Teddy and Natalie are his Messalinas and society as a whole is like the Romans competing for the throne. Leonard is in the same boat as our man Claudius. He was actually a very intelligent man… until his super-manipulative wife screwed him over. As an emperor, Claudius expanded Rome and improved the quality of life for its citizens.
While Claudius' relatives were taken out to protect or usurp the throne, Claudius got to watch it all from the safety of his home until he was suddenly first in line. Well, the advantage of being thought of as an idiot is that you're not perceived to be threatening.
He had a bit of a stammering problem and some other quirks that made people think he wasn't playing with a full deck. We're not going to go into too much detail, but the books follow the life of a once-emperor of Rome, Claudius, and his rise to and fall from power.Ĭlaudius, in the first book, was looked down upon by his family and his peers. Okay, so what about the book itself? Well, if we look closely at the first page, we can read the words that clue us in on the books identity, Claudius the God and his Wife Messalina, the sequel to Robert Graves famous historical fiction I, Claudius. We still want to know what happens next… it just happens that next is first. But just because the story works its way backwards through time doesn't mean we don't enjoy it. We don't get to wonder what happens next we start from the end and so we already know. The irony comes from our experience as viewers. There's nothing inherently ironic about this comment and his later condition (which, in fact, seems more appropriate because Leonard gets to experience everything like it's the first time. He thinks that a novel's novelty is its primary source of enjoyment. What's interesting is Leonard's reaction. Leonard's nameless wife's reasons for reading her book so much she's worn the cover off (which conveniently doubles as an effective way of obscuring the books identity) are simple: it's good and she enjoys it. Some people just like reading their favorite books (cough* Harry Potterfans*cough) again and again, or watching entire seasons of Friends on repeat until they're literally quoting obscure Mr. LEONARD: I thought the pleasure of a book was in wanting to know what happens next.Ĭome on, Leonard. LEONARD: You've read it, like, a thousand times. In a flashback scene, we get to see what married life was like for Leonard:
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