Book Review: The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George

 

Goodreads Summary: Told in Cleopatra's own voice, The Memoirs of Cleopatra is a mesmerizing tale of ambition, passion, and betrayal in the ancient Egyptian world, which begins when the twenty-year-old queen seeks out the most powerful man in the world, Julius Caesar, and 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 rather than be paraded in triumph through the streets of Rome.

Goodreads Rating: 4.15 stars with over 20,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Romance,  Fiction, mythology

Goodreads Challenge: 43/50

2021 Reading Challenge: #46 Read a book (Fiction or Nonfiction) about a lady on this list: https://www.historyextra.com/100-women/100-women-results/ (Find the entire challenge here)

Book Review:

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is having a lovely start to December. Here in Minnesnowta, we are getting a Blizzard warning tomorrow. I suspect that the fireplace in my new house will be getting a whole lot of use this winter. I'll do a post showing off my bookshelf one of these days. I'm debating if I want to do it for Kindle and physical books. Let me know in the comments if you want to see either of these.

So, I must say that I am glad to be done with this book. I got it a year or two ago on Paperbackswap, and it ended up fitting perfectly for #46. I enjoyed the book, but good lord, is it long. It was 900-some pages, and it felt like it was 2,000. I'm not going to lie; I'm pretty ignorant of my Cleopatra history. I don't feel like it was discussed much where I went to school. Before reading the book, I knew that she was an Egyptian Queen, married Marc Antony, and was known for her beauty based on pop culture references. That's really about it. 

The Memoirs of Cleopatra covers basically her entire life from age five until her death. There are also a few chapters after she dies written in the voice of her trusted physician to tie up the story. The story is told from Cleopatra's point of view as if she were writing a memoir of her life in a letter to her Goddess of choice, Isis. I thought it was interesting, but it was really drawn out and detailed every thought in the character's head. There were many days I could only read about 25 pages because it was just drawn out. I'm currently reading Go Tell the Bees That I'm Gone by Diana Gabaldon to give you an idea. I started it a few days ago, and it's about the same number of pages as Memoirs of Cleopatra. I'm at around 40% done with it in Go Tell the Bees. It took me exactly two months to finish Memoirs of Cleopatra. For the first time ever while reading this, I read three books at once. 

I was really intrigued by the mythology. I have typically read Greek mythology, so it was interesting to see how Egyptians and Romans elevated someone to God/Goddess status or how they thought rulers were deity incarnates. Because I was so ignorant of Cleopatra's life, I feel like I learned quite a bit by reading this book. I'm sure a lot of it was exaggerated to some extent, but based on the author's notes, it doesn't seem like Margaret George took many liberties with the historical facts. I thought the way Margaret George wrote Cleopatra made her (Cleopatra) seem fierce and a constant prisoner of Roman Politics. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. If you are a Historical Fiction fan and don't find the 900+ pages daunting, give it a shot. My biggest knock was how long it was and that it just drug on forever. By the time Cleopatra and Antony finally got married, I was just ready for it to end.