Travelling with various air planes and trains through Italy left me with time to read Lindsey Davis' newest novel, Master and God. Now Lindsey Davis is most famous for her series of Roman mysteries centered around one Marcus Didius Falco, but she also writes non-Falco historical novels, of which this, as far as I know, is the third. The first one, The Course of Honour, about Caenis, the slavegirl-going-freedwoman who starts out working for Antonia and ends up as Vespasian's life long lover, I enjoyed but fund it oddly dry for what is definitely an interesting subject. The second one, Rebels and Traitors, set during the English Civil War I loved until the last 40 pages or so, which was when the story took a turn that felt like an incredibly let down and very bizarre. But until then, it was everything I had hoped the tv series The Devil's Whore would be and wasn't, the story of an interesting determined woman making her way between parties during the Civil War, with characters from both sides written more dimensionally and sympathetically. Now, with Master and God she is back in the Rome of the Flavians again. If you know your history, this is what Domitian called himself - dominus et deus - and the book covers his reign, though the main characters are two more or less invented ones, Gaius Vinius Clodianus (spending most of the book as a Pretorian) and Flavia Lucilla (hairdresser and freedwoman of the Flavians). They're the archetypical Davis pairing of wise-cracking guy and no-nonsense, unimpressed woman, and this time around, the result is enjoyable throughout the novel, so I don't always buy the obstacles Davis throws in their path.

Now, the the third volume of what is one of my all time favourite trilogy of historical novels by Lion Feuchtwanger also deals with the reign of Domitian, and is a vivid and chilling depiction of a dictatorship written during the Third Reich which nonetheless manages to avoid making Domitian into a Hitler avatar (which means he's a far better drawn character than Feuchtwanger's deliberate Hitler avatar in another novel he wrote at the same time, The False Nero), so my standard of writing for this era was pretty high. Nonetheless, Lindsey Davis managed to convincingly present her own version. Domitian, like Caligula, Nero or Caracalla, became a byword for the mad, bad and dangerous to know type of emperor, though not having the obvious madness of Caligula or the theatricalness of Nero (which reminds me: in Naples they show up the remains of the theatre where Nero performed - th roughout an earthquake, no less, where he insisted the audience was to stay in order not to miss his performance), he doesn't get nearly as much fictional treatment. What surprised me is that Davis is subtle about him. As opposed to his appearance in her Falco novels, where he is already a villain during the reign of his father, her take on Domitian here is somewhat different; he starts out as a mixture of good and bad, and actually quite competent as an emperor, but the combination of paranoia, resentments from days past and absolute power with no more checks and balances combine to turn him and the Rome he rules more and more into a nightmare. Because these days inevitably I have the cinematic Marvelverse on the brain, it hit me that Davis' Domitian is in many ways Loki without the fannish woobie glasses, if, you know, Loki were to actually succeed/remain successful, aka how his uncontested rulership would turn out. Older brother (Titus) with military success, beloved by many, much closer to their father, father preferring same, while self is looked at as a sly schemer by social circle? Check. Traumatic event changing world view? (Domitian nearly gets roasted while his uncle is torn apart by the mob during the year of the four emperors.) Check. Short taste of rulership until Dad and Older Brother take it away again? (After Vespasian, still campaigning with Titus in Judea, is voted Emperor, 18 years old Domitian got to represent him in Rome until Vespasian was back in Italy.) And the narrative as well as Gaius Vinius isn't without sympathy for Domitian on that score, but it at no point excuses him for what he does therafter, and when Lucilla, who is an immensely adaptable survivor, finally says "whatever it takes, he has to be stopped", you're more than with her.

If I have one complaint, it's that Davis' auctorial voice, which is that of an Olympian, all-knowing narrator who occasionally points out that, for example, governor Trajan is going to end up as an emperor himself, is a bit of an odd choice, not least because such interjections are few and far; had she chosen to stick to the usual third person personal narrative, with no very occasional comments, it would have been just as effective. All in all: a good novel, and so far her best non-Falco one.


****

Speaking of avatars, history, fictionalisations of same and Marvelverse cross connections, Shakespeare's histories have been filmed yet again, and here's Tom Hiddleston as Hal and Jeremy Irons as Henry IV from Henry IV, Part I. Colour me amused that the clip they choose is Hal getting chewed out by his father, not, say, any of the many other scenes where Hal is being in control and having a go at Falstaff. Maybe I'm paranoid (though as Domitian would say, it's not paranoia if they're really after you), but imo the choice reflects the popularity of Hiddleston's most successful role. Anyway, here they are:



Incidentally, angevin2 will appreciate that the way with which Irons!Henry IV rants about the late cousin Richard's behaviour allows for all sorts of subtext.


****

Lastly, some links:


The Skins: a great multifandom vid about the various doppelgangers, clones and other selves haunting sci fi and fantasy. Creepy fun.


Avengers:

To shawarma or not to shawarma : Natasha’s still getting used to rubbing shoulders with living legends. One of the terrific results of The Avengers fandom post-movie release is that the film makes any combination of characters interacting interesting, and the resulting fanfic actually reflects that. Here, we get the combination of Natasha and Steve Rogers, with the rest of the ensemble making strong appearances as well.

Save for one nitpick, this is actually the story I was expecting last year's disappointing miniseries The Devil's Whore to be: the English Civil War from a general pro-revolutionary perspective, with interesting, engaging characters on both sides (and of both genders), told suspenseful and, not surprising considering this is the author of the Falco mysteries, with humour (which doesn't blend out the true horror of war). Despite the use of an old fashioned omniscient narrative voice, it keeps the story and the readers with the original characters - Charles I, Cromwell et al are only observed by them from a far and very, very occasionally a bit closer, when the characters are - and you can follow the politicis of the time even if you don't know much about them beforehand. Generally speaking, I also think Davis plays fair. While it didn't escape my notice we get atrocities by the Royalists early on up close (because several pov characters are present) whereas we get Cromwell's atrocities in Ireland only by report (because no pov character goes with Cromwell to Ireland; they only learn about what's going on second hand), the viciousness of the later - and the impact it has for centuries to come - is made quite clear and made more harmless.

The main characters are: Gideon Jukes, printer and occasional soldier and spy for the Parliamentarian side, Juliana Lovell, wife of a mostly absent Royalist who has to get her children and herself through the wars without support, her husband, the very pragmatic and quite shades-of-grey Orlando Lovell (who, being a deeply practical fellow, rather resents the poetic first name his parents have inflicted on him, btw), and a character on no one's side who changes her name a lot throughout the story but starts out nicknamed Kinchin, a scavenger girl who goes through being a thief, highway robber, prisoner, very briefly whore but always able to escape into the next identity and the next career. There are a great many memorable supporting characters as well, such as Gideon's sister-in-law and brother (who become involved with the Levellers and Ranters respectively), or the Irishwoman Juliana befriends at Oxford, Nerissa. One highlight is the scene where Juliana, being utterly out of funds and with the Royalist cause looking really badly, shows up at her husband's family only to find out they view him as the black sheep who is better off in captivity, are Parliamentarians and have their own worries with his crippled-by-war older brother to boot. If you're familiar with the fun Davis has in her Falco novels with Falco's extended family, you can imagine how well she does these kind of family scenes; and to watch Juliana, with the odds so severely against her, figure out a way to get some money out of this situation anyway is a joy to read.

Speaking of Juliana and her husband: in a way, this is the most original relationship of the novel, because it's neither a passionate love affair nor a horrible enforced marriage, those two stallwarts of historical novels. She has his measure early on - he's charming (both to her and their children) when around, but not to be relied upon when not there, which is two thirds of the the time, and the fact he sticks with the Royalist side of things even after it starts to be clear the Parliamentarians are going to win is less due to him believing in the Royalist cause than to him, who left home early and basically grew up in the European Thirty-Years-War, knowing he's good at fighting and preferring to stay that way. He, for his part, married her among other reasons precisely because he knew she'd be self reliant if necessary and enjoys their barbed banter and the advantage of having a wife to rely on and children without the actual day-to-day trouble of raising them. In a way, it's the reverse of the Gone With The Wind formula (because Juliana got woed at first by Orlando's idealistic best friend Edmund, but went for the cynical Orlando instead); Scarlett starts with Rhett, discovers Rhett isn't all that, keeps Ashley as a best friend, and ends up with Will (a character from the novel who isn't in the movie; a soldier the O'Hara's take in post-War who ends up becoming Scarlett's brother-in-law and managing Tara).

Which brings me to my one nitpick in a roundabout way. Considering Gideon and Juliana are announced on the back of the novel as the main characters, it's a no brainer to assume that at some point, they'll meet and end up together. They do meet - after two thirds of the novel are already over. Then we go through the falling in love and ending up together part very quickly. Now Lindsey Davis can write romance (see Falco and Helena Justina), and this is all very enjoyable to read; also, Juliana deciding that as once again she's in a situation where she doesn't know whether Orlando is alive or dead and hasn't heard from him for years, she's going to regard herself as a widow and free to marry again makes much sense. As we didn't actually get a scene where Orlando Lovell dies (and he is a main character), it's also easy to guess that he's not actually dead (but rather in Holland with young Charles II et al) and will show up at the most inconvenient moment later on, and that this will make the dramatic denouement of the novel. And it does, which I haven't got a problem with, but I do have a problem with the way it happens. As this concerns the ending directly, and I hate being spoiled for the ending, I'll put it below a cut.

( If you don't mind being spoiled for the very ending, read on! )

This one problem I had aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I think my favourite character is the ever name changing Kinchin who makes an art of survival on the bottom of the Civil War and ultimately manages to carve out a place for herself she can be content with, but I also have much affection for the rest of them. With one reservation highly recommended.