Book review of Julian
Julian by Gore Vidal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book breaks hearts and changes lives.
I'm choosy about historical fiction: as a historian, some of it infuriates me beyond measure. But this is a good one, and the errors I've noted are in part because it was written over 50 years ago, and historical research can outrun earlier works. It's also a delight as a novel: witty, erudite, and ultimately emotionally shattering.
We are in the 390s CE, looking back over the reign of Julian, dead for 30 years, through the often conflicting memories of his old friends Libanius and Priscus, and a memoir by Julian himself (fictional, but based strongly on his own works). Libanius and Priscus remind me endearingly of Waldorf and Statler in the Muppets. But Julian...
A real-life hero. The brave, bookish little orphan who survived a murderous family, studied philosophy and mysticism, then was swept off to be a military commander... and was good at it, and in Paris was raised up on his men's shields and crowned Augustus with the torque of the draconarius. A humorous and charming writer, a man of moral integrity and virtue. Vidal does this extraordinary, loveable young man justice. And after numerous readings and re-readings, I always end up weeping buckets by the end. Why?
- Because this is, ultimately, a true story. The blow was struck , whoever did it (Vidal's theory is plausible, but not proven), and we still live with the consequences, in the Waste Land it created. But the survival of Julian's (real) writings and his ideas means that hope survives: pace Libanius at the novel's ending, we have the light still, and we can choose to live as if they did not win... For some of us, the dragon standard still flies...
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