Critically acclaimed first novel by the most renowned female author
France has ever produced.
Hadrian, a 2nd Century Roman Emperor, addresses a long letter to his
successor, Marcus Aurelius.
He muses upon his own life, power, his vision of the Roman Empire and
a myriad of other topics.
Yourcenar ends up providing a complex portrait of Hadrian and his times,
however, the story is so internal that it's somewhat static.
(Reviewed:01-Oct-98)
Grade: (C+)
Websites:
Marguerite Yourcenar Links:
-PROFILE: BECOMING THE EMPEROR: How Marguerite Yourcenar reinvented the past (JOAN ACOCELLA, 2005-02-07, The New Yorker)
Book-related and General Links:
-Mavis Gallant:
Limpid
Pessimist (NY Review of Books)
-REVIEW:
Frank Kermode: A Successful Alchemist, NY Review of Books
The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar
If you liked Memoirs of Hadrian, try:
Gibbon, Edward
-The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire : An Abridged Version
Langguth, A.J.
-A Noise of War: Caesar, Pompey, Octavian and the
Struggle for Rome
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
-Quo
Vadis?
Wallace, Lew
-Ben-Hur
Whyte, Jack
(The Camulod Chronicles)
-The
Skystone
-The
Singing Sword
-The
Eagle's Brood
-The
Saxon Shore
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