Marquise's Reviews > Julian

Excellent novel! I had a recollection of this book from ages back, but needed to retake it, and it was a good idea to read it following Ken Broeders' Apostate series, which also has Caesar Julian Augustus as its protagonist.

I thought it'd be an interesting new experience to revisit this period of Roman history I normally don't invest much in by way of contrasting different depictions of the emperor who tried to end Christianity as Rome's official religion. In this novel, we get Julian's story in his own words, as this is written in journal plus historical chronicle format, but it doesn't mean we only get his side, because interspersed throughout Julian's journal entries are "commentaries" by two men who knew and followed him, a pair of often cheeky philosophers called Priscus and Libanius, who interject protests, clarifications, and hilarious counterfactual addenda in-between the emperor's account of events, sometimes outright contradicting him. That was a clever device by Gore Vidal to give the story the feel of impartiality that first person narratives usually lack. In contrast to Broeders' series, this book has a sober tone, sometimes rather too serious, yet doesn't entirely circumvent little bits of scandal and salacious morsels to enliven the story, which is a neat mix to keep readers entertained. I also found Vidal's interpretation of how Julian's demise came to be rather unexpected, as it's one I didn't remember reading. Very creative, though, and makes you feel for this apostate emperor and for what could have been if he'd not died so young whilst at the pinnacle.