Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World [Paperback]

We only get very little of this in the 5 page epilogue. I think that should have been the main focus of the bow. It's like the film critic forgot (or was unable to) to criticize (that is: evaluate, look for different perspective) and not just carbon copying his reading of books.

The book is a very personal book, almost a diary. The author writes his personal thoughts about (some of) the books they are reading. We hear about the other students only when it's relevant for his reading/understanding, but nothing else. I thus don't get insight from reading Great Books, just a story, and very simple introduction to the books.

The book didn't help me to become interested in Great Old Books, nor gave it me any understanding of them. It's nice talk for people already interested in them, and already knowing the stuff he writes, but he doesn't enable readers to learn.

Every objection to the list of books by other students are dismissed without much thought. Every teacher is perfect (he surely doesn't criticize them). It's like it so important for him that the year back at university is his nirvana, that it disables him from seeing anything negative, from performing criticism. So I think the book is a tribute to the books of Great White Men, what he surely denies because that wouldn't be politically correct...

Jaye Beldo: Netnous@Aol.Com

Denby gives us essentially a travelogue of his journey through the "great works of Western literature" at Columbia University, where he has returned to revisit the course material. Unsurprisingly, Denby gives brief descriptions of the works on the syllabus, paying particular attention to particular passages that struck his fancy. More surprisingly, Denby also brings us into the classroom, discussing the professors in detail while relating the other students' efforts to master the material.

These exchanges are fascinating because Denby refuses to patronize the students, who seem to be a genuinely scholarly bunch, capable of digesting and reacting personally to the material. Sure, there are some low points, such as when the students run up against Dante and the eternal damnation of the "Inferno," which the students seem to reject as "so non-20th century"(!). On other works, the students are as engaged and insightful as Denby, even though they lack his life experience. Denby avoids looking down on the students for their inexperience, and he tries to see the works from their perspective as well as his own.

Perhaps unexpectedly for Denby, his perspective isn't all that different from the students' in one critical regard -- he is reminded how difficult it is to keep up with the reading. In some of the more humorous passages in a surprisingly funny book (not slapstick, mind you), Denby laments falling behind in his reading, or struggling to find a quiet place in Manhattan to read, or finding moments of solitude during the daily pell-mell of parenting. In a refreshingly candid book, we are not force-fed another "education is wasted on the young" tirade.

Denby's various synopses of the books on the syllabus hit and miss -- of course, he is writing as much about his reaction to the books as the books themselves, and it's a bit frustrating when Denby doesn't fall in love with one of our favorites. Denby's less-than-ecstatic reaction to the aforementioned "Inferno" is one chapter where I found myself shaking my head, disgreeing with Denby. And one wishes that a few of Denby's chapters were longer -- but hey, if you are wishing for more, that's got to be the sign of a good book, right?