I, Claudius, pt. 2

If you haven’t read much of I, Claudius, don’t despair. You can catch up. Stephen and I haven’t gotten very far. Not because the book isn’t good (it is!) but because Stephen’s life is very full, and so he hasn’t had time for reading; and because I lost my copy and found it only yesterday. So I’m still on Chapter V, and Stephen is on Chapter 3. (Stephen’s edition has Arabic chapter numerals; mine, more fittingly, has Roman ones.) So far, in the novel, Livia — Augustus’s wife, Claudius’s grandmother — has been poisoning many of the other characters. Just when it feels like the story is turning to something else, Gasp!, another poisoning. (This is Stephen’s summary.) I’ve also been reading some rather garish short stories by Ruth Rendell, who appears to have been, for a time, the most similar writer to Agatha Christie. And I’ve been reading a lot of other books and some philosophy articles. This was interesting and accessible, I thought (before yesterday, I’d never read it).

Also, these last weeks I’ve weighed more lbs than ever. And today I’m groggy due to illness. Still chipper, though.