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The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George

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The Memoirs of Cleopatra
by

Margaret George (Goodreads Author)

Tania's review

Feb 18, 2013

it was amazing

bookshelves: favorite-books, best, historical-fiction

We use what we have, and I have been blessed indeed by what fate has send my way.

This was an amazing book about an extraordinary woman. I am intimidated by big books (this one was almost 1200 pages), as I am always scared that I'll get bored halfway through. This was definitely not a problem with The Memoirs of Cleopatra. I walked away feeling that I knew Cleopatra, Caesar, Marc Anthony, and that I had walked the streets of Alexandria and Rome.
The author writes beautifully, and I really appreciated the fact that she made these historical figures so human, and also that she downplayed events, with no unnecessary melodrama.
I can't remember when last I liked a protagonist so much. She was truly a phenomenal woman - she spoke eight languages, descended from the oldest royal house and ruled the richest country in the world. In this rendition of her life she is also kind, passionate and funny. I was touched by her love for two very different men, and how well Margaret George portrayed the love, balancing it with Cleopatra's ambition. Although I was thoroughly impressed with Caesar as a leader, I lost my heart to Marc Anthony.
I highly recommend this to anyone interested in Cleopatra, but also to anyone who enjoys well-researched and written historical fiction.

The Story: The mesmerizing story of Queen Cleopatra in her own words - from the young queen's earliest memories of her father's tenuous rule to her own reign over one of the most glittering kingdoms in the world - this is an enthralling saga of ambition and power. It is also a tale of passion that begins when the twenty-one-year-old Cleopatra, desperate to return from exile, seeks out the one man who can help her: Julius Caesar. And it does not end until, having survived the assassination of Caesar and the defeat of the second man she loves, Marc Antony, she plots her own death ...

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Quotes Tania Liked

“It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

82 likes

“Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

tags: power-of-words-forgetting

20 likes

“But marrying within one's own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

tags: family-relationships, humor, marriage

13 likes