Trust me on this: if you care about books, this is one you absolutely must read.Elizabeth Young has a stupendous prose style, a sinuous & interesting taste and a way of hooking you from page 1.I only heard about this because someone I know at Serpent's Tail gave me a copy, but it's a crime this book isn't better known in the USA.I am about to buy several copies so that I can give them away & make some converts.
B. E. Perry devoted his long career to the study of fables, culminating in his monumental AESOPICA.His edition of Babrius and Phaedrus was his last major work and he put in it every volt of his high-energy intelligence.His volume has a superb introduction that provides a history of the fable in the ancient world, a far longer and more detailed introduction than can be found in most Loeb editions.The translations are clear and Perry's annotations are invaluable.The fables come through very well, with deeply grounded scholarship but no drag of pedantry.Simply the best edition and translation in English.Babrius is the reputed author of a collection (discovered in the 19th century) of more than 125 fables based on those called Aesop's, in Greek verse. He may have been a hellenised Roman living in Asia Minor during the late 1st century of our era. The fables are all in one metre and in very good style, humorous and pointed. Some are original.
Phaedrus, born in Macedonia, flourished in the early half of the 1st century of our era. Apparently a slave set free by the emperor Augustus, he lived in Italy and began to write Aesopian fables. When he offended Sejanus, a powerful official of the emperor Tiberius, he was punished but not silenced. The fables, in five books, are in lively terse and simple Latin verse not lacking in dignity. They not only amuse and teach but also satirise social and political life in Rome.
This edition includes a comprehensive analytical Survey of Greek and Latin fables in the Aesopic tradition, as well as a historical introduction.
This book is classified as a memoir, and it's the funniest one I've read to date.Growing up Greek in North Carolina couldn't have been easy, but adding to the mix a crazy grandmother and a sibling with a penchant forusing towels as toilet paper makes it that much harder (and funnier, tous).David was struck with enthusiastic OCD as a child, only to findways to "cure" his tics in college.His stories of life afterschooling include apple-picking and packing, working with jade (not tomention a crazy, hypocritical Christian), and refinishing woodwork with aJew-hating Lithuanian and a somewhat confused black guy.He hitchhikeswith all levels of human decapitation until a rowdy truck driver combsthicket by the roadside looking for him.
Not all of the fifteen storiesare side-splitting funny."I Like Guys" highlights accepting hishomosexual feelings, and an undercurrent of seriousness lines the story. "Ashes" tells of his mother's cancer, and a sense of tragedyseems to sober his usually razor-sharp satirical style.
The last (andtitle) story, "Naked", tells of his experience with a nudistcolony.It's written in more a journal form (the others are written in a'flashback' form) and by the end, you feel strange in your ownclothing.
I definitely plan on recommending this book to my friends.Idon't see how you could live your life without picking up a Sedaris book.
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