jason:
Damn, I love reading your posts! I remember first encountering your comments a few months ago and thinking, derisively, that you were long-winded and "elitist" and pretentious (cards on the table). But... something's happened. The breadth of your learning (and curiosity, inquisitiveness) has completely won me over.
And so my evil plot nears completion! I am certainly long-winded, completely elitist, and definitely pretentious. There you have me.
Really though, I'm quite happy there's no ill will between us and never thought there was.
I love you, man, based on this. I wish you health, too. You're a great guy.
I'm quite taken aback by your compliments and truly appreciate them. It's always better to make friends than enemies.
As you probably know, I'm a reader. So, maybe you can suggest a couple books for me to read during '09.
I'm reading 3 books currently, and can recommend all 3 to you.
One book, I've not actually started yet. It's been sitting on an endtable collecting dust for months. I heard Gore Vidal praise it once and bought it. Non-fiction. John Boswell's "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (subtitled: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century")
You're reading Gore Vidal and think I'm pretentious and elitist? :chairfall:. Damn! That's some pretty heady company :biggrin1:.
That actually sounds really interesting. I'm curious how he handles the question of being gay in cultures that don't have a concept of
gay.
I'm just finishing up with Mary Renault's historical fiction, "The Last of the Wine", which was written in the 1950's. A 16-year-old boy, Alexias, is a runner. He and his 25-year-old lover, Lysis, become involved with Sokrates, and one of his students, Plato in Athens. It really is a work of art, comparable to Robert Graves.
(btw, I bought Plato's "Republic" and a collection of Aristophanes plays while reading this. Don't know when I'll get around to reading those. I love bookstores, drink coffee when browsing, make a lot of impulse purchases)
I'm a bit wary of Renault as she tends to write for 1950s audiences and ancient anthropology has advanced quite a bit since then.
If you want to understand the Greeks, the best thing to do is to read them. Thucydides is actually interesting to read as is Homer and I think you'll love Aristophanes though I urge you to understand how Greek drama was presented before reading them. Their plays were not like our plays. Read Euripides, Sappho (what's left), and anyone else you can get your hands on. They're very readable in translation. Herodotus, the Father of History, is just wonderful and you'll read about the real Battle of Marathon and just how astonishing the Greek victory was.
Plato is an absolute revelation. His dialogue is very easy to read though you'll soon feel sorry for his poor brother, Glaucon. My first philosophy teacher believed that the two thirds or so of
The Republic is entirely Socrates with only the remainder belonging to Plato himself. "All philosophy is but a footnote to Plato," and if you have any interest in it, then read it.
The Republic (along with Aristotle's discussions on science) basically set the foundation for western civilization. To read them is to see the dawn of the dominant civilization on the planet today. Don't stop there however, do read
The Symposium (really, really, gay), and
Euthyphro.
Do read the Romans too including Julius Caesar, the Plinys, Cicero, Augustus, and definitely Tacitus. The Romans were phenomenal historians and the insight they give you into Roman culture is unbeatable. The Romans cast a pretty cold and calculating eye on themselves for the most part. They were marvelously aware of where they stood in the world when both ascending and descending.
The third is non-fiction, but reads like exciting fiction, by William Manchester, "A World Lit Only By Fire (the Medieval Mind and the Renaissance") -- Magellan circumnavigates the globe; you meet a succession of licentious Popes; the daily lives of peasants are chronicled; Martin Luther; Pope Leo X; bawdy, lewd & libertine papal parties (these are my favorite parts), the selling of papal indulgences. It brings the age alive in breezy, exquisitely-detailed prose.
I love books like this and so will instantly recommend Barbara Tuchman's
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
For fiction, my heart still belongs to Eco's
The Name of the Rose. Great book if you haven't read it. But it also more belongs to the authors of the period.
Beowulf,
Tristan and Isolde (one of my favorite stories of all time),
Canterbury Tales (if you can deal with the language),
Le Mort d'Arthur,
The Mabinogian (don't get the translation by Lady Charlotte Guest as she heavily edits the explicit parts), and of course,
Decameron and
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
I think the point I'm trying to convey here is that you don't have to read pseudo-histories or historical fiction to read about these people. I think it best to actually read their own words, learn about their cultures, values, sense of humor -- how they saw themselves. Only then can you really judge what anyone else has to say about them. So go ahead and read a book that's 2300 years old. They aren't so musty, dull, and incomprehensible as all that (usually) and some, like Thucydides or the Plinys, really bring history to life in the most sympathetic way. You feel like you're with a friend witnessing history as it unfolds. Pliny the Younger's account of the destruction of Pompeii in 79AD is remarkably sad. Written when he was about 19, you feel like you're standing on the ship with him watching one of Rome's most beautiful cities die along with the uncle for whom he was named:
Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood.'Let us leave the road while we can still see,'I said,'or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.'We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.
You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.
There were people, too, who added to the real perils by inventing fictitious dangers: some reported that part of Misenum had collapsed or another part was on fire, and though their tales were false they found others to believe them. A gleam of light returned, but we took this to be a warning of the approaching flames rather than daylight. However, the flames remained some distance off; then darkness came on once more and ashes began to fall again, this time in heavy showers. We rose from time to time and shook them off, otherwise we should have been buried and crushed beneath their weight. I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, but I admit that I derived some poor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying with me and I with it."
[Needless to say, there is no copyright on Pliny's works.]
Pretty powerful stuff, eh?
Maybe you can make a few suggestions. I think we're probably on the same wavelength with historical reading.
Will xxxx
Thanks again Will and glad to know you're a friend. I look forward to discussing many other things with you in the future. :hug: