Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Carol wrote: "Have changed my mind about Fawlty Towers whilst eating lunch. It is not marginally racist -it is racist."

I remember laughing so hard when watching many episodes when they first aired on PBS. But I fear you are right. Times are different, and it is good that for some of us, our consciousness has been raised.

Carol wrote: " Mary Beard has a lifetime's experience in studying her subject and brings a great depth of knowledge to this account of the Romans. Hadn't heard of her book It's a Don's Life...."

The thing that I miss the most in dropping my subscription to the Times Literary Supplement is reading her regular column in which she often would recount her experiences as a don.

Ron wrote: "Do any of you all create or participate in any summer reading lists or just go based on whatever you want to read?

This is the first year I decided to create a summer list for myself. I thought it..."

Ron, it's such a good question ... but my reading list never really changes across the seasons. Around Christmas, I may read one of Dickens' Christmas stories and some other Christmas stories, but that's about it.

John wrote: "Interesting poem by Diane Seuss in the latest New Yorker.

HIGH ROMANCE

And then Keats’s ghost found
that he could no longer love
Fanny Brawne. He’d escaped
the body like a love
letter from its en..."

So good, John. I usually skip over the poems in the New Yorker. And this one makes me think I'm making a serious mistake in doing that.

And more random facts gathered from Ch. 10:

Tiberius grew increasingly reclusive during his last decade. Caligula lasted four years before three members of the Praetorian Guard killed him. And the Guard picked the next emperor, Claudius, uncle of Caligula.

The fourteen emperors who came after Augustus were more like each other than they were different. ... Hmmm, I need to think about this one.

Gibbon began writing his History in 1776.
He thought that the emperors of the 2nd century CE between Trajan and Commodus were very good.

But even the good ones like Hadrian could be cruel.

Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli was bigger than the town of Pompeii. [REALLY???]

Emperors were expected to do a lot of paperwork in dealing with decisions including ruling in court cases.

Statues of emperors … if they have beards, they are after 117CE.

The story of Augustus is really amazing ... how a young monster turned into that long serving emperor ... who most often was not a monster.

Some important facts:

Augustus framed his rule and powers in terms of Republican office holding. He was elected consul 13 times, with 11 of these on consecutive occasions.

During his rule, Rome and Italy were almost soldier free, with the legions far away. But Augustus appointed all the major officers.

For all of his power, Augustus still needed the Senate. He gave it new powers and new benefits.

Not everything worked out well. In 9 CE, there was the loss of three legions to the Germans.

And the succession problem really started with him. Which in his cases, and for many succeeding emperors was solved by adoption.

Carol wrote: "I find Beard's writing rather dispassionate and detached; she lacks the vividness of a Chernow or Schama. She does not bring events and people to life for me, which in the circumstances is probably..."

Well, Carol, she is a don at Cambridge ... so she is going to be rather donnish. Her book, BTW, is fun: It's a Don's Life.

Ron wrote: "Weather here will be close to 100 (F) next week. I hate our summers out here. It wouldn't surprise me if we hit over 110 on some occasions."

I do like the summer but not those kind of temperatures.

John wrote: "We were basically in a drought, and then what they call a “coastal low” arrived. I’ve had ten inches of rain this morning. I had been saying to friends and relatives that we could use rain."

John, it's 1:00pm EDT and I just looked at the weather radar ... even after 10 inches of rain it looks like more is rolling in. We may get some scattered showers here in Northern Virginia but just that.

For awhile, I was adding tumeric to my oatmeal in the mornings. I think I should return to that practice.

Ch. 8 provides an interesting look at property and slavery through the lense of Cicero. Cicero had 20 homes scattered through Italy. Many were relatively small and probably used by other people. One home, however, cost 2 million sesterces. This was one apparently purchased with a loan that he never repaid. How an amount like 2 million sesterces was transferred also remains an open question. With no banking system, Beard speculates that gold bullion may have been used. We know little about these large payments.

We also learn a lot about 20 of Cicero's slaves, including two who were librarians who took off on two separate occasions in search of freedom. Beard speculates that there were 1.5 to 2 million slaves in Roman Italy at this time. And they were often feared by their masters.

Eileen wrote: "In case you are interested, based on her mention that pottery in Ancient Greece was a sign of prosperity, here are a few images and a little info.:



Corinthian black-figure olpe vase, ca. 640 BC ..."

Eileen, just a wonderful posting. I often look at certain museums. e.g. the Getty, online sites ... not just to look at paintings or sculpture but their collection of Greek vases and pottery.

When I started these Books of the Month readings, I chose two months for the time to complete them. But I also wanted people to feel totally free to read at their own pace ... slowly or quickly ... and to just interact how they wanted to. I bet that you, Eileen, wil not be the last one to finish. And I don't think that you, Carol, should feel that you are really "behind." I plan to leave the current Books of the Month discussions unarchived so that others can join even after the two month formal reading period.

Ron, relaxed and fun is good!

Cynda Reads Again wrote: "Yes :-) These are on my list of possibilities with The Power of Babel high on the list. We will compare notes after I read."

Great, I've read them both. And I am currently re-reading the sections Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World that especially interest me.

Cynda, my two favorite book on languages are: Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler. It is especially good on Greek, Latin, and Chinese (I wish it had more on Japanese).

I have never been able to find a book on the origin of the Japanese language that I found satisfactory. Most are too speculative in total even if they have good chapters. This Jared Diamond article from Discover magazine about 20 years ago is good and even explains some of the problem about why some people really don't want research into the origin of the language.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-...

I Think that these two paragraphs taken form the Diamond article may represent some truths about the Japanese people and the Japanese language:

"That is, the modern Ainu language of Hokkaido is not a model for the ancient Jomon language of Kyushu. By the same token, modern Korean may be a poor model for the ancient Yayoi language of Korean immigrants in 400 b.c. In the centuries before Korea became unified politically in a.d. 676, it consisted of three kingdoms. Modern Korean is derived from the language of the kingdom of Silla, the kingdom that emerged triumphant and unified Korea, but Silla was not the kingdom that had close contact with Japan in the preceding centuries. Early Korean chronicles tell us that the different kingdoms had different languages. While the languages of the kingdoms defeated by Silla are poorly known, the few preserved words of one of those kingdoms, Koguryo, are much more similar to the corresponding Old Japanese words than are the corresponding modern Korean words. Korean languages may have been even more diverse in 400 b.c., before political unification had reached the stage of three kingdoms. The Korean language that reached Japan in 400 b.c., and that evolved into modern Japanese, I suspect, was quite different from the Silla language that evolved into modern Korean. Hence we should not be surprised that modern Japanese and Korean people resemble each other far more in their appearance and genes than in their languages.

History gives the Japanese and the Koreans ample grounds for mutual distrust and contempt, so any conclusion confirming their close relationship is likely to be unpopular among both peoples. Like Arabs and Jews, Koreans and Japanese are joined by blood yet locked in traditional enmity."

But in this area, Diamond is not a linguist ... just a good researcher who can absorb and share the results from linguists and anthropologists.

Carol, I have never been around a home heated by coal, but can still remember in sixth grade (this was 1960!} when a fellow student brought in a large piece of anthracite carved into the shape of a black Scottish terrier. It was like a rock. So I can imagine how hard it is to light it. I wonder what percentage of total coal deposits are anthracite.

John wrote: "Larry wrote: "John wrote: "As an update on my Vanity Fair Digital Subscription, it was purchased last evening and I still do not have access. My first call to Vanity Fair said it would take three t..."

I subscribed to digital access for the Times Literary Supplement three years ago. There were about five occasions where I lost access and had to send off an email to London. Do you think that I resubscribed after that year?

Cynda, there are also these two books on the Cultural Revolution:

The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976 by Frank Dikkoter, and

The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Yang Jisheng.

Cynda Reads Again wrote: "Thanks Larry. I have just finished The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act which I read for a civil right study I am doing this year.

This year I am also doing an all-things-language challenge. A friend and I are reading The Rhetoric of Mao Zedong: Transforming China and Its People. I hope to find a bit or a lot of explanation of how The Chinese Cultural Revolution came into being. ..."

Cynda, this is a good article about the Cultural Revolution ... it was so sweeping and so complex that you would have to read many articles and books to understand it. I do like this one quote from the article.

"It wasn’t so much the violence as the instability that defined the Cultural Revolution."

https://lithub.com/how-the-cultural-r...