Page turner: 5/10
Heart tugger: 6/10
Thought provoker: 9/10
Overall: 3 stars

I, Claudius is number 14 on the Modern Library’s top 100 books of the 20th Century. I can see why. This is a book I very much appreciate for its astuteness and unusual voice. I am pleased I read it and my brain was very much engaged (I even occasionally chuckled) but I’m not sure I Really Liked it.

As the title suggests, the book is an ‘autobiography’ of the Roman Emperor Claudius, of his life before he became emperor in AD 41. His full name is Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The stories and intrigues of his life, as really the only surviving member of his family through an incredibly political period of Roman history, are fascinating. And the events (I discovered afterwards) are all true.  His thoughts and personal opinions are of course fictional, but by all accounts, plausible, given that his personal papers were all burned just prior to his death. As such, the book does a fantastic job of presenting itself as a history (Claudius himself is a historian) and in the book the occasional indentation appears where the date is simply noted in the margins. I’ve never seen that before.  But it is a useful metric of marking time, which flows in fits and starts in the book to coincide with the more interesting portions of his life – or this lives of those around him.

So the era, the presentation, and the stories themselves are fascinating. And Robert Graves does an amazing job of giving Claudius an intelligent, thoughtful, occasionally irreverent tone of voice that is very compelling. Claudius is believed by many of his family as an idiot – he stammers (which gets worse when he’s nervous) and has a few physical tics – but as a reader you cannot help but like Claudius. He has a heart.

And yet, despite these excellent elements, I didn’t find myself that eager to read more. I put the book down for a few days. There are a lot of people and names. Many of the names are very, very similar. It gets confusing and tangles. And whilst you feel for Claudius, and he describes some of the despicable deeds of others, I somehow didn’t connect. I never really got angry when the poisoners poisoned and the beheaders decapitated. Now, I can put this down to Claudius’ self-professed career as an unbiased historian, so it is very much in-keeping with his character.  But that doesn’t make it a particularly enjoyable read, it just makes those who have read it appreciate the author’s skill.

So, would I recommend? If you want something a bit intellectual, and you like history – then yes.  To read something that you will appreciate having read? Most certainly? But if you want to be entertained, moved, or empowered? Maybe skip it and come back when you’re feeling a bit more cerebral. Or want to catch up on your Roman history without having to actually read a history book.