what are you reading now?

padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
IdleRich said:
I've read some stuff about the Ceasar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero era
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I confess to finding the Empire vastly less interesting than the Republic

I don't think I'm alone, it's why the very end of the Republic - Caesar etc thru Antony/Cleoptra - is by far the favorite in literature, film, etc

aside from the odd exception like I Claudius, or things that may relate to a particular modern nation, like Boudica

not that the Empire is wholly uninteresting, but imperial family machinations I specifically uninteresting in pretty much any context

Augustus is quite a fascinating figure, an absolute master politician (and psychologist, I don't wonder)

his genius in squaring the circle of Republican distaste for kings with the demands of governing an empire
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
in any case, one thing I really like about Masters of Rome is that it properly situates Caesar in historical context - following on the era of Marius and Sulla

who in turn followed on the aftermath of the Punic Wars and all that wrought in Roman society, government, etc

the origins of Caesar are in the cultural/philosophic conflicts of Scipio Africanus and Cato the Elder, the battles of the Gracchi with an early version of the Optimates

but usually in popular culture/imagination he springs fully formed like Athena from the pages of history, without precedent

it's like trying to understand Trump without knowing the preceding half century of American history
 
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padraig (u.s.) said:
I'd have to read the actual posts but just offhand I don't like that comparison at all
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I don't think it was a direct comparison to Caesar himself. Spengler suggested some sort of authoritarian emperor-type figures would appear as the West began to decline and referred to those figures as "Caesars".
 
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I'll pull up the thread. luka posted some crazy blog on Trump being born near Caesar's Palace or something too. 😂
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
what that really makes me think is that I should read Spengler. Mr Tea's comments are interesting.

I certainly understand the use of "Caesar" as a shorthand for something

I just think it's a not wholly inaccurate, but surely inadequate way to describe Caesar himself
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
if you have the time I'd recommend this talk by Michael Parenti on Caesar and his context

I don't necessarily agree - or feel qualified to agree/disagree - with everything he says, but it's a very interesting revisionist take

I'm sure he's not the only person to look at Caesar/late Republic from a left perspective, but one of the only I know of

he also mentions many of the specific things that Caesar did for the Roman lower-classes, as well as some of the grotesque ways Roman elites profited from empire

btw another book I'd higly recommend not on Rome but on that other keystone of modern democracy, Athens, is The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Who was this Caesar guy, anyway? And how many casinos and 5-star hotels did he own? How many election did he win against a CROOKED opponent???

And people think he's so great because he invented a SALAD? Sad!
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
version said:
Does anyone have a strong opinion either way on whether American Psycho's misogynist?
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strongly against. it's a fucking satire. all the hypermasculinity is ironic, and it doesn't even take a particularly close reading to observe its fragilities

this is why it's important to include the actual violence (whether it not it actually happens or is merely imagined)

with satire this dark, you're either all the way in or all the way out. is A Modest Proposal anti-child (or anti-Irish)?

this is also why I think it's inaccurate to label it self-consciously transgressive in the way, idk, De Sade or something is
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
that's the problem with the film of Less Than Zero btw

admittedly that book isn't a satire, more bildungsroman on a death trip (and again, the darkness at the heart of wealth, excess)

but still, you can't pull your punches. you're either all the way in or all the way out.

I think if anything LTZ is ultimately the more disturbing of the pair, because there is no comedy, no ironic distancing, outlandish violence
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
version said:
I don't think it was a direct comparison to Caesar himself. Spengler suggested some sort of authoritarian emperor-type figures would appear as the West began to decline and referred to those figures as "Caesars".
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But doesn't he mean a certain kind of emperor there, not Julius Caesar? I mean there is a distinction between Caesars and Caesar.
 
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I've heard the LtZ film fell victim to the Nancy Reagan 'Just Say No' stuff which is why it ended up the way it did, but I've no clue whether it's true.
 
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re: accusations of misogyny - I think Ellis himself comes across as so disingenous and such a provocateur that any defense he mounts makes people increasingly suspicious.
 
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Glamorama had some moments I found incredibly disturbing. One in particular where Victor, the protagonist, walks in on the people he's living with torturing a male model in the basement. Apparently Ellis thinks it's his best, but I dunno many people who've even read it, let alone who think that.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Certainly the most violent... that bit with the plane crash and all the human fat dangling from the trees.... there was another bit that disturbed me too.
 
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I'm still not sure exactly what happened by the end. He seemed to be in some sort of limbo, either figuratively or literally, and his father or someone had set him up and had him replaced with a doppelganger?
 
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