Caesar

By: Colleen McCullough

Narrated by: Michael York

Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

It is 54 B.C. Gaius Julius Caesar is sweeping through Gaul. While his victories in the name of Rome are epic, the conservative leaders of the Republic are not pleased -- they are terrified. Where will the boundless ambition of Rome's most brilliant soldier stop? He must be destroyed before he can overthrow the government and install himself as Dictator.

When Cato and the Senate betray him, Caesar resolves to turn his genius against his ungrateful country. Backed by a loyal and skilled army, he marches on Rome. But before reaching his goal, he must contend with Pompey the Great, a formidable adversary who underestimates the renegade Caesar.

These are tumultuous times -- for Caesar, who endures personal tragedies even as he wages war; for Pompey, who must wrestle with his fear that his greatness is at an end; for Cicero, whose luminous rhetoric is shattered by threat of violence; and for the citizens of Rome, whose destiny lies in Caesar's hands.

The fifth novel in Colleen McCullough's unforgettable Masters of Rome series, Caesar brings to life the passion and genius of an incomparable man.

©2003 Colleen McCullough (P)2004 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

"McCullough is on fire . . . Caesar is one of her strongest and most fascinating characters." ( San Francisco Chronicle

Great

If you love Egypt and the thorn birds you will love this wonderful book. A great series

Abridged version

Disappointed that this was not the whole book. Good job on the voices though- I would not recommend listening if you intend to read the book,

Historically accurate, but superficial

Character development, though admittedly a challenge with so many, is poor. The choice of accents seems odd as well.

Coleen McCullough's belly flop...

I love Coleen McCullough's books on Rome. I wish that the first one, "The First Man in Rome", was on Audible. But, this one I could just as well do without. Maybe it had to do with the abridgment. But, this book was SO uneven it its portrayal of people. It amounted to something that McCullough never did in her other books. And, this is a woman who could make Sulla very sympathetic, so much so that I felt badly when the old geezer died in "Fortune's Favorites" - but, that was a much better book.

I think that McCullough is sexually obsessed with Julius Caesar and that this tends to blur her ability to make him human. With each book, beginning with the precocious youth in "Grass Crown" and then the slightly too-good-to-be-true "Fortune's Favorite", Caesar clearly in her eyes is described in very sexual language at almost every opportunity. But, she wasted no time doing the same with Sulla, but she found him to be, in the end, a murderous autocrat who was still a human being that had endured much and was the way he was for many reasons. To make a figure like Sulla likable is a rare feat. But, to make a man like Caesar somewhat unlikable, well, why can't she do the same thing?

Caesar does no wrong in this book...even in his brutal and uncharacteristic behavior at the end of the Gallic war, it seems to be brushed aside. That the optimates clearly had the constitution on their side, and that Caesar had pursued a long and horrible illegal war doesn't seem to matter to her. Cato and company come across as clowns instead of human beings trying to save the Republic. And, worse still, Pompey is portrayed as being the Clown-in-Chief. That they might have a point regarding Caesar doesn't cross seem to cross her mind once.

I wish that she had gone more into the minds of people like Cassius and others who had major and very legitimate gripes against Caesar. Cato most of all. Cicero comes across as a peace-loving dove who is swept aside by the Optimates. I happen to really admire Cicero...and, his role in the Civil War was pure poetry. He saw that Caesar was the better general but went with Pompey out of pure loyalty to his friends (mostly Brutus). Why not focus on this?

This is such an uneven account of the Civil War that Gaius Julius Caesar brought down on the Republic. He was a corrupt autocrat who wanted rule the world. In fact, the story that could have been followed would be better to watch Caesar go from his youthful idealism to bring a Consular mask to his family to the embittered and lonely dictator who alienated so many people, and in the end only had war to occupy him.

It is true that men like Marsellus were the worst of the old aristocracy. But, to make Cato into the deranged Stoic really upset me. Cato was the moral compass of the Old Republic that everyone but Caesar respected, even if he was highly unlikable. But, then, so were a lot of other characters that McCullough has explored in her Masters of Rome series.

I wonder who much the abridgment had to do with this book being the travesty it was in this audio version. I really enjoyed the other two audio books I have listed to by this author. About the only thing I liked in this was that this narrator finally abandoned most of the Latin pronunciations (no more Kik-er-o!)! I do like this particular narrator, actually.

I suggest you do not waste a credit downloading this book. Listen to the Grass Crown and Fortune's Favorite. They cover events that are far less well known.

Most books about the Civil War seem to suffer from either a love affair with Caesar (mostly from women writers), or a condemnation that is a bit too severe. Caesar was the best of the twelve Caesars. But, he still was the destroyer of the Republic. Look to Robert Harris's books Imperium and Lustrum for a better balanced account of Julius Caesar!

It's so hard to condemn a book by an author I really like. Coleen McCullough writes the best prose since Hemmingway about war...and, she doesn't really glorify it anymore than Hemmingway did. She is a very talented author. But, "Caesar" is a flop. Sorry about that, Coleen!

Like I said...I hope it was the abridgment. Sometimes that can destroy a book. This book in its original form is about 700 pages!

This gets a decent review for this performance...but overall...SKIP!

good over all

not what I expected but the story was worth listening too. I was hoping for more of a Steven pressfield type of a book. but I was in a rush when I decided to buy.

Seems most heavily abridged of them all

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I have found the series very interesting so if they didn't care to invest the time reading, I would recommend the audio books to get an outline of the stories.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I thought Pompey was a marvelously drawn character. More dimensional than Caesar.

What about Michael York’s performance did you like?

York is a wonderful reader. He gave Pompey a regional British accent to remind us of his origins outside of Rome and though it sometimes seemed a bit odd, it worked to remind me of this essential piece of information.

If you could rename Caesar, what would you call it?

Perhaps something alluding to the civil war.

Any additional comments?

This one really suffered from the abridgment.

Horrible narration and bad abridgemenr

I love this book and wanted to listen to it so I was willing to put up with the bad parts. The narrator was horrible and mispronounced so many names. The abridgment was also bad and left out a lot of the great parts.

It’s Abridged!

I wouldn’t have bought this if I knew it was abridged, it ruins it completely.

All the fine material was cut.

The books were so fine with there great detail. But they cut it all away. It now is a book for children. What a shame.

I'm never buying an abridged volume again!

There was nothing wrong with this novel except that it was abridged. Because it is abridged the story is choppy so if you are a knowledgeable ancient Rome listener you will be disappointed.