Kam
I’m glad I decided to reread Blood and Beauty before starting this novel, not only to refresh my memory of the Borgia’s story, but also to experience the full arc of their history as interpreted by the author. Or nearly full, anyway, given where this novel cuts off.
Plotwise there’s a bit less drama between the Borgias in this one than there was in the first novel, since the focus of this book is more on the political intrigue and scheming that Cesare, Alexander, and Lucrezia engage in as part of the project to elevate the Borgia family to the greatest heights possible. But whatever drama there is, is pretty well done - especially where Lucrezia is concerned. As in the first novel, she appears to have received the best characterization, even though the arc of her development follows what other authors who’ve written about Lucrezia have done: which is to say, they tend to paint Lucrezia in a more sympathetic light than the historical accounts have. But even though other authors have already done the same thing, the author’s specific characterization of Lucrezia is distinct, and makes her an utter delight to read.
Unfortunately the same cannot exactly be said for Cesare and, to a lesser extent, Alexander. Alexander’s personality seems to have remained largely static, though that’s in some ways forgivable because a lot of people become set in their ways as they age. Cesare, though, is a different story. The histories record Cesare as a vicious sociopathic monster of a man, and his characterization in this novel certainly follows that - but that’s all it does. There is no additional depth, no additional nuance to add complexity to Cesare as a character. Unlike Lucrezia’s characterization, which portrays her as largely innocent of the more egregious accusations levelled at her by history, while still being a flawed person, Cesare’s portrayal feels a bit one-note. I don’t expect the novel to absolve him of his sins, or make him less evil, but surely there was a way to portray him as the complex, complicated man he likely was while he was alive?
Honestly this is a similar issue I had in the first book, mostly with the portrayal of Juan. As with Cesare, I never expected Juan to be absolved of any of his sins, but his portrayal did feel rather one-note. In my review for that novel, I opined that, as a work of fiction, surely there was room to add more facets to Juan than to simply follow what the historical accounts said about him? After all, what would be the point of writing a fictional account if one doesn’t fictionalize a little bit, right? I raise that same question again in this review, but this time for Cesare: adhering to historical accounts is all well and good, but this is a novel, a work of fiction, for a reason. Surely it would have been possible to add depth and nuance to Cesare’s characterization by fictionalizing his character a bit, instead of just sticking to what the historical accounts said about him? Accounts that, by and large, were biased against him in the first place?
Another issue I have is with the way Machiavelli was used in this novel. When I found out that he was going to be in the novel I was very interested; after all, Machiavelli’s book The Prince was supposedly inspired by Cesare, especially by his actions while conquering the Romagna in the early 1500s. In this novel, his primary role appears to be to comment on what Cesare is doing (or not doing, as the case may be), but he doesn’t really grow beyond that. In fact, he seems to just pop up at random moments throughout the novel, comment on what he thinks Cesare is doing, and then disappears again. Given that he’s the character that opens, and ends, this novel, I was hoping that he’d been a bit more important to the narrative than he actually is, or that he’d have better characterization. Sadly, he gets neither, which is sad because I rather like him as a character: there’s a certain level of nuance and complexity to him that doesn’t get explored as fully as I might like.
Overall, this novel isn’t that bad a read, and wraps up the story of the Borgias in a way that’s satisfying enough, but not necessarily worthy of a standing ovation, so to speak. Lucrezia is the standout character, as she was in the previous novel, but Cesare suffers from being a bit flat, lacking the kind of depth and complexity Lucrezia is written with. As for Machiavelli, he could have been a potentially interesting character, but he too suffers from a certain lack of development. This is a problem I also noticed in the previous novel, and it is one that carries over into this one: sad, given that it would have been very interesting to see an author as skilled as this one try to portray people as complicated and complex as Cesare Borgia and Niccolo Machiavelli as characters in a story.
Originally posted at kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com.
I’m glad I decided to reread Blood and Beauty before starting this novel, not only to refresh my memory of the Borgia’s story, but also to experience the full arc of their history as interpreted by the author. Or nearly full, anyway, given where this novel cuts off.
Plotwise there’s a bit less drama between the Borgias in this one than there was in the first novel, since the focus of this book is more on the political intrigue and scheming that Cesare, Alexander, and Lucrezia engage in as part of the project to elevate the Borgia family to the greatest heights possible. But whatever drama there is, is pretty well done - especially where Lucrezia is concerned. As in the first novel, she appears to have received the best characterization, even though the arc of her development follows what other authors who’ve written about Lucrezia have done: which is to say, they tend to paint Lucrezia in a more sympathetic light than the historical accounts have. But even though other authors have already done the same thing, the author’s specific characterization of Lucrezia is distinct, and makes her an utter delight to read.
Unfortunately the same cannot exactly be said for Cesare and, to a lesser extent, Alexander. Alexander’s personality seems to have remained largely static, though that’s in some ways forgivable because a lot of people become set in their ways as they age. Cesare, though, is a different story. The histories record Cesare as a vicious sociopathic monster of a man, and his characterization in this novel certainly follows that - but that’s all it does. There is no additional depth, no additional nuance to add complexity to Cesare as a character. Unlike Lucrezia’s characterization, which portrays her as largely innocent of the more egregious accusations levelled at her by history, while still being a flawed person, Cesare’s portrayal feels a bit one-note. I don’t expect the novel to absolve him of his sins, or make him less evil, but surely there was a way to portray him as the complex, complicated man he likely was while he was alive?
Honestly this is a similar issue I had in the first book, mostly with the portrayal of Juan. As with Cesare, I never expected Juan to be absolved of any of his sins, but his portrayal did feel rather one-note. In my review for that novel, I opined that, as a work of fiction, surely there was room to add more facets to Juan than to simply follow what the historical accounts said about him? After all, what would be the point of writing a fictional account if one doesn’t fictionalize a little bit, right? I raise that same question again in this review, but this time for Cesare: adhering to historical accounts is all well and good, but this is a novel, a work of fiction, for a reason. Surely it would have been possible to add depth and nuance to Cesare’s characterization by fictionalizing his character a bit, instead of just sticking to what the historical accounts said about him? Accounts that, by and large, were biased against him in the first place?
Another issue I have is with the way Machiavelli was used in this novel. When I found out that he was going to be in the novel I was very interested; after all, Machiavelli’s book The Prince was supposedly inspired by Cesare, especially by his actions while conquering the Romagna in the early 1500s. In this novel, his primary role appears to be to comment on what Cesare is doing (or not doing, as the case may be), but he doesn’t really grow beyond that. In fact, he seems to just pop up at random moments throughout the novel, comment on what he thinks Cesare is doing, and then disappears again. Given that he’s the character that opens, and ends, this novel, I was hoping that he’d been a bit more important to the narrative than he actually is, or that he’d have better characterization. Sadly, he gets neither, which is sad because I rather like him as a character: there’s a certain level of nuance and complexity to him that doesn’t get explored as fully as I might like.
Overall, this novel isn’t that bad a read, and wraps up the story of the Borgias in a way that’s satisfying enough, but not necessarily worthy of a standing ovation, so to speak. Lucrezia is the standout character, as she was in the previous novel, but Cesare suffers from being a bit flat, lacking the kind of depth and complexity Lucrezia is written with. As for Machiavelli, he could have been a potentially interesting character, but he too suffers from a certain lack of development. This is a problem I also noticed in the previous novel, and it is one that carries over into this one: sad, given that it would have been very interesting to see an author as skilled as this one try to portray people as complicated and complex as Cesare Borgia and Niccolo Machiavelli as characters in a story.
Originally posted at kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com.