A review by bookforthought
The Immigrant Queen by Peter Taylor-Gooby

challenging reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I rarely pass by an opportunity to read a female-centred retelling or historical fiction, so when I heard about The Immigrant Queen featuring Aspasia, I knew I had to read it.

Athens clearly comes across as a city of contradictions: it is widely regarded as "the cradle of democracy" thanks to the fact that citizens could vote on public matters in the Assembly, yet "citizens" were a very limited category made up exclusively of free men - a minority of the city's inhabitants. Women and foreigners had virtually no rights, and slavery was widely accepted.

Of course. I understand the rules for women in Athens: always keep your eyes cast down, as if ashamed", her voice strengthened as she spoke, "always you must walk behind, as if you needed guidance; always be veiled, as if you carried the plague; never have an opinion, as if you were a child.

In this context, Aspasia is a truly fascinating figure: a foreigner with a past as a sex-worker who became the only woman in Socrates's circle, debating with the wisest men of the time and composing dialogues much like Plato's (which were sadly lost). She also became the lover-then-wife of Pericles, the city's most formidable statesman at the time, frequently counselling him on political strategy. She was ambitious, highly intelligent and capable - and mostly erased from history.

The goddess offered Achilles the choice: a short life but glorious, remembered in song and story, or to plough the fields in a forgotten kingdom and grow old by the fire. He chose glory. Why should a woman not choose glory too? Not to be remembered for the man who chose her and the children she bore but for the deeds she did.

I appreciated the fact that Aspasia's story was told through the eyes of her slave, Limander, who is an educated bard taken captive when the Athenian army attacked his hometown. Limander is a keen observer with access to rooms others wouldn't normally be allowed in, who reports back on the conversations that are had behind closed doors. He is favoured by his mistress, yet he is keenly aware of the living conditions of his fellow slaves and the inhumanity of it all, highlighting the contrast between the way Athenians think of themselves and how they behave towards all those groups they consider to be inferior. The relationships he builds with the other slaves in Aspasia's household are deep and meaningful, their solidarity built out of necessity and the desire to keep hold of their humanity.

In Limander's outings in the city on errands for Aspasia or secretly meeting his noble-born lover, we readers are offered a snapshot of what life in Athens must have looked like, amid great cultural ferment in theatres, politics and philosophy, and devastating social inequalities and iniquities. It is clear the author did an amazing amount of research to fully recreate the atmosphere and make ancient Athens come alive (despite a couple of anachronisms in dialogue, which I hope will be fixed in the final version of the text - such as a character saying "OK"), and it really shines through.

What I was perhaps less taken with was the character of Aspasia herself. As the story is told from Limander's POV, we are never privy to her innermost thoughts and feelings, only to what she chooses to share with those around her. Despite some powerful quotes on the role of women in society, Aspasia is still predominantly portrayed in connection with Pericles and her relationship with him. For instance, there is only one scene by my count in which she converses with Socrates by herself, sharing with him passages of the dialogue she is writing on outlanders and citizens. This honestly disappointed me and felt like a missed opportunity to tell a woman's story without having her portrayed only in relation to the famous man in her life. I did appreciate the scenes in which Pericles counsels with Aspasia on his political strategy, and that was precisely what I would have liked to see more of.

They remember so many great men - Aegeus, Theseus, Solon, Draco, Cleisthenes, Themistocles, Aeschylus, Miltiades and all the others. Why should they not one day remember a woman?

Overall though this was an engaging read, and I was interested in seeing the parallelisms that could be drawn between populist rhetoric in the past and nowadays - perhaps with a bit of sadness that not much seems to have changed at all. 

I received an e-arc of this book as part of the blog tour organised by Random Things Tours. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.
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