E. M. Blaiklock (1903–1983)

When I was much younger, I read avidly E.M. Blaiklock's slim volumes on his life in West Auckland. This is the first part of his autobiography up to 1929. Once again I enjoyed what he has to say about West Auckland and about his teaching at Mount Albert Grammar and as Head of Classics at the University of Auckland.

However I find myself much more conscious of his style and his sentences and have had to re-read some sentences several times over to get the meaning. Here is one example from p.101:

'Long pondering over the writings and the works of men was at this time, with my morning moving to the warmth of noon, making me see the wholeness of history, and the oneness of the centuries.'

On the other hand many sentences are very effective p.101 also:

'The Greeks and Romans thought, felt, feared, loved, agonized, exulted as we do.'

I was alarmed to read this on p.67:

'That was why he (A.C.Paterson) refused to teach the subject known as 'Greek History, Art and Literature', precursor of the attempts, world-wide today, to teach 'Classics without tears.' He was, of course, quite right that a culture cannot be properly absorbed without some acquaintance with the language which is its prime vehicle of expression.'

While I do not disagree with the last point, Greek HAL as taught at Victoria University of Wellington in the 1960s was my entree into a wonderful and exciting new world of Greek plays, art and artists. I do not regret any of the effort I expended on this subject and rejoice that I had this opportunity not having been able to learn Latin and/or Greek at secondary school.

This is definitely a book to be re-read at some time.… (more)

I snagged this book, noticing that it had a chapter-long historical essay for each city, and expecting that it would cover Paul's full itinerary. But alas! Mitylene (Acts 20:14) is missing. Still, it does have articles on the cities of each of the Seven Churches of Asia, which figure in a variety of esoteric lore.

Although the book is obviously intended to appeal to readers motivated by Christian piety, the author is a classicist who provides plenty of useful detail on the pagan settings of the first century c.e. It's a fairly relaxed and interesting introduction to its topic.… (more)