Cleopatra (2010) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 0 stars

“"As of the winter of 35 it is impossible to deny a full-blooded romance, if by romance we mean a congenial, intimate past, a shared family, a shared bed, and a shared vision of the future." on C & A, from page 214

Yes, I think we do, if one subscribes to the same beliefs as Joel Stein & Richard Linklater do when discussing the film "Before Midnight":

"When you're 41, there's far more romance in whether a couple will stay together than in whether they will get together." -Stein
"[T]hey eat together, they're still making each other laugh, they still seem to want to sleep together-- at a certain point, that's as good as you're going to do." -Linklater”

• Rated 4 stars

“Writing a biography about a person whom history has swallowed up, as it has done Cleopatra, must be a monumental task, but one that Schiff handles with aplomb. The truth of who this queen was has been lost to time, buried underneath centuries’ worth of poetry, vilification, praise, and lies. Somehow, though, Schiff manages to recreate Cleopatra’s Alexandria for us, and shows how, despite the blood hunger which ran through every member of her family, including herself, she was able to get a hold of Egypt’s wealth and reign as its well-loved pharaoh for twenty-two years. She seems not to have been a classic beauty, but instead someone of intense personal magnetism, erudite, interested in the flow of knowledge that poured through Alexandria during her reign. The legend is removed from her relationships with Caesar and Antony and her death is described separately from the myth that has surrounded it, simply as a great woman’s last show of independence and fiery spirit. I sincerely enjoyed this. I felt as though I finally got a grasp on a legendary woman of whom very little physical evidence remains.”

• Rated 0 stars

“This is a very good book for history buffs. I wasn't so much intrigued by Cleopatra VII rather by the historical context provided. Stacy Schiff really give a feel for what is going on throughout the western world at the time of Cleopatra with details on how commoners and aristoracts lived. She also provides extensive bibliographic support to show how different early historians interpeted events or manipulated the facts.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Christmas present...Stacy Schiff's interview on The Daily Show put this one on my list. Okay, so I'm reading this and it is fascinating. Who knew that the Sphinx had been buried in sand for 1,000 years when Cleopatra and Caesar floated down the Nile? But unfortunately it is slow. I will press on, however, because I hear the second half of the book picks up. I hope so.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Cleopatra is certainly worth a detailed bio, but I often find with biographies that unless I'm as obsessed with the subject as the biographer is, I get bored with the pile-up of details about every little aspect of the subject's life. I know, that's the job of biography, but still. I get bogged down.”

• Rated 3 stars

“A book of facts or maybe not...”

• Rated 0 stars

“Ms. Schiff's strength is in her incomparable powers of description, both accurate and lush, that succeeds in bringing the ecosystem of Ancient Egypt to life. Her descriptions are poetic without succumbing to poetic license. However, I do have to remark that in her attempt to stay strictly with historical accounts, Cleopatra is only present from a third-person point of view-- and more significantly, that Ms. Schiff is engaged in a systematic revision of the sensual and flirtatious portrayals of Cleopatra towards a more feminist-friendly portrait. Thus, Ms Schiff goes all the way to the opposite end of the spectrum-- Cleopatra here is stripped of nearly all her sensual attributes, and here she is a mechancial monarch whose entire focus is set on calculating for power preservation and territorial expansion, not unlike the monarchs of the Great Powers, circa 17th-18th century. Well, is this true? Only , perhaps, to some extent-- not probably to the the extent that Ms. Schiff stretches it. For instance, she excuses even Cleopatra's drastic foibles at the Battle of Actium as, perhaps, a miscalculation of timing of a strategy that Cleopatra, Anthony, and THE TROOPS already agreed on. That is seriously improbable. This book has its strengths and its less dependable weaknesses.”

• Rated 4 stars

“An interesting and well researched story of the historical background and life of Cleopatra. I learned a lot from the book, from her birth and ancestry (of Macedonian descent from Alexander the Great), to her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, to her death (likely she was not killed by an asp after all). She was obviously a smart, capable, and independent woman. I appreciated the author including references to various authors and historians (taken in stride b/c all were male and most were Roman), including Lucan, Appian, Josephus, Dio, Suetonius, and Plutarch. I loved the statement from the author about "stripping away the encrusted myth created by those for whom citing her sexual prowess was evidently less discomfiting than acknowledging her intellectual gifts.” ”

• Rated 5 stars

“Eager to dispel myths from factual events, I embarked on this literary journey through the life of Cleopatra. The book is marvelously written by Schiff, as she provides painstakingly detailed descriptions of how this remarkable woman, Ptolemaic empress of the ancient Eastern world, ruthlessly navigated politics, love, betrayal, war, and economics on the grandest of scales. Wow, what a read! Highly recommended. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“Not as good as I wanted it to be. Thought it might have new information but found little I did not already know. Good if you only know the movie but want more. Very well written. ”