The 13 Bookson Architecture, Love and Villainy, by Cletus
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Matthews, Paul
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Matthews, Paul. 2022. The 13 Bookson Architecture, Love and Villainy, by Cletus. Master's thesis, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education.Abstract
Juxtaposing text and illustration can induce a state of subtle confusion in thereader and “defamiliarize” select elements of literary craft—in the case of this thesis, the
authorial mask in a work of historiographic fiction. The Thirteen Books on Architecture,
Love and Villainy by Cletus is an original novel in three parts, which interposes
illustrations within a First Century CE Hollywoodesque escape-caper story; a text on the
art of architecture not unlike The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius; and a series of
biographical sketches after Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of the Noble Romans and Greeks.
In the main storyline Cletus, a Gallic inmate and derisively styled “architect” of
an Ephesian carcer, survives by acting as an informant composing a compendium on the
art of architecture. As he attempts to elicit incriminating evidence from an innocent
cellmate, he uncovers a clue to the mystery behind his own denunciation. Cletus’ target –
the unusually compelling Aristion – must survive and escape for a terrible wrong to be
righted. Yet, that escape will not only doom Cletus but risk the life of his only surviving
child. The architect’s effort to unravel a conspiracy involving counterfeit Tyrian-dyed
wool, “more valuable than spun gold” and pull off an undetectable escape pits Cletus
against Roman lawyers (slightly less vicious) Parthian torturers, an infamous courtesan,
gods, goddesses, two largely misunderstood apostles, and his own failures and self-deceptions. In the end, Cletus understands, that in order to be free, both Aristion and his
true love Nerissa must become immortal and “escape without escaping.”
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