Key Book

Intense, intense, intense! I was enthralled by this novel of the life of Catullus, the Roman lyric poet during the ten years he lived in Rome. Immediately upon closing the book in 2014 I reread it.

My December 2015 rereading really brought home the artificiality and purpleness of the prose, which really had impressed me the first time, but got annoying this time. This is one of the few times I have downgraded a book.

After the poet's sad life of barely thirty years, his good friend Marcus Caelius Rufus conveys the corpse to its burial. Catullus's father [the Old Man] journeys out from Verona, visits Caelius, and asks, "Explain my son to me" after giving Caelius a box of mementos and writings--poems, notes, letters. The novel jumps back and forth in time [54 BC--in the novel the present] to Caelius's memories through those years, the driver of the action being Catullus's passionate love affair with Clodia Metelli. As she is a high-born lady and Catullus doesn't want to compromise her reputation, he calls her 'Lesbia'.

Some of his poetry is inserted into the text, each poem having to do with some incident in the story. We see how Catullus has poured his heart's blood into these poems; 'Lesbia' has played viciously with his emotions; Catullus has swung from euphoria to despair because of this unrequited love.

"Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior."

[I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do this?
I do not know, but I feel it happen and I am torn apart.] Poem #85

In his 'crossroads and alleyways' poem, #58, in his extreme rage, he finally admits to himself what a slut she is. Even so...
The author tells us in her Notes its ambiguity is the key --i.e., catalyst, to her conception of the story.

Through the descriptions of Rome -- the mansions on the Hills to the seedy taverns and the Subura to the mystery rites of the goddess Cybele -- I felt myself to be an onlooker of the events. The characters were not saints, by any means; I loathed Clodia, the femme fatale. As one character, an actor named Xanthius, described Clodia: "Now I know how to play Circe." Catullus was completely obsessed with the woman; we might even call him a "stalker" in our day. Yes, there was sex in this novel owing to the subject, but as it was written a generation ago, I felt it was not as blatant or vulgar as much of today's writings. Also, for that time, although graphic, it was not tasteless.

In my December 2015 rereading I still felt it wasn't tasteless, but it got repetitious and boring. The author should have used such descriptions more sparsely.

The last few pages were poignant--the final meeting between the dying father and Caelius. I will never again listen to Orff's Catulli Carmina without thinking of this novel. On rereading, I've marked each poem in the novel with the number in Catullus's own poems and am fascinated with how well the author worked them into the story, especially as she used them out of order.