Cleopatra: A Life

Cleopatra: A Life

Author: Stacy Schiff

Rating: 3.5/5 starts

Reviewer: Lydia

I was extremely excited to read Cleopatra: A Life because of all the hype, controversy and mystery surrounding the subject. I love Cleopatra and ancient Egypt and the premise of this book— peeling away the “myth” of Cleopatra and discovering the real woman—was intriguing and different. Unfortunately, even though Stacy Schiff’s novel won a Pulitzer Prize, the novel ultimately failed to deliver on what it set out to do.

            However, I still enjoyed the book. Schiff’s writing is descriptive and she is highly adept at describing history in a way that really brings it to life. I normally don’t read biographies, but because Schiff’s writing style is more literary, descriptive, and fanciful, it read more like a novel than a dry record of the past. I believe that Schiff worked well with what was available to her, as very few records from Cleopatra’s time exist (and nothing which Cleopatra wrote herself survives today). Therefore, I understand Schiff’s struggle in presenting a story in which all the records are lost, and the remaining records are biased, mistaken, or downright fabricated.

In the end, I enjoyed her writing, but felt that she focused far too much on other characters, instead of the sole person behind the book, the myth, and the mystery: Cleopatra herself. I would still recommend the book as a good foundation on the subject of ancient Egypt and Rome during Cleopatra’s reign.