DaneDeer

A human voice.

Revisado: 02-16-23

Harry has come a long way, and he knows it. This is a compelling view from his perspective on the monumental institution he was born into. He manages to say some pretty direct things about his immediate family without going into too much detail and coming off boorish. And his earnest feelings allow the reader to understand what he’s experienced better than any other book about or by a member of the Royal Family ever has. There are some incredible scenes of feudal privilege playing out. And there’s a story about a guy who has tried to make up for his mistakes and live up to his responsibilities amidst the maelstrom of a life in the center of a media driven hurricane. Harry is likable, most of all. And one hopes that he comes to realize how much luckier he really is than some of his closest relations—who can never hope to be real, let alone free. Well worth listening to in his own voice, I recommend this book to anyone who cares about his background or simply curious to hear what he has to say.

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Ugh.

Revisado: 09-13-22

This is what happens when a white guy who doesn’t like women decides to be clever and write a biography about a woman but it’s not about her at all it’s about some fanciful (male) rightful king of Egypt who narrates his fake life in rebellion against the alleged subject, Cleopatra. How is this allowed to be called a Biography? I dunno. It’s a mess.

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Treat this as semi fictional, a fanciful version of the Greeks.

Revisado: 11-28-20

This woman writes beautiful prose and tells a compelling version of what the Greeks might’ve been like. Her energy for the very different ways they saw themselves and the world around them are based on the record, for the most part. But she’s telling us how she would like to have imagined them. And she does this firmly from within her own context and cultural tradition. She makes some outstandingly inappropriate statements that severely damage her credibility. But as long as one remembers not to take this as an actual authority it’s a nice listen.

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Why is this author considered an expert scholar of Ancient Greece?

Revisado: 11-06-20

This is the second Paul Cartledge book I’ve read and as the saying goes: Fool me twice, shame on me.
My criticism is purely along academic and somewhat esoteric philosophical lines, though. The man can write very well. His clear prose flows smoothly and effectively enough to be entertaining. But he’s always in the way of his own narrative —he can’t resist adding his own witty(ish) subjective commentaries into what is largely a re-telling of ancient sources. Some might say this livens the material. I think it’s an irritating distraction, not least because his affected and often borderline offensive air of English bigotry. He calls all Persian attributes “oriental” for example, and does so with a relish that seems woefully out of place and willfully racist in a distinctly English way.
But even more problematic are his errors. He makes a lot of them. Perhaps worst here in his broad overview of the Persian wars. He makes mistakes no one should make and he does so at the cost of extremely important historical context (i.e. Athens refusing the generous Persian offers of monies and territories in exchange for free passage across their territory and then their tremendous sacrifice of leaving their polis to the mercy of Persian invasion. It was this astonishing act of Greek solidarity that set the tone both for the ultimate Greek victory but also for everything that came after. He doesn’t even mention it in passing)
The other annoying omission is his bizarrely subjective take on Thermopylae —which he has apparently and sadly written a whole book about... just one example of his failure would be a grossly negligent choice to ignore the fact that Sparta knew they were sending a suicide squad. Leonidas was only there to slow the Persians down and give the allies time to muster, further south. That this author does not acknowledge this is beneath contempt.

How do men like this get published and hold high positions in our academic institutions? It galls me.

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A disappointment overall...

Revisado: 10-27-20

The writing is very good and the performance is good listening. But the premise of this biography is that the author will argue a new way of reading the story of Alexander. This premise founders due to the lack of new sources —an obvious prerequisite for such a grandiose endeavor—and ultimately fails due to author’s lack of intellectual nuance. The decisions to agree or disagree with the extant sources is subjectively capricious; the author is pontificating without a convincing grasp of the material. It’s frustrating because this is one of the great histories of all time and the author simply muddies it with himself. As if his unschooled opinions and prejudices ought to be part of the Alexander story. I also find his use of “oriental” offensive in light of his obliviousness about that racist trope; he’s a Greek partisan and that is a big part of the problem.
This book is full of interesting information and it suffers from an author’s grandiosely outsized image of his own powers. It’s so tedious I wish I could upbraid him to his face.

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