Beware Romans bearing gifts (Asterix and Caeser's Gift - René Goscinny)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Asterix and Caeser's Gift - René Goscinny
Date:	27/10/09 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb political satire, the tension between Asterix and Obelix works well

Disadvantages: Not enough is seen of the local Romans until late on, slightly old-fashioned feel to relationships

Many fans of the famous comic books starring the indomitable Gauls, who hold out against the Roman invasion in 50BC, would hold that there are 24 "real" books in the Asterix series - which is to say, those written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo, rather than the later books entirely produced by Uderzo after Goscinny's death. "Asterix and Caesar's Gift" (Dooyoo's title is mis-spelt!) is number 21 in the series, having been published in France in 1974 and the UK three years later. As always, the English translators were the excellent team of Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge, who deserve a huge amount of the credit for the series' success in Britain.

Unusually, this particular story does not open in the familiar surroundings of the village of the Gauls. Indeed, for the first few pages we follow events only in Rome, where a group of soldiers is about to receive their demob from Julius Caesar after twenty years' service in the army, together with deeds to plots of land. These soldiers include Tremensdelerius, a boozy fellow who by the second page of the book is already behind bars for making drunken insults of the Top Man just as a patrol enters the bar in which he is holding forth. I'd actually have liked to have seen more of the disreputable area of Rome in which this bar is situated, as the opening panel in particular is superbly evocative.

Caesar, who seems a considerably more likeable character by this stage in the series than he was in the earliest Asterix books, decides to deal with Tremensdelirius in an imaginative way. Rather than punishing him directly, he simply awards him a very special title deed: that to a certain Gaulish village in Armorica! However, cunning as he is, the dictator has reckoned without Tremensdelirius's willingness to sell anything in order to get his hands on a drink, and so the deed ends up in the possession of unsuspecting innkeeper Orthopaedix, his strong-willed wife Angina and their bored teenage daughter Influenza ("Zaza").

After some behind-the-scenes bargaining, the family open an inn in the village, a situation which does not please Vitalstatistix's wife Impedimenta: the tension between the two women becomes a running theme in the story. Orthopaedix himself is mostly shown as a basically sympathetic character too weak to influence his wife, perhaps rather an old-fashioned portrayal nowadays but effective nevertheless. Obelix, meanwhile, falls for Zaza in a big way, even taking her to the forest to pick boars, but she seems to prefer Asterix instead. This leads to some spikiness on Obelix's part, and indirectly to a brilliant Shakespeare-inspired sword fight scene later in the book, which also references another very well-known character from outside the Asterix universe.

Eventually things come to a head, and Vitalstatistix and Orthopaedix face off in an election for the post of village chief - even though they can get on quite well when their wives are out of the way - and only Geriatrix seeems to care very much about the village keeping its own head! This leads into some great parodies of electioneering, and in particular a very funny and well-observed scene of a public debate, which may well have been modelled on the real general election taking place in France in the year of this book's publication. In the background, however, the Romans are lurking, and they have not been idle in devising new ways to attack the Gauls...

"Asterix and Caesar's Gift" was not a particular favourite of mine when I first read it at the age of eight or so. I suspect, though, that this had more to do with my inability to appreciate the quite sophisticated and sly references to politics (both electoral and sexual!) than with anything else. These days I have a considerably higher regard for it and read it quite often. I wouldn't say it was in the very top rank of Asterix books, as it lacks the energy and spark of the elite - perhaps because the Roman legions play less of a direct part than normal until late on in the book - but it's a solid and enjoyable entry in the series.

Summary: A solid, enjoyable entry in the Asterix series