A Word on Words; 0884; Collen Mccullough

more than words the programs there are groups that like colleen mccullough talks about the first man in cairo square a word and words mr johnson publisher of the tennessean an editorial director of usa today cleaning ladies and dylan singing radar and right off one of the distinguished writers of the wardrobe kelly mccullough welcome to word on words here so nice to have you back on this program after thirty years our the first man in rome the first man in rome is a book that there it is the this is a book that you know i had people describe it as monumental as a hazard to call mom truth is

in my judgment it is simply to rethink story and a great read but you know you know me you know emotional barriers that it'll be there in a month i think so but on i would have been attracted to the period to write about had on not lying how many kenyans you see it was as early as a period the things that happened and thanks to the edge and so says the delicious scandals we know about but also the dreamy genus of the politics and they wore nike it's a wonderful story when you take to a new card out ten years since and the history of all of this the eternal city

nbc today one hundred wounded an israeli lebanese army and uk to be unique some ways a venal but in some ways the noble personality they have there is about the york art is about them that that committee and two to the politics of today and i think either maurice a solo would've made it in the us i think that ignited in british politics is very different kinds of maine the one eyed michael the menu man or a home and i just we call him i read nicole what if not exactly high the other ones have call with sam from the traditional iras to credit background the imam at exactly at that bite sized types can

do it to digest is that did that they are doing here today and then you put them you know there's got to me ah romance an anti sex song what about issues like that kind of thing that deserves a neighbor lingers that's true that's true what happens also launched it would be as vital ingrained the history of the farm this ambitious marius is looking for it looking for a wave up and he gets it from a guy named cesar that's right yes nice marius married the art of the great julius caesar denying guy as julius caesar please with monotonous regularity this but the man that i'm talking about in the

beginning of this book is the grandfather is a great season and then towards the end of this book the father of the great cities are dubious himself as born in the last pages of this book and so what i intend to do of course and about two thirds of the way through the second one now and i'm writing about caesar's a top black and isn't a bowl week and moving towards adolescence and i've got a fifteen year old very yeah a presumptuous cicero you know i'm thinking as you describe caesar caesar family in what's happened is that that the year but the grand old man of his family and he really is a grand old messenger one is earth now be an indecent the media democratic instincts and he carried those over unlike many roman father's two entire family his wife is a somewhat austere and stern

bought aunt but still loving and then he has this this these two beautiful tall as one young impetuous i'm a flight the other very yeah saddam unstable and they have two sons and he wants for those sons the very best but he knows he's disappointed the family fortune soundtrack and got no way to get on there and he uses his oldest daughter someone out of character for him i think yes but an absolute necessity because had he not i would say salt his eldest daughter a range very close he arranged a very advantageous marriage for her with a man who was not his social or errors to credibly argue marius and even doing that though he enjoyed the wealthy and his children he could not in any other why ensure that it sounds

could be members of the senate and that that he's younger daughter i would have a dowry and all of these to a man of that's cesar grandfather's i usually go into myself out to amanda sees a grandfather's top would have made it imperative that that he in some way shape or form you know weak we get the from the ancient sources that the sea is a family was rather famous for making unusual marriages and that they did not as other families didn't have big you're really silly and it turns out that all this man is forty seven years old ann and julia is it is a pain that he's actually taken by retired from history that gradually add the wife of guys maori as

lucky and that remained after his data we get to not really early and down apparently was very respected in the head class in her in her social strata and she was one of the great make trends of ryan and that she's happy so happy with maurice which just goes to show that adds differences sometimes don't happen you know if you if you look in on not on the family saying this does like old folks i mean mine comes in and says but what about what about what the money for julie got to ask invisible or anything like that they do i mean anything to me everything i asked for and dejesus don't worry my mouth i'll think about what

you want to the hair to the year of the other character in the other party a solo hans solo fiat is cities and he's a mean you know you're there is a year there are the side of knowing that you can identify with but there also is this mean there is you get the sense very early on that there is very likely hasn't done very big wooden to meet an absolute rosa aguilar title ii as our oil bisexual united it as it is and we know this from the ancient so says we nairobi he led as as a young as a child and young man an absolutely impoverished life even though by birth he was a great heiress today that he couldn't even getting to politics because he had no money on the

interesting thing is that that dreadful rather know is he uses everybody's favorite character he is he's a magnificent world domain and somewhere you say youre talking of them as a warrior and you say that he is like many other lawyers strong in and courageous and then you say but but unlike many others he also had a briny and unsettle aside from set him apart and i think made him a valuable ally for from arias says so far few takers among the story that's right when i did that but they fell out badly marius and select when i fell out is is up for grabs nice people think they fell out sooner than i have had i want them to say that historically it's very hard to pin down exactly when they fill out my feeling is they fill out later and that to it

they needed each other because the period that i'm writing about those tinny is ryan was first threatened by king the gps as the media but then it was threatened by far greater threat which was the jam and it's an end and we did all those pretty early on you let us know one in the news you show obscure if it turns out to be robust and nothing he wouldn't do is a law and any hesitancy is a very sends out only on the world and just like i need it then i'm sure i think sad i'm sure it could happen and you can see the roots of that are on the air right there and that's exactly why it's well so then let's get back to sell iran and then his romance because the romance is he's living

in other news today that this done this young is susan bolton is taken and love the i believe that that some things don't change fat little changes throughout history and i believe that young girls when they conceived a passion for and io we are an age or older what if our very very high because it's a really really really fall in love with these man no matter how unsuitable a maybe i'm guy hanging me and so i invented if you like the younger daughter of sid caesar grandfather's because we do not build on her anywhere like that we deny that his city historically when i did so

his first wife was a giuliani now that would mean since the family was small wish that she would not have had to been a cousin of marius his wife juliet the daughter of sees a grandfather or else i am a sister as a novel was one of the chief problems that that you have in a thin wispy in fact to be to telling one bow arm is that you have a view that is still in any way you have to keep it as close as you can send to me is the novelist since i was not transgressing history because we honestly don't know it was easy for me to my soul is wife juliet the sister of mari says wife juliet the romans all had the same time every girl born to a dubious was called juliet so mari says wife julia being the

older i've lived as juliet the younger one of gold jewelry line look little guilty yes levin and little julian wants him and gets of baguettes a year later on her mama yes yes his german wife that we don't know what we know about solar and the germans is that apparently he operated behind enemy lines i have we know that that he kept getting a pianist so bad victim of one of the tribe's but we do not do that you sort of dropped out of sight and that he worked behind enemy lines i'm at the novelist as they had to take over because it's such a huge question mark we don't know what we did we got no way he was except that he concluded a treaty with a gym in tribe on behalf of rhyme and so you put it all together and i think that he joined the germans dramatic coloring when i work

coloring he had from recap and he had very very white skin and very pale eyes and this rate go here say would have passed as a gym and quite come for a bold one you have to play and so off he went and married a gentleman him coming home looking at you oh yeah and comparing comparing his german wife is roman wife is wrought with looking for a long narrow except that is is his rhyme and wife has stirred the breeding the background and everything else interesting thing is that the debut you'd give them this relationship with the seasons in order to legitimize each once rise is set in and power involved with maurice maurice really helps a lot you know if you know you have a job and you give us just a glimpse a nearly pages here i think

marya sea salt but doesn't know who he is a lie that's right just in that opening say yes and then you don't bring them together until maybe and to actually marry says unlike the cardinal of the fourth if you drive forty that's right but we know from history that mary is i asked for so as his work with school personnel christ that when he went to fight to go second now the big question is why because and i was seventeen years apart united's they work from totally different backgrounds mari says campaigns and why ever had kept him out of ryan so i had never been in the army because he was too poor to belong to the army because the army at that time was made up of property maine how it's logical to me that i met and that maurice was requested to help solo up the ladder

because there weren't but a symbol so so you've created a little so i created you to live because we have nothing to indicate that sees a grandfather didn't have to do it is we only know of one but with ancient history that does not mean the way not to do it just means we know there was one but it's a mystery as to find marius if our pizza love and we know he must have asked for him personally because if he'd been attached or succumbed to marius he would have returned home at the end of one year and if he was requested personally by marius he must he had to have remained in new media and to the end of the campaign which was three for you songs which he did say that for marty's must master and personally its handgun license just like a brother so clink when you were when you bring us through this

great soccer his element casa wanted been cancelled six time this hour and by that time he'd is feeling very very good about his young our price into law and the debate its party now he's in a detail but he's confident he'd like to sell this he was it was prophesied according to the ancient sources that marius would be canceled for him seven times and he believed that the very superstitious lot an end and saw a still doubting his own abilities bill not secured his own good fortune still aren't realizing that there is a great future for him is as i would be happy to be great or that he says you will be the first rental cars and use of leverage

it does have a beginning in a middle of an invisible doesn't he bought diamond dallas you've read it and i'm happily thumbing their suv read it seemed to really enjoy it has a little bit of thing is i want to know what happens in a sire that's why does more than one book because it the biggest story to tell his knee and of course when you ran across the seas is you have to ask yourself when is young jews yes and and he wrote a hebrew labs imaging number two more sabbath number three even more sour and then we have others too because it sees that i'm not trying to make the league absolute hero of this because season never put a foot wrong very difficult to make sympathetic characters that people eat them before

really is literally have we have the wonderful wonderful people like cicero it was such a mixture of a cyber unit cited headed siren woke up himself after straight friends and he could sit in awe and people are called the cook writes his nickname when he was a kid was odd the young boats yeah this nasty man fascinating and in the meantime you've got mary is getting older and so i'm getting older and all things they do and then as a young bunch come up and then as the number of books i think there be six in all eventually get pompey and sees as an and cicero being middle aged and down doing and saying things like following fed nineteen year old girls co creator activity that and then you have the young the other younger sit coming up regis cassie has an entity where neva and seizes great navy you look at alice in there so

but with one thing and another odd the downfall of the of the roman republic is one of the great stories of the world that's why i was so attracted to it you know what you do quite frankly i don't know that a conscious you give as a personality and the names are difficult and i mean for this celeb nines for a moderate is again to be very very careful but you but you give us then frequently a little anecdote that has recurring recurring but i mean the pigsty story i'm here scientists n n n n n n n n n and so my hot tub his name is as long as he's been and then he has a little bit but you know i mean it was so its effects it's possible to fight and i don't it was attending a whole narrative is a related who use and immediately identify people we go into little andy's sound the piglet had gathered this duo they rebuilt number two

great enemies of the people we go and his son would be great enemies of aria service and tried to get song tidal aren't any enemies on that that was really it was quite as tightly as a talisman they made it yet so that's right not for a reader very defeated all a little bit like that somewhat trite but the thing is that that i did have a tendency that are artistically challenging science back and i mean like the epithets that i'm a slip and it's everybody knows from shakespeare lifted its the original marcus i mean he is selected this letter this means authority nice fellow which tells you if you neither ryman is that the original lead that this was the right path state law another another theme that is a new stents so true to have two historical context is the the yen ben

feelings about roman throat yes and it's jealousy of utah over the romance it's too late to die my italian publisher is a matter of fact when i bought the rights to round faced man in rhyme semi effects say how do you know so much in that month italian polish the fact that sound sorry i don't know anything about her but it just goes to show you that in a tree topper about what that split is and the way you lose those off so quite cleverly and mr hughes's onto it early this and he'd he uses the solitaire du to wake him up to the fact that strived to cancel love with it with the group as rich at least three fanciest ponies retain his previous one of my biggest rivals and he really was at and that that's easy star

a reputation he was bruised as for instance as readers who persist with this series will find that iraq was anything but that will not pretty restrictive is truth is a lovely song he goes down to the other scholars honestly plays this on the head of an italian that's right and suddenly a ruthless on the science that maurice is on something here is there but also the reader that time is on tour we're introduced to the split this is why this is one of the things that i think one's duty as a novelist you must it must festival sustain you reduce interest even that the nine so hard and although raised it's a great story and it's worth reading for that bed you've got to you waking all these details in a way that doesn't side the action down say to me don't stop suddenly to explain in great detail

i had the gift why this does differences of feelings and opinions and bad feelings between romans and italian and you don't just wait and you don't just say they're a bit thick saturday night that with the words in the mouth or your parent that is that why the store closed so well and why have to know you've done some you have really worked hard not only in the construction fall a narrative and by introducing complex subject with easy to understand an adult but you've also just technically put into the book a whole series of guides and and and enhance i mean first of all there is the list of main character yes and then there is a glossary of terrible it is there is the promise tuition and then there are the maps and then there are the jury is

going to now i know the answer the question because but the drawing just talk about the rise in so far as they can be accurate lee you really are two of the drawings are absolutely accurate that's marius and so were we have identified busts portrait busts the best man but i in there and either would've been painted with life like they're a symbol to the skiing would've been tainted exactly the color of the men schemed he say his eyes and it would've looked like madame tussaud's lex works so when you see the romans the movies with all these white statues wasn't like that at all all the buildings are brilliantly painted so where the statues if the man was a strident course the horse was it sounded it looks absolutely lifelike but the pain wore off with the centuries

and so what you have now babies blank eyed marble busts and i thought if i since i can draw well we find my drawings up for myself and put icing they hit people would have a very much better idea now it's amazing to me how i live how much it helps me identify with each of these carp an amazingly there is a glitch in the irs melissa lane salon not polite and it's amazing he's good looking man and spectacular coloring and it but the math ice this up isn't that there's a call ruthlessness and our ears you can see this is the man whose site ran from the germans it's a parrot sits in the actual portrait colleen mccullough author of the first man in rome has

been our guest lawrence featuring john siegel this program was produced in the studios of wbez in television nashville tennessee fb