Cleopatra's Daughter review

Reading historical novels is like going to a Hollywood premiere.

There is a cast of thousands, but only a few people eat up the scenery. They're called stars.

In many historical novels, you already know the star, and you probably already love/hate her/him. You know the story. The ending is rarely in doubt, although you often find yourself hoping against hope things will turn out better than you know they did. Take Cleopatra, for example. I always want her not to end up in that mausoleum with Antony dying on the floor, the asp in the basket, and Octavian at the door. I want it, but the end never changes, no matter how much I hope.

Then, there are some novels about the supporting actors, the  people who don't spend much time in history's klieg lights. Hitler's niece, the woman who read to Marie Antoinette,  the fictional daughter of Elizabeth I, or Charlemagne's wastrel son.  Just as Wolf Hall offered Cromwell's very welcome and fresh perspective on the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn saga, books told from the POV of the supporting actors can reignite our passion for familiar stories.

Enter Cleopatra Selene, daughter and only child of THE Cleopatra and Mark Antony  to survive into adulthood, captive and ward of Augustus Caesar, and finally Queen in her own right. Selene mingled with some major stars who have fascinated us for centuries and became a star in her own right in the following novels:

• Vicky Alvear Shecter's young adult novel, Cleopatra's Moon
• Stephanie Dray's most excellent trilogy: Lily of the Nile, Song of the Nile, and Daughters of the Nile. (I previously  reviewed Daughters of the Nile.)
• And, the subject of this review, Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran 

I'm a BIG Michelle Moran fan. I loved her previous novels about Nefertiti and Nefertari. I also really liked her novel about the French Revolution told through the eyes of Madam Tussuad. Which is to say, I was pre-disposed to like Cleopatra's Daughter.

I liked it. I'm glad I read it. I just didn't love this novel. Given the subject matter, I wanted it to grab me by the heart, and it didn't.

The books opens strongly with Cleopatra's children playing dice and waiting for news about the outcome of their father's final battle with Octavian (Augustus). The ominous overtones of the family gathering quickly disintegrate into chaos in the palace with faithful servants fleeing, Mark Antony dying, Cleopatra committing suicide and abandoning her children to their fate, and the arrival of Octavian who may or may not kill Selene and her two brothers. Tension. Excitement. Life changing drama. After that scene, I almost felt the tension and drama melting away.

What didn't bother me: Numerous reviews talk about a lack of historical accuracy. I found the story close enough for a work of fiction. The intricacies of an ancient society are hard to convey to a modern audience. Yes, patrician women took their clan names; so Mark Antony's two daughters were literally Antonia Major and Antonia Minor. I'm OK with nicknames, which they probably had. No, women probably didn't become architects in Rome (as Selene does); but she had an indisputable impact on the architecture of Mauretania when she became its Queen. So I'll let that slide, because she might have had a few lessons in the subject. Yes, it does read rather like a YA novel, but we are seeing this world through the eyes of a 12-15  year old girl. Numerous reviews touched on what they thought was Selene's too modern sensibility about slavery; but as one reviewer pointed out, her opinion might have changed when she became a captive and potential slave rather than a princess.

What bothered me:  The writing is steady and even, but there are few highs or lows. Selene's character  is likable. Other characters are also likable, and some are despicable. They just don't have enough THERE there to make me love or hate them, which meant I didn't care much about what happened to them or root for their triumphs and downfalls. For example, in another of the Selene books, I wept at the death of Selene's youngest brother. His character was so finely drawn, his death left a hole in both Selene's world and my impression of that world. In this book, the brother's character is so one-dimensional and Selene's reaction so ho-hum, it feels like a check-box to tick on the plot outline. Ditto the drama with her twin brother's homosexuality; her antagonism toward her future husband, Juba; the prolonged mystery of the masked avenger; and her feelings about Octavian and Livia. Even Octavian's high-spirited daughter Julia (who surely deserves her own novel) is a rote character, and so are hints at what the Tiberius character will become.

In short, this Selene has about an inch of emotional depth, and her struggles (which surely must have been great) come across as petulant teenage angst. So, if you want a quick read about what happens after THE Cleopatra dies, this novel does a good job, but don't expect any stars, red carpet, and klieg lights.

Friday the 13th and ancient Egypt

Not all superstitions about Friday the 13th are bad. The ancient Egyptians believed that life was a spiritual journey that unfolds in stages. They believed that 12 of those stages occurred in this life, and the last, the 13th, was the ascension to an eternal afterlife. So the number 13 represented death to the Egyptians, but not death as in decay and fear, but as acknowledgement of a glorious eternal life.

There are two main Egyptian gods of the afterlife: Anubis and Osiris.

Osiris is usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He was considered a merciful judge of the dead and  the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile. He was described as the Lord of love, He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful, and the Lord of Silence. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death since Osiris rose from the dead. They would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death, if they incurred the costs of the funeral rituals. Oh, and Osiris is the love interest in my novel, Queen of Heka.

Anubis, the older god of the dead, was originally the most important one. He was replaced during the Middle Kingdom by Osiris. After his demotion, he was associated with the mummification and protection of the dead for their journey into the afterlife. During embalming, the head embalmer wore an Anubis costume. The critical weighing of the heart scene in the Book of the Dead also shows Anubis performing the measurement that determined the worthiness of the deceased to enter the realm of the dead (the underworld, known as Duat). He's also a character in the novel.

Those Romanov Girls

Reading about the last Romanovs always feels a bit like driving past a fatal car wreck. You don't want to look because you know what happens, but you can't help yourself. Just one peek, you say. Suddenly, there you are rubbernecking like the worst person in the world (or reading another book about the end of the Romanov dynasty).  A couple of months ago, I read a British review of The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport and pre-ordered the book. I'm glad I did. I still might be rubbernecking, but I learned some new things and came away with a better understanding of the daughters and the world in which they lived.

When reading about the Romanovs, the sisters -- Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia -- always get lost in the shuffle of larger personalities. The less-than-prepared-to-be-tsar  father and the tragically flawed, sickly mother, both nonetheless buying into the whole notion of divine right and autocracy. The long-hoped-for but chronically ill brother about whom so many decisions were made that increased the trajectory of  the dynasty's downward spiral. The larger than life figure of Rasputin. The sisters themselves seem to even buy into this notion of being second-class characters by referring to themselves collectively as OTMA and publicly presenting themselves as a group.

Some critical reviews say this book still has a dearth of information about the girls. Relatively speaking, this is probably true. However, it's worth mentioning that the sisters were highly sheltered and not considered all that important by their family and friends during their lives. (They were not the heir and never would be, although for the first time you get a hint that Nicholas felt one of his daughters might have been a more worthy successor.) So, no one felt very compelled to write about them, and their parents took great pains to keep them out of the spotlight. Moreover, the girls themselves destroyed many of their diaries and letters n the days leading up to the revolution. The Bolsheviks who clearly didn't want anything left that might cause people to sympathize with the family destroyed many more artifacts that might have brought them into sharper focus.

What's left for us, the readers, is a basic, yet compelling account of four young women caught up in a maelstrom not of their own making. You come away with a sense of their ordinariness, their piety, their great love of family, and their very real patriotism. With the bits of information that are left to us, you can wonder if the revolution had not happened, might they have broken out of their cocoon as so many young women did after WWI shattered the old order?  What would they have been like if that had been the case? You can sympathize with their longing to be loved by someone and then falling in love with the guards who surrounded them, because who else did they ever see or meet? (When their loyal guards are replaced by Bolsheviks, you also sense their confusion as they try and fail to make friends with these new men as they always had done.) You can almost feel the mind-numbing boredom of their imprisonment and the growing sense of their own doom. In the end, you come away thinking they were really sweet, naive girls who must have gone into that cellar wondering exactly what they had done to deserve such a fate.

You thought gardening was hard?

I  an a gardener. Like all gardeners, I sometimes employ helpers who sometimes drive me crazy and vice-versa. Sometimes, I even call upon the gods (or at least the eye of a god) to help me in my gardening endeavors. Exhibit A: My garden last spring.

But, make no mistake about it, we modern gardeners and gardener helpers are rank amateurs compared to ancient Egyptians. Exhibit B: the "Gardening Agreement" between Talames and her gardener Peftumont, c. 500 B.C, Egypt in this delightful post from the gardenhistorygirl blog.

Gardens were essential to  ancient Egyptians. Those who could afford to do so laid out gardens in front of both their houses and tomb chapels. The gods were even thought to enjoy gardens, and most temples were surrounded by lush greenery.  (See The Gardens and Ponds of Ancient Egypt.)

In my novel, Queen of Heka, Iset (Isis) is a gardener par excellence and often sees the world through gardening metaphors. Is it any wonder when she wants the attention of her lover, Asar (Osiris), she sends him a poem in which she is the garden and he the gardener?

Summon me like the sedge summons the bee.
I belong to you like the plot of ground
Where you plant flowers and sweet-smelling herbs.
I will come to you like a sweet stream, dug by my own hand,
To wander in a lovely place as refreshing as the north wind.

The preceding poem is based on an actual  New Kingdom love poem ( Poem 2, from IIc, The Third Collection, Papyrus Harris 500).

Write like an Egyptian: words of the gods

The ancient Egyptians called hieroglyphs the words of the gods. Two god had a special connection with writing.

The least known is Seshat (Sashet, Sesheta), the female scribe. She was the goddess of writing, historical records, accounting and mathematics, measurement, and architecture. (All Egyptian gods are overachievers.) She assisted the pharaoh and kept a record of his life. She also recorded the time allotted to him by the gods for his stay on earth.

The most well-known was Djhuty (Thoth), an ibis-headed god. Some say he created himself through the power of language. He is the creator of magic, the inventor of writing, teacher of man, the messenger of the gods, the divine record-keeper, and mediator par-excellence. (See what I mean about over-achieving?) The Book of Djhuty contained all the knowledge in the universe. It was hidden at the bottom of the Nile and locked inside a series of boxes guarded by serpents. Egyptians believed the gods' knowledge is not meant for humans to possess. Not that several didn't try, most famously Setne Khaem-waset, the fourth son of Ramses the Great.

Djhuty is often associated with Isis as her mentor, friend, and the arbitrator between her and the other gods during the Contending of Horus and Seth. In this scene from Queen of Heka, Iset (Isis) meets Djhuty for the first time:

    An ibis emerged from the fog. With each step, the bird lengthened into a man. The long, webbed feet became well-muscled legs. White feathers molted into an elaborately pleated kilt. The transformation ended at the neck. When the bird’s beady eyes fixed on me, all the noise in the world stopped. 

    Heru spoke into the inhuman silence. “May I present the teacher of all teachers, Djhuty, Lord of Truth and Time.”

    The great god bowed. His beak opened like a black crescent moon in the white mist. “Hail, Iset wer-Heka, Mistress of the Throne.” 

    “I’m just Iset.” I giggled for the first time that day. Daily commerce with Heru clearly had not prepared me for the company of other gods.

    “You are the lady who will learn words of power,” Djhuty said.

    “From the Book of Djhuty?” The prospect chased away every dismal thought. All the priests longed to read the scroll filled with heka and mysteries not even Ra knew. I bounced up and down on my toes, almost taking flight.

    “Pain and tragedy come to any mortal who reads my book,” Djhuty said.

    “Pain and tragedy also come to those who do not read it.” My whole body practically vibrated with anticipation. Heru snickered.

    “My book is dangerous.” Djhuty directed an anxious look toward Heru.

    “My life is already dangerous.” I thought of Seti and Oso, and I wanted to shake him for making light of my predicament. I might have if he hadn’t put his cool hand on my forehead. My heartbeat slowed straight away, keeping time with the waves lapping our feet.

    "So it is.” 

I am Livia. . . just not the Livia you think I am

We've all played the game. You can invite # historical figures to dinner. Who would you choose? Chances are good that Livia Drusilla, the second wife of Augustus Caesar (a marriage that lasted over 50 years), doesn't make the cut for most of us.

In popular history she was reviled as an ambitious schemer not above poisoning those who got in her way, and that was when history was being nice to her. For me, Siân Phillips sealed my impression of Livia as a woman of "glittering malice" in the popular BBC series, I, Claudius.

I am Livia by Phyllis Smith changes the equation. In Smith's well-written and well-researched novel that masquerades as a memoir, Livia is every smart girl who wants a place at the political table and is denied because of gender. That, of course, is not at odds with how history sees Livia. What is different is the probity with which Smith's Livia pursues her ambitions. Or as the aging Livia best puts it  in the opening paragraphs:

I wonder sometimes how I will be remembered. As mother of my country, as men call me to my face, or as a monster? I know the rumors none dare speak aloud. Some believe I am a murderess many times over. They envy me, and they hate my power. In Rome, a woman's power,  however circumspectly exercised, arouses revulsion. . . . .

Oh, I have transgressed. But not in the way they think. It is when I remember my youth that I find myself recoiling. Do I recoil when I think of him, my beloved? No. But I paid a price in my soul, for loving him.

Throughout the novel, Livia struggles with moral dilemmas. She wants to be a respectable Roman matron, but she is obsessed with a man (Augustus) not her husband. She ultimately sacrifices her children and family's good will to be with him. She wants to do good and sponsors civic works, but she is not above the scheming to get her own way or theatrical gestures. She agonizes over the long Roman civil wars and reluctantly embraces the notion that the Republic, a cherished dream of her beloved father, must end if Rome is to know peace. She grudgingly respects, Cleopatra, her arch-enemy and the other smart girl of her time. After the battle of Actium and Cleopatra's death, Livia wonders if what she wants is any different than what Cleopatra sought and if her own methods were any more noble.

For maybe the first time ever, readers catch a glimpse of the passion between Livia and Augustus, who often appears in fiction as rather a cold fish that nobody loves. From the moment they first lock eyes, these two are possessed. Livia rhapsodizes over Augustus's beauty, something unique in my reading experience where he is often described as sickly and less than manly. In return, Augustus wants her and wants her bad.

Like their more well-known passionate counterparts, Antony and Cleopatra, Livia and Augustus are one of history's original power couples. Some of the best scenes are a post-coital Livia and Augustus plotting to make Rome a better place and dealing with those who stand in their way. As Livia recounts her role in making Augustus great, we can relish how she tells the tale with equal parts modesty, intensity, and something akin to a conscience.

Ultimately, I found this book both enjoyable and satisfying in its portrayal of a woman who dared to be powerful in life and love.

Oh, and that dinner party? I think a Women Who Dared in the Ancient World might be the ultimate girl's night. My guest list: Livia, Cleopatra, Hypatia (philospher, mathematician, and astronmer), Hatsheput (the first female Pharoah), Nefertiti, Helen of Troy, Cassandra the prophetresss of Troy, and the goddesses Isis, Hera, and  Ishtar

What's in a hat? A lot if you're an Egyptian goddess

I've gone on record (at least on Facebook):

I REALLY WANT THIS HAT!

I was looking for a hat that combined steampunk as well as Egyptian elements for a banquet I attended.  This one was SO perfect!

Alas, it cost $500, and my budget did not allow for such sublime wonderfulness.

After some near frantic searching on eBay and other places, I decided to make a hat. The one you see to your left. It cost a lot less than $500. I received a lot of compliments. At the end of day, I was left with one overriding question.

Question: "What's in a hat, anyway?"
Answer: A lot if you are an Egyptian goddess.

Consider these two.

They look a lot alike. Both women

• Are kneeling in front of hieroglyphics.  
• Have wings. 
• Have black hair, parted over their shoulders. 
• Have nearly identical faces. 
• Wear headbands. 

The difference: one wears a feather on her head, and one wears something like a chair. (Hint: it's really a throne.) We know them by their hats.

Ma'at always wears a feather, which she uses when she weighs the heart of a dead soul. The name Isis means The Throne, so she wears her name.

In this statue of Tutankhamen, Isis carries the young Pharaoh. Notice his body is in the shape of  the throne as he becomes the hat Isis wears. Tutankhamen came to the throne during a turbulent period in Egyptian history, right after Akhenaten tried to get rid of all the old gods. By showing Isis carrying Tutankhamen and making him her crown, the artist is sayingTutankhamen returned to traditional religion, and the gods recognize him as the rightful king.

As the Goddess of 10,000 Names, Isis wore many different hats. She became one of the supreme goddesses of Egypt, so she took on many aspects of other goddesses, just as she assumed the wings of Ma'at. In the following crown, she blends her throne headdress, with a solar disk and cow horns that itypically belongs to the goddess Hathor, all on top of the traditional vulture crown of an Egyptian queen. I'm sure there's a kitchen sink in there somewhere.

What would your hat be if you were an Egyptian goddess?