More Not-Reading

Another not-reading report.  Life is short, so I should only read books that I enjoy.  Also, when I move books from the to-read shelf, that means more room for other books.  This particular edition of Plutarch’s Lives of Illustrious Men is certainly very pretty.  It claims to be “Translated from the Greek by John Dryden and Others.”  Who those others might be:  no idea.  I read about 200 pages before I gave up on it.

There were things I did like about the portion I read.  I enjoyed the historiographical nature of the writing, in which Plutarch says, “So-and-so says his father was this guy, but some other reports say it was this other guy, and we can’t entirely discount the notion that he was in fact the son of some god or other.” 

 

In the introductory biographical note about Plutarch himself, I marked this passage for my commonplace book:  “The treasures he acquires of this kind he secured by means of a commonplace-book, which he constantly carried about with him…” (p. xiii).  The recursiveness of copying this into my commonplace book amuses me.

 

That same biographer goes off on something of a rant in the following paragraph:  “We shall more readily enter in the belief that Plutarch collected his materials chiefly from conversation, when we consider in what manner, and on what subjects, the ancients used to converse.  The discourse of people of education and distinction in those days was somewhat different from ours.  It was not on the powers or pedigree of a horse—it was not a match of travelling between geese and turkeys—it was not on a race of maggots, started against each other on the table, when they first came to day-light from the shell of a filbert—it was not by what part you may suspend a spaniel the longest without making him whine—it was not on the exquisite finesse, and the highest manoevres of man.  The old Romans had no ambition for attainments of this nature.” (p. xiii)

 

It was instructive to note that the gulf between the haves and the have-nots has been problematic for a long time, as noted in the life of Solon:  “And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it, to be possible but a despotic power.  All the people were indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, and were, therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors; but eh most part the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one another to stand to it, to choose a leader, to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government.” (p. 135-136)

 

I also liked the opportunity of exploring a culture so different and yet so related to my own.  This is one of those books that were part of the classical education and thus formed, in some part, all those dead white men who created the world we’re soaking in.

 

That same culture, though, ended up being the problem.  I knew about the rape of the Sabine women as just a name.  Reading the account was… difficult.  Basically, the proto-Romans were a bunch of guys.  They kidnapped and raped the Sabine women because, hey, guys need girls.  Time went on, and the Romans and the Sabines (the men who were left behind, presumably) got ready to have a war.  At which time, the raped women got between the combatants and said to the Sabines, “Look, you didn’t rescue us when these guys made off with us.  We’ve tried to make the best of it and we’re now raising families with them.  Don’t kill our husbands.”  They said to the Romans, “Hey, wasn’t it enough to steal us from our homes and families, to rape us and all?  Do you need to kill our fathers and brothers, too?”  So the Sabines and the Romans made peace.  And Plutarch is like, “Hey, these women were awesome!  Worth stealing!  Five stars!  Would rape again!”  (Obviously, I paraphrase.)

 

Ultimately, the so very patriarchal and so very classist tone wore me down.  I had enough.  So I stopped reading.