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Loading... Awake (2010)by Harald Voetmann
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) brianstagner | May 3, 2022 |  This is a novel, I guess, but the start and finish are just random. It's a meditation on what Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger were thinking at different times. Pliny the Elder frankly seems insufferable with his nonstop work--was he really like this? How much of this is true and/or based on the notes written by his slaves, and by letters he and his nephew wrote? What is extant? I guess the workload would explain his accomplishments. Pliny the Younger sounds exhausted by his inheriting his uncle's works--and by his uncle's workload! Of course, this all just made me very curious about his Natural History, which I have only heard of in passing. I will make no effort to read any of it, though. 2 stars because I really did not much enjoy this. I would definitely recommend it to other readers--I don't know who, but I know some people would love this. (  ) Dreesie | Nov 30, 2021 | The short version is: Pliny the Elder, a titanic figure in Western culture for his unbelievably vast (and hubristic, if you ask me) effort to contain a description of all of Creation in one encyclopedic work, is here in his subligaculum. It's a wry, ironic character who addresses us. It's not, however, a recital (perish forbid! he did poorly at those) but a polyphony of perspectives on the topic "privilege." *** I've said more here: https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2021/09/awake-pliny-elders-final-days-writ-... I assume anyone interested will figure out how to go read it. (  ) richardderus | Sep 20, 2021 | no reviews | add a review
"In a shuttered bedroom in ancient Italy, the sleepless Pliny the Elder lies in bed obsessively dictating new chapters of his Natural History to his slave Diocles. Fat, wheezing, imperious, and prone to nosebleeds, Pliny does not believe in spending his evenings in repose: No, to be awake is to be alive. There's no time to waste if he is to classify every element of the natural world in a single work. By day Pliny the Elder carries out his many civic duties and gives the occasional disastrous public reading. But despite his astonishing ambition to catalog everything from precious metals to the moon, as well as a collection of exotic plants sourced from the farthest reaches of the world, Pliny the Elder still takes immense pleasure in the common rose. After he rushes to an erupting Mount Vesuvius and perishes in the ash, his nephew, Pliny the Younger, becomes custodian of his life's work. But where Pliny the Elder saw starlight, Pliny the Younger only sees fireflies"-- No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)839.813Literature German & related literatures Other Germanic literatures Danish and Norwegian literatures Danish Danish fictionLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.44)
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