10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Makes me happy, September 29, 2006
This review is from: Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches (Mass Market Paperback)
This book contains a variety of pieces by Lucian, the premier Greek-language satirist of the ancient word. You get a pretty big range of syles here. There's some old comedy, some new comedy, some prose, some dialogues, some longer pieces, some shorter pieces; pretty much a bit of everything. Of special interest is True Histories, which contains the first description of a space battle in the cannon of western literature, along with many other bizarre yet charmingly amusing episodes.
I personally recommend this as an introduction to Lucian becuase the translation completely rocks. It's kind of a daunting task to translate any form of comedy that is more subtle than over-the-top (you can think of this as pretty much the opposite of Petronius) and Keith Sidwell definately rises to the challenge. He adds a distinctively Irish sense of wit to the text and makes it a real pleasure to read. Plus, the footnotes explain any witty references that require a knowledge of Greek to understand, which is really helpful for the lay read.
If you love classical authors and have never read Lucian, you're really missing out! He is a hillareous literary innovator and stands as one of the gems of the classical cannon Just make sure to read most of the "essentials" (Homer, Plato, Lucretius, Seneca, etc...) before tackling this; like any good humorist, Lucian is overwhelmingly fluent in the cultural canon and references just about everything he possibly can.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this book, May 7, 2006
This review is from: Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches (Mass Market Paperback)
Lucian was the George Bernard Shaw of the ancient world. In his stories, philosophers get drunk and argue to no purpose, just like today's TV pundits. A mother accuses her daughter of not loving her, because the daughter refuses to sleep with a rich man who will ensure the mother's retirement income. A king threatens to execute someone who made fun of him for waxing his chest (a philosopher convinces the king to be lenient, and when the king asks him, "Well, I have to punish him somehow. What should I do?" the philosopher says, "Why don't you make him get his chest waxed?").
Lucian wrote about middle-class Romans in the 3rd century AD -- he uses humor to expose their hypocrisy, vanity and general silliness, but you get the feeling that he loved people for those very weaknesses -- he's sardonic, but he's also sympathetic.
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