Now that I have finished The Swerve, I have to say, it's a perfect book for me. I took 4 years of Latin, so I understand the attraction someone could have to the perfect beauty of Latin verses that represented the epitome of a culture. And how fun to read a book so worshipful of Epicurus :-) He's one of my favorites. And I have to say, it's been ages since I read On the Nature of Things- and I'm going to reread it now.
I had so much fun reading parts of this to my class. We study Julius Caesar (both the history, and the Shakespeare play) and now I know the first public library was conceived in 40BCE- during his reign- but not completed, while he was alive. How cool is that? That's a fact I might actually be able to remember. But just in case i wrote it down in my notes on the play. And my kids LOVED the curse on the manuscript. LOVED it. I'm having it put on sticky notes to put in my personal books. Won't that be a kick? I wanted to put them in my library at school- I've got a few thousand books in my classroom, for my students, but due to its religious nature I don't think i can use it there, even as a joke.
I see other readers were also struck with amusement by The Curse:
]¶ Mr. Greenblatt reprints a curse that one monastery placed in its manuscripts upon those who neglect to return books. Some readers, I suspect, will wish to write it in their own books, perhaps even this evening. It begins: “For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted.” It goes on: “let bookworms gnaw his entrails”; “Let the flames of Hell consume him forever.” Amen, brother. |
