How to Read a Difficult Book.

Thucydides is next on my reading list, and I'm highly motivated to read his book 'The Peloponnesian War'.

The problem is, it's a long and complex story. I read the two legendary passages in a previous pass - the Melian Dialog and the Funeral Oration of Pericles. Then I tried to read it through and got stuck. I need help.

So what I've done is great guidance for reading any difficult book.

Start by doing one of these two things first. Either:

- Read through the introduction and notes briefly looking for single words or phrases that praise the book, seeking to just appreciate the text and get a bit of positive emotion flowing. (For example, the intro to Thucydides calls his prose "muscular" - which I find interesting!)

Or:

- Simply count the number of pages of the actual text only. Don't count the opening pages, notes, and outside matter. For example, the introduction to Thucydides is 30 pages long. The text, minus the notes, ends at 600 pages. So the text to read it 570 pages long.

Either get an objective measure of how much you must read to complete the book, or generate a subjective sense of how much you could potentially enjoy the book. Simple!

After you've done that, then you can extend both the subjective and objective approach further.

I'll start with objective.

Thucydides' book is 570 pages long. He divided it up into eight books. How many pages per book roughly? Well, eight times seven is 56, therefore each of the eight books of Thucydides is on average seventy pages long. That's the size of a medium sized novella.

Now for the subjective:

If we examine how the writer organized the book itself into eight books, the book seems to suggest is that we read Thucydides not like a 570 page history, but like eight novellas about the same topic. Immediately I can feel relieved knowing I can read an eighth of the book and put it aside for a week to do something else. I don't have to hold the whole thing in mind. Instead of one huge book, Thucydides is now eight short books.

So, if the 'Peloponnesian War' is really 8 books in one, what are they about? How do they relate together?

There are three ports of call to answer this question: the table of contents, the opening paragraph of each book, and the closing paragraph of each book. Reading all of those will let me find nice dramatic interesting titles for each book. And notice it's a fun way to get subjectively engaged with the book, once again?

From a glance at book one, I wrote "Fear Brings War." That's my personal title for book one of Thucycides - the way I think about and feel about that text. This creates a sense of engagement and ownership of the meaning of the text. It's my book, not just any old book.

Book two - Noble Athens under pressure.
Book three - Civil war in Cocyra.
Book four - Athens kicks ass.
Book five - Athens violates integrity.
Book six - Athens versus Sicily, and the treachery of Alcidiades.
Book seven - War at sea.
Book eight - The end of democracy in Greece.

Now, many of these will be inaccurate or irrelevant; the point is not truth but stimulating interest and passion to read. The point is to engage with the text. At this stage of reading I just want a hook to get and keep me interested.

I will be dipping into the first book now looking for what interests me most. In a sense I will be creating the text in myself rather than passively allowing it to pour into me like historical sludge.

In conclusion, a hard book is not a hard book unless you read it in a hard way. If you read a hard book like you would read Harry Potter, by starting at the start and just pushing through, then you'll probably lose your way at the first difficult passage.

Instead:

1 - engage with the text in nonlinear ways
2 - move between gathering information on the structure of the book and appreciating the qualities of the book
3 - find words and ideas that get you excited and motivated to read on.

If you do this, you'll certainly enjoy the best books more and more, no matter how difficult they are to others.

Reading the Jewish Book of Samuel, Part One and Two

I was delighted to read the two books of Samuel in the old testament in the last week, as part of my Great Books readings.

The two books form one story, which is the transition of the rulership of Israel from priestly judges to kings. One can assume this is the shift from oligarchy, or perhaps a federated tribal system, to a centralized monarchy.

In many ways the books of Samuel parallel the Annals of Tacitus when he writes about Tiberius. The same transition from a loose system of government to a focused one is taking place. But in the books of Samuel the transition is located in a kind of primitive mythical state of consciousness.

That is not to say the history is not good. Rather, the characters about which the history are written think in simple terms about complex issues. For example, time and time again, reading about Saul's psychotic jealousy and David's brutal and ruthless realpolitik, I find evidence of the most base desires and instincts in these folk heroes. And what are we to make of Jahweh himself, a character who seems at best whimsical? At times the god of the books of Samuel kowtows to the Israelites, and at other times he reacts with brutal unfairness. The Jahweh of the books of Samuel makes Homer's Zeus look positively humane!

In any case, the way the story is written is remarkable given its antiquity and coherence. I found it an enjoyable read somewhat similar to reading a Robert Jordan fantasy novel, and just as barbaric.

Some subjective impressions:

I keep wanting (as Harold Bloom adjures us) to admire King David, and finding in him nothing to admire beyond the machiavellian intrigue of a Renaissance head of state. I find his brutality disarming. Is this is the blessing of Jahweh, the mercy of the Israeli's? Obviously harsh times require barbaric measures, but more than once I find myself dismayed by David's ethical conduct.

Absalom is an sympathetic character. The tragic dimensions of father against son seem obvious to me, with Greek drama under my belt, but to the historians of old Israel they see only a harsh justice against he in whom Jahweh is not pleased. Absalom dies and David triumphs, but one cannot help but wonder what kind of king Absalom would have made instead of Solomon.

I notice the high quality of the story. Knowing the end of the story from earliest childhood, I cannot help but find these histories exciting reading. At times I try to reconcile this violent and primitive folk story with what I know of Jesus, and cannot. The books of Samuel fall so far short of the gospels as to be hardly of the same dimension of existence. Jesus is to David like salt is to sand; Christ accumulates on top of the ancient king's story without being at all the same as it.

Reading the Aeneid of Virgil, Blow by Blow

I read books 3, 4, 5 and half of book 6 of the Aeneid tonight (so far). Publius Virgilius packs a lot of story in his text. I can best appreciate this work in the light of Homer, the tragedians and Plato; the summation of all story up til his time is simply remarkable. It is is as if Virgil in his epic has set out not simply to tell a story, but to give all Story, the archetype of story-ness, the All-Story. But he is not summing up like Homer; characteristically Roman, Virgil seeks to engulf the memories of stories past. Virgil's Aeneid is a colony poem in more ways than one.

And what about the person, the consciousness of Virgil? I must admit I read Virgil through the more accessibly humane Dante. So much of Dante is clearly enriched by Virgil, that if the character Dante had not kept him at his side the strength of Virgil's poem would have overcome Dante the poet. Keep your literary influences close - this seems to be Dante's approach to Virgil.

Virgil sometimes comes across as a bit of a patchwork man. The story leaps from reference to reference of other men's work - and it works, it flows, but we do not clearly get a sense of the cohent consciousness of a work. At least, not yet. Maybe I ought to read on before I judge the man!

The poetry is fine. I have fiddled with many translations, and chanced on the Fagles-like one by Kline, which is superbly lucid compared to the Dryden (best of the olde translations). Tony Kline's Aeneid is free online, and has the benefit of having the books subdivided into the more precise episodic structure. This means the reader gets to rest without losing the thread, and gets reminders of what the thread was, and the sense of the story stands more clearly out than if we just have books one to twelve. It really helps the read. Also, Kline's version renders words that past generations might have called the 'moral sentiments' into plain emotions, which is a bit more real.

Kline's translation of Aeneid is not fancy, but neither is it pedestrian - the poetry reads simply and roughly into Virgil's luminous verse. Compared with ye olde Englishe translations, with which one needs to stop and mentally retranslate into modern English every dozen lines, Tony Kline's translation is a pleasure to read.

Update: I'm now at book 8, and the patchwork is becoming clearer. It makes better sense how Virgil's exercise in epic poetry is not an end in itself but a means to justify the Roman empire. But I can also see how, by making the poem a means to a political end, Virgil undercuts his personal source of inspiration. One cannot turn such sophisticated and urbane critical and aesthetic faculties onto the legends of the founding of Rome without also uncovering something of a critique of the beautiful lies of armed force. Virgil's falterings really illuminate why the Romans were relatively scarce in creative genius: it is hard work being a good Roman!

Update: Finished. I can see why Virgil didn't finish the poem. love the first half of Aeneid, but the second is like reading Rupert Brooke's war poems for a few thousand lines. Pathos becomes bathos. Lyrical emotion become prim patriotism. By the time Turnus dies it is just dreary, and the rage of Achilles has become the duty of Aeneas. Meh.

Part two Aeneid sucks more than Scylla's whirlpool. I suggest prospective readers read up until the Trojans land in Italy and stop there. For reading pleasure, the first half is superb. Trust me on this one: the Trojans settled Italy just fine.

A Lost Classic - Aeschylus' Proteus - Reimagined From Homer

I spent the night reading Aeschylus' Eumenides, Oresteia part 3. What a letdown. I guess the lost 4th play Proteus was the thing to catch the king.

I googled "Aeschylus Proteus" yesterday afternoon, but for once Homer's Odyssey is a better bet than the world wide web. Menelaus tells Telemachus the story directly, and I can easily imagine how Aeschylus would change it.

Homer brings Menelaus home for a tragic grief scene. In the satire play, Aeschyus would make Menelaus visit Athens. Menelaus, deluded by Proteus to imagine Athens to be his native Argos, shows how absurdly pompous Athenian leaders are in comparison with the returning hero. Then he meets Orestes his nephew, still living in Athens, now a sophist and teacher of youth, who tells him the tragic tale, and ends the four plays on a bizarre note of Menelaus realizing that he has got everything wrong. The home coming hero returns to the wrong home.