.

It is also a historical look at life in America from around 1908 to 1945.  We see the impact of World War One and Two on the campus, the depression and all is portrayed with great subtly.  

I love the prose style of Williams.  The characters are brilliantly done.  The portrait of the marriage is just harrowing in its understated intensity.  

I add my voice to the chorus of those who see this as must reading.  It is a very powerful work and many will find it depressing.

Please share your experience with Stoner with us and let us know if you have read other works by John Williams.

Mel u