Customer Reviews

Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Volume I: Books 1-6 (Loeb Classical Library)

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This early prose work by a North African writer, _The Golden Ass_, is a classic. The protagonist is mistakenly turned into a donkey. Actually, the mind of a man is in the body of a donkey. While he has the body of a donkey, he has retained the mind of a human being. He overhears conversations and witnesses deeds that a human stranger would not be allowed to witness. It's a brutal, funny, and memorable tale, showing human nature very honestly, warts and all.

_The Golden Ass_ was written in Latin, and it may be the only surviving Latin novel of the period. The structure is episodic, as the protagonist gets into one predicament after another (as a donkey), much like Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels, or Odysseus in The Odyssey. I think it clearly influenced early successful novels such as Gulliver's Travels and Don Quixote.

The novel is bawdier than other works which survive from its day. The bawdy, ribald humor sets _The Golden Ass_ apart from other tales, and its place in the History of Literature makes it a classic.

This is a wonderful book. However, the presentation does not alert reader to the fact that this Loeb library edition is a two volume edition and book advertised is only the first volume - need for second voume to have a complete edition is not clear in book description by these sellers.