Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Signet (1964), First Edition 1962
Description
Fictional biography of the Fourth Century Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate, who attempted to thwart Christianity.
User reviews
LibraryThing member scvlad
It must be difficult to write a fictionalized biography. I'd imagine you pretty much have to work within the actual events of the primary character's life. I would think it would be very difficult, therefore, to maintain drive and energy throughout an entire novel. I think Vidal, at least, does not
The subject is certainly interesting. Julian was emperor of the Roman Empire in the late 4th century CE when Christianity was becoming, though it had not yet become, the dominant religion of the empire. Julian struggled to stop its spread and return the empire to the religious forms of most of its history. Vidal spends some time describing this struggle, and the reasons why Julian and other 'Hellenists' believed that Christianity was a threat, both to stability and morality. Many of the arguments are still relevant and one gets the impression that Vidal is not a traditional Christian, and is probably an atheist (I believe he is). He certainly strongly implies that religions routinely ignore inconvenient contradictions in their beliefs despite recognizing them in others.
The strengths of the novels are good writing, strongly written, well-developed characters, and the interest of the historical period. The major weakness is the lack of a driving plot. Vidal tries to add some tension in the final pages by creating mystery around Julian's death, but this is not very successful and doesn't make up for the lack of tension in most of the novel.
In general, worth reading if you are interested in the period and in the rise to prominence of the Christian church, but maybe not so much if you are looking for a strong, driving story.
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quite manage to do it here.The subject is certainly interesting. Julian was emperor of the Roman Empire in the late 4th century CE when Christianity was becoming, though it had not yet become, the dominant religion of the empire. Julian struggled to stop its spread and return the empire to the religious forms of most of its history. Vidal spends some time describing this struggle, and the reasons why Julian and other 'Hellenists' believed that Christianity was a threat, both to stability and morality. Many of the arguments are still relevant and one gets the impression that Vidal is not a traditional Christian, and is probably an atheist (I believe he is). He certainly strongly implies that religions routinely ignore inconvenient contradictions in their beliefs despite recognizing them in others.
The strengths of the novels are good writing, strongly written, well-developed characters, and the interest of the historical period. The major weakness is the lack of a driving plot. Vidal tries to add some tension in the final pages by creating mystery around Julian's death, but this is not very successful and doesn't make up for the lack of tension in most of the novel.
In general, worth reading if you are interested in the period and in the rise to prominence of the Christian church, but maybe not so much if you are looking for a strong, driving story.
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LibraryThing member the_awesome_opossum
Christians today honor Emperor Constantine for "converting Rome" to Christianity; fewer would know of Constantine's nephew Julian, a committed Hellenist who did his best to un-convert the empire and allow freedom of religion (with some minor badgering, if not persecution, for Christians). Julian's
The book follows Julian from his youth, when his father is killed by a jealous Constantine and Julian and his brother are basically kept in captivity. Julian is bookish, primed as a monk but with a passion for philosophy - hardly an obvious choice for emperor. But his unique passion and charisma work in his favor.
Julian's memoir is often full of wit and sometimes wry affection for his subjects. He seems like such a wonderful leader and person, clever and likeable and unique, and the book is excellent and engaging because of it.
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reign is very well-documented considering how far back in history we must go - the documents on which Vidal relies are obviously extant 1600 years later. The book follows Julian from his youth, when his father is killed by a jealous Constantine and Julian and his brother are basically kept in captivity. Julian is bookish, primed as a monk but with a passion for philosophy - hardly an obvious choice for emperor. But his unique passion and charisma work in his favor.
Julian's memoir is often full of wit and sometimes wry affection for his subjects. He seems like such a wonderful leader and person, clever and likeable and unique, and the book is excellent and engaging because of it.
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LibraryThing member YossarianXeno
You couldn't accuse Vidal's Roman epic, Julian, of being a page-turner, but it is wonderfully written and researched. It takes the form of the Emperor Julian's (331-363) unfinished autobiography, which one of his philosophy tutors, Libanius, is using as the basis of a biography of his former pupil.
Much of the work addresses Julian's efforts to turn back the tide of christianity, which he believed was - thanks to support for the religion from his predecessors - threatening to engulf his empire and its traditional Greek and Roman philosophy and religions. Though Julian's objective is religious freedom, rather than repression of christianity, that inevitably means curbing all the systemic advantages christianity has established for itself inside the state. Therefore, its followers perceive Julian as a threat and internal religious conflict becomes as much a danger to the Empire as its foes on its geographical borders.
Neither is Julian neutral in this religious conflict. His private antipathy to christianity is clear: he refers to churches as "charnel houses" on the basis the religion's followers believe they are consuming the body of christ. Julian proceeds around his Empire promoting "traditional" religions, sacrificing vast numbers of animals, looking for signs and seeking to predict the future, even though the rational basis for such practices is as non-existent as those of his christian adversaries.
Vidal's work is a fascinating one, with the motivations of the key players beautifully observed. I'd highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Roman or religious history.
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Throughout the novel, Julian's purported text is the subject of commentary exchanged between Libanius and another philosopher who'd also acted as an adviser to the late Emperor, a useful structural device which adds to the reader's understanding of the facts and Julian's perspective. Much of the work addresses Julian's efforts to turn back the tide of christianity, which he believed was - thanks to support for the religion from his predecessors - threatening to engulf his empire and its traditional Greek and Roman philosophy and religions. Though Julian's objective is religious freedom, rather than repression of christianity, that inevitably means curbing all the systemic advantages christianity has established for itself inside the state. Therefore, its followers perceive Julian as a threat and internal religious conflict becomes as much a danger to the Empire as its foes on its geographical borders.
Neither is Julian neutral in this religious conflict. His private antipathy to christianity is clear: he refers to churches as "charnel houses" on the basis the religion's followers believe they are consuming the body of christ. Julian proceeds around his Empire promoting "traditional" religions, sacrificing vast numbers of animals, looking for signs and seeking to predict the future, even though the rational basis for such practices is as non-existent as those of his christian adversaries.
Vidal's work is a fascinating one, with the motivations of the key players beautifully observed. I'd highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Roman or religious history.
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LibraryThing member antiquary
The only one of Vidal's books I really like. On the whole sympathetic but detached account of Julian the Apostate told as his own account with comments by two pagan philosopher friends after his death. He comes across as well-intentioned but naïve.
LibraryThing member FriStar7406
An amazing book on an amazing period. Makes us wonder what would have happened if he had lived a long life as emperor: where would chirstianity be today?
Gore Vidal is able to transport us into that period, brings us the tensions without falling into the long boring social explanations. Just enough
You dont have that in Gore Vidal's.... just enjoy it.
Gore Vidal is able to transport us into that period, brings us the tensions without falling into the long boring social explanations. Just enough
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so you feel the charachters strugles and the social impact without the long interminable social details. Like in Gilbert Sinoué's Egypt last Pharaoh. Which has some interminable parenthese on the social implication, therefore breaking biography's beat. You dont have that in Gore Vidal's.... just enjoy it.
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Vidal's goodbye to paganism. He has always loved Rome, and I think this book allowed him to justify spending so much time there (doing research). One finds oneself wondering what would have happened if Christianity had not taken things over.
LibraryThing member ritaer
Cousin of the emperor Constantius, Julian comes to hate the hypocrisy of the royal family who slaughter one another while pretending to be good Christians. He also comes to prefer Hellenic philosophy to the interminable heresy hunts of the Church. When he eventually becomes Augustus Julian sets out
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to restore the worship of the old gods. But he falls prey to ambition and dies while on campaign against Persia, killed by a Christian conspirator. Vidal's portrait of Julian is sympathetic but shows how even a philosopher can be led astray by hatred and ambition. Show Less
LibraryThing member Mitchell_Bergeson_Jr
High entertainment, a bit iconoclastic in places for some, but a very well told story.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
Julian was the roman emperor who tried to set back the clock after the conversion of the Empire to Christianity. Into the bargain, he wrote, or ghost wrote several defences of his actions, as well as there being an account of his reign in the pages of Ammianus Marcellinus' general history of the
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empire. There is thus a good deal for a novelist to work with. Gore Vidal, the son of an American senator, also has some idea of how politics works, so this is a worthy effort on several fronts. It has enjoyed several reprints. Enjoy it. Show Less
LibraryThing member JulieStielstra
Well, I thank Julian Barnes for this one. While many people were flummoxed by the lengthy central section of Barnes's recent Elizabeth Finch, I quite enjoyed that curious venture into the life of Julian, later known as "the Apostate." I didn't know about this Roman emperor who decided to push back
Vidal's Julian is a bookish, nerdy kid who wants only to be left alone to study and read and talk philosophy. Alas, as the nephew of Constantine and cousin to Constantius, Constantine's son and heir to the imperial purple, he could not avoid the deadly pressures - as one in line for the throne, he would always be watched and suspected as conniving to take it for himself. He lived his youth striving to be inconspicuous, unobjectionable, and alive. His older brother, ambitious, scheming, but not too bright, serves as an object lesson when he gets on someone's bad side and is murdered. Julian just wants to live.
And live he does. Structured as excerpts from Julian's purported memoir and diary, Vidal leads him from his scholarly pursuits into the temptations of power and adulation, through mystical religious epiphany, to an obsessive reliance on omens and auguries (he was known as the Bull Burner for the numbers of animals he slaughtered in sacrifice), to a thundering ambition to exceed Alexander's conquests of, well, every place he can get to. And - of course - it ends badly. The memoir sections are leavened by marginal commentary made by two scholars and erstwhile friends of Julian, often with acerbic, sharply funny observations on Julian's own reliability.
Vidal is hard on the Galileans - there is plenty to complain of and discuss, and as a seasoned philosopher, Julian is an able disputant in the theological strife. He is likable, ebullient, quite smart about managing men and what will persuade or coerce them into doing what he wants. But for all his dismissal of Christian beliefs, his own beliefs lead him astray and let him down... with bloody consequences for thousands, and himself. Some criticize this novel as excessively anti-Christian, and so it is to some extent, but the Roman gods ain't much better, and all the worse when you start mixing religion with affairs of state. This book was published in 1964... we should still be paying careful attention today!
Talky, busy... don't even try to keep straight who all those other Romans are who people the pages. Just roll with it, and watch this basically decent, intelligent, ambitious, courageous young fellow on his progress through the messy, violent, foolish, unpredictable, dangerous world of the Roman empire in the 4th century.
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against the inroads of what he called "the Galileans," and the Christianity imposed by Constantine as the official faith of the empire. Julian's goal was the restoration of the old Roman pantheon and the Mithraic cult (from which the Galileans appropriated a number of practices, holidays, and folklore), while still permitting freedom of worship everyone. Vidal's Julian is a bookish, nerdy kid who wants only to be left alone to study and read and talk philosophy. Alas, as the nephew of Constantine and cousin to Constantius, Constantine's son and heir to the imperial purple, he could not avoid the deadly pressures - as one in line for the throne, he would always be watched and suspected as conniving to take it for himself. He lived his youth striving to be inconspicuous, unobjectionable, and alive. His older brother, ambitious, scheming, but not too bright, serves as an object lesson when he gets on someone's bad side and is murdered. Julian just wants to live.
And live he does. Structured as excerpts from Julian's purported memoir and diary, Vidal leads him from his scholarly pursuits into the temptations of power and adulation, through mystical religious epiphany, to an obsessive reliance on omens and auguries (he was known as the Bull Burner for the numbers of animals he slaughtered in sacrifice), to a thundering ambition to exceed Alexander's conquests of, well, every place he can get to. And - of course - it ends badly. The memoir sections are leavened by marginal commentary made by two scholars and erstwhile friends of Julian, often with acerbic, sharply funny observations on Julian's own reliability.
Vidal is hard on the Galileans - there is plenty to complain of and discuss, and as a seasoned philosopher, Julian is an able disputant in the theological strife. He is likable, ebullient, quite smart about managing men and what will persuade or coerce them into doing what he wants. But for all his dismissal of Christian beliefs, his own beliefs lead him astray and let him down... with bloody consequences for thousands, and himself. Some criticize this novel as excessively anti-Christian, and so it is to some extent, but the Roman gods ain't much better, and all the worse when you start mixing religion with affairs of state. This book was published in 1964... we should still be paying careful attention today!
Talky, busy... don't even try to keep straight who all those other Romans are who people the pages. Just roll with it, and watch this basically decent, intelligent, ambitious, courageous young fellow on his progress through the messy, violent, foolish, unpredictable, dangerous world of the Roman empire in the 4th century.
Show Less
LibraryThing member worldsedge
This is the sort of work that makes me glad I'm literate. How much is fictionalized and how much is acutal history I have no idea, but this life of Julian the Apostate has everything a good novel (particularly an historical one) needs.
LibraryThing member MarysGirl
Finished this while on vacation in Italy working on an archaeology site of a Roman villa. Loved it! The structure is clever. Julian "The Apostate", Emperor of Rome is dead and a philosopher friend of his wants to edit and publish his memoirs in spite of pressure from the new Christian Emperor. The
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book opens with correspondence between two philosophers - one who has the much coveted papers and the other who wants them - bickering over the price of making copies. The book continues with the the first person account of Julian with "notes" by the one philosopher and additional comments on the "notes" by the other so we get a comprehensive look at the life of one of the most controversial Emperors of Rome - the man who wanted to turn back the clock on Christianity and restore the old gods. Vidal does a wonderful job of lampooning the early Christians and their beliefs with the foil of Julian. Show Less
LibraryThing member starkravingmad
Insightful historical novel that has the reader feeling as if we were there to witness events.
LibraryThing member a1stitcher
An interesting book about Emperor Julian from the 4th century. It did become a bit tedious in the end, with all the wandering and fighting in Persia, but it's still well written.
LibraryThing member ffortsa
We had an unexpectedly lively discussion about this book in one of our reading groups. At least it was unexpected by me, although I liked (didn't love) the novel. But the portrait of a man whose attempts to stay alive in the poisonous Roman Empire of the 4th Century CE, and how he was seduced, or
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perhaps revealed, as a leader and warrior, was very persuasive. Vidal gives us a very real man faced with the decrepitude of Rome's religious past and the growing power of Christianity. Ultimately his need to believe in the old gods traps him in a kind of vanity that leads to his destruction. Note this is not a spoiler - the Wikipedia page gives the clear history. Vidal gives us a man. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1964
Local notes
FB Novelization of the life of Julian, the last Pagan Emperor of Rome. Said to be Vidal's best novel, this is biographical historical fiction about the life of Julian.
Other editions
Julian : a novel by Gore Vidal (Paper Book)