Max Gallo, the reign of cliches.

When a friend offered to lend me the divine Julius biography by Max Gallo, it is with curiosity but also a lot of skepticism that I immersed myself in reading this ouvrage.Comment not be wary of a author who titled one of his novels "Nero, the reign of the antichrist" ...

My fears were, as I suspected, totally justified.

Max Gallo is certainly a good writer of historical romance, but regarding this biography of Julius Cesar, I'm not afraid to use the word humbug.

"Cesar imperator" is not only a biography that exudes from every pore sufficiency, but a succession of clichés absolutely unbearable when was introduced to the Roman civilization by real specialists in this time as Lucien Jerphagnon and Paul Veyne huge.

Not content to serve us shots worthy of a bad peplum on licentious Roman, Max Gallo presents privacy of Julius Caesar through the distorting prism of authors like Suetonius and Tacitus which is well known, when has a minimum of knowledge about ancient Rome, that the objectivity of these historians were not the main quality.

But what can be forgiven for Latin historians who wrote primarily for social class, becomes truly heartbreaking when you discover that a modern historian, therefore supposed to show a minimum of objectivity, it merely reproduces, without the slightest nuance, gravelly rumors peddled by ancient authors who hesitated before no meanness when it came to ruin the reputation of personalities who had had the misfortune to be disrespectful to their good old senatorial class.

But the top of this farce is reached during the evocation of memorable frigged suffered by Julius Caesar at Gergovia: Max Gallo simply present this superb strategic maneuver of Vercingetorix as a fluke of indiscipline of some centurions Jules Cesar ... well, as directly read "comments on the war sapling" is much better written and we know unambiguously that it is propaganda.

Finally, we could mention some pretty amusing blunders ultimately once we found the "serious" of this biography: I think notemment to the famous phrase "under, you're just a word", that Brutus allegedly made before his suicide, and through the magic of sufficiency that can provide an author entry to the French Academy, is retouve in the mouth of that poor Cato certainly has had to turn in his grave .. .Citons évoquation also the first woman jules cesar, admirable and erudite Roman lady that is transformed for the occasion into brave insignificant figurehead ... What is also ironic is that Max Gallo No 't forget to recall that Cesar gave him a funeral almost worthy of an emperor, because of ... the great affection he had for him ... actually, Cesar was a great sentimental as everyone would just sait.Il yet to devote a few lines to explain to the reader that this admirable young woman, who was a little bit older than when Cesar married, had a great importance in the cultural development of the latter, both in the literature that arts.Cela would at least have allowed a better understanding of the neophytes to readers why Cesar offered to such monumental funeral to his first wife.

In addition, I would say the Max Gallo problem is that it seems not really understand the mentality of romains.C'est rather unfortunate, because man has real talent as a storyteller.

So I will end well: as long as it is content of the historical novel, Max Gallo is certainly an author distrayant.Mais if you really want to immerse yourself in the Roman civilization, see Lucien rather Jerphagnon and Paul Veyne.