Character and destiny …

… Augustus — The Barnes & Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

If all of Williams’s novels are in some way about the mutation of individual identity as it engages with unfolding event, Williams manages to convey in Augustus how that was conceived by people whose views were shaped by Greek philosophy and Roman pragmatism.  This is an understanding of life where the balance between individual will and action on one hand and “fortune,” or external exigency, on the other, is fundamental.