Life Swept Along by Time

— A Review of John Williams’s Augustus

When people speak of Augustus, what comes to mind?

Octavius Caesar, the founding emperor of Rome—August itself takes its English name, August, from him. Augustus, though neither a conventional biography nor a work of strict historiography, opens a door through which readers are allowed a glimpse into one facet of the lives of those whose names have been fixed in history books.

John Williams may be better known for Stoner. As I read Augustus, I often encountered comments from other readers noting how much it “resembles Stoner.” Rather than saying it resembles Stoner, it might be more accurate to say that this is simply John Williams’s style: a mastery of restrained, implicit emotion. Stoner unfolds in a quiet, unadorned manner, delicate and unhurried. Emotions are never explosive; yet in retrospect, the text is saturated with a kind of “calm tension.”

Compared with Stoner, which portrays the life of an ordinary man, Augustus extends this same stylistic restraint to the life of a great figure. Even though the novel is structured through letters, diaries, and memoirs, it deliberately avoids lengthy monologues or explicit psychological exposition. Instead, events are often narrated through the detached observations of third parties, sidestepping direct emotional expression.

For example, when Octavius learns of Rufus’s betrayal, the narrator is Maecenas, and all that remains are two sentences: “He is no longer my friend,” and “I am the traitor.” When Maecenas dies, the account comes from Nicolaus; Octavius merely remarks, “Maecenas wrote poorly.” Beneath these plain words, however, powerful undercurrents flow. Had the narrative shifted to Octavius’s first-person perspective, what might have remained would be emotions too turbulent to articulate—and, after accepting the name of his great-uncle Julius “Caesar,” such emotions perhaps no longer belonged to a ruler like him. This, too, resonates with Octavius’s closing self-reflection: everything that has been recorded is not his true self.

This calm narrative tone persists even into the penultimate letter, written by Augustus near death to perhaps the only friend still alive—Nicolaus—though the letter is never delivered, as Nicolaus dies at the very moment it is sent. Augustus looks back on and evaluates his life; the once-surging emotions have been worn down by time, leaving only a deep melancholy and regret etched into the page.

Despite his supreme position, Augustus’s inner core closely resembles that of Stoner. Both novels depict individuals swept along by their times. Stoner, born to a farming family and living through wartime, could scarcely have imagined shaping a better fate for himself within the limits of his era. And Augustus? At first, he was fortunate—favored by his great-uncle Julius, who intended to bring him close and train him. Yet soon Julius Caesar was assassinated, and Octavius became Octavius Caesar. He was thrust prematurely into a treacherous world of power, forced to learn calculation, strategy, and compromise. For the sake of political stability, he set aside his desire to avenge Julius and allied with Marcus Antonius; to preserve his daughter’s life, he condemned her to lifelong exile. Each decision appears to be Augustus’s own, yet how much of it was truly chosen freely, and how much imposed by his position?

When we peer into a human life, how different is the ordinary life of Stoner from the extraordinary life of Augustus, really? I can still imagine that scene: at Julius Caesar’s request, Octavius, Maecenas, Agrippa, and Rufus meet for the first time on a fishing boat. The boat is awkward and unimpressive, but the four youths are full of spirit. The sunlight that day must have been dazzling, almost blinding. I wish that youthful brilliance could have lasted longer—until the end of each of their lives—but it was cut short just months later, with Julius’s assassination. Octavius entered an island of isolation; even those who had shared the boat with him were now people he could “trust no longer—not even us.” Later, Rufus—Salvidienus Rufus—the first to call him “Caesar,” was also the first to fall away.

To observe a life is inevitably to witness growth, or decline. Growth and decline alike demand the realization that the world does not unfold linearly. Julius could not remain a shelter forever; friends could not stand on the same side forever. The son-in-law chosen as a successor might die before oneself. One could not remain strong enough to hold power indefinitely. Even one’s closest daughter might become entangled in a plot to assassinate her own father. The impermanence of the present, the endless emergence of nonlinear upheavals—amid all this, one stumbles forward, learning concealment, calculation, and compromise.

In the end, all that remains is the small, stooped figure beneath the purple-bordered toga, going off to “fulfill my duty.” The passionate and confident youths of the past, washed over by the current of time, have long since “died” in their youth.

Fate is Odin’s Gungnir. When we are young, we run with all our strength, believing we can outrun its reach; when we are old, it still strikes us through the heart. We regret only that we did not run faster—but there was no other choice.

Postscript

I feel that the portrayal of Julia in the novel may be a weakness. Midway through the book, an entire chapter is devoted to Julia’s perception of and longing for “power.” When she is revered as a goddess in the Greek regions, her attraction to power is subtly suggested; once public devotion reaches a certain point, it could become a force enabling her to rule—divine right of sovereignty. These depictions led me to form a mistaken expectation: that her involvement in the plot to assassinate Augustus was driven by an ambition to replace him as Rome’s ruler.

As the story unfolds, however, Julia’s desire for political power shifts into a desire for control over her own body, ultimately leading to her being exploited by Iullus Antonius.

Perhaps Julia should not be judged too harshly. As Octavius’s only biological child, she was granted an education from an early age—an exception—but even so, she studied different subjects from the boys, and this education ended when she was only fourteen. Her husband was effectively interchangeable with Octavius’s chosen successor; like Octavius’s sister Octavia, she had no agency over her own marriage and was forced into multiple remarriages. In an era when women were denied equal education, and when women could not freely control their bodies or their marriages, perhaps she did the best she could with the choices available to her.

This post was originally written in Chinese.