By Laura Walcher
Presidio Sentinel San Diego, May 2011
What in the world got into that woman? Not Cleopatra; we more or less know what got into her. But, author Stacy Schiff. I mean, just consider the arduous task she undertook to produce “Cleopatra, A Life,” the tome our book club undertook with early ...um. Zeal. (At home, we’d already bought it for Joe, 12, an amazing young reader who’d been studying Cleo in school. After a serious attempt, he was … polite.)
Most of us quit under l00 pages; some highly disciplined clubbers felt ethically bound to finish whatever they started. Good upbringing! Two were enthralled.
Stacy, fr’pete’sake. Nobody really knows what happened and pretty much nobody who was there knew either. Most - maybe all - reporters of Cleopatra’s amazing shenanigans and sumptuous, if perilous life got their information - at the very least, second hand. Even Plutarch, now regarded as the best source, wrote about it l00 years after it was all over.
Slogging through the wars, the Ptolemys and Pompeys, Romans and/or Greeks, brothers bedding sisters, mothers dismembering children, Arsinoe and Ganymedes, Auletes (OK: Cleo’s father), and so on. and on.... was ... Oh! Inspiring material for limericks! Haikus! Free verse!
Evidently, the clubbers agreed:
Bob Walcher:
With that Cleo you don’t go a’messin?
To heck with that legal succession
She killed her kid brother
Then offed yet another
In those days a minor transgression
For our book club I dutifully read
‘bout Cleopatra from birth until dead
But as hard as I tried
My brain felt flat fried
Should have watched the movie instead
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Mary-Rose Mueller:
Cleopatra was her given name
a goddess with fortune and fame.
A strong clever mind
A fortunate find
Ms. Shiff in this book did spellbind
Bill Mueller:
Cleopatra, the queen of the Nile
Was ruling that river in style!
From Rome comes old Caesar
Falls in lust when he sees her.
And tarried in Egypt awhile ...
(Can you tell who the Schiff proponents were? )
---------------
Sheryl King:
Book Cleopatra
Turgid and speculative
Book Club required -- ugh.
Ken King:
Cleopatra the Greek had some style
She was also a master of guile
Jules and Tony were horny
Cleo's lair proved so thorny
That the Romans went too far in de-Nile
----------------
Phyllis Weeks-Daniel:
There was murder and warfare and lust,
in the end Alexandria went bust.
Romans Caesar and Marc
provide the whole story arc.
Really, Schiff's Cleopatra's no “must.*
Bonus Haiku:
Read Cleopatra
Fascinating yet so dry
An editor please
-----------------
OK: it’s my column, so I get the last word:
The T. M. I. problem is this,
For Cleo, there wasn’t much bliss.
We were drowning in pages
Of wars, warts and rages -
Not a second of strife did we miss.
But who really knows what is true?
You think that Ms. Schiff has a clue?
She gathered some stuff(ing)
And may not be bluff (ing)
But mostly, I hope she won’t sue ... ! xxx
Certain authors wouldn't make it without book clubs. My book club also read this book. It was rather like a homework assignment but I did enjoy stretches of it and I did finish it. However, I don't feel bound to finish a bad book, ever. It's got to be a topic for a future post Laura!
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