Readers who get it

I googled myself because I am shallow and vain. Here are some reviews of Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by non-classicist readers on goodreads. They are the favouritest reviews I've ever had.

 

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The cover will mislead you.

It is not an aesthetic, Pre-Raphaelite, typical classic poetry collection, sometimes it is pretty dumb. It is so dumb that I burst out laughing at night like nobody is alive. 

 
Of course it is about the gossip of gods, the heroic action of the semi-gods, the fight of the mortals, the decay of our body, the pathetic nature of humanity, the nobility of the saints, and gay porn. But they are all in one book (although originally it was 16 books), that's how tremendous this book is.

In fact, there are too much references and questions that I for one not sure how I can possibly finish the book with the confidence claiming I know all it says. I simply skipped all the notes as I don't think my goal is to be a Greek mythology and history expert. I'm here for the word play.

It is also surprisingly one of the most effective story tellings; some of the poems are so dramatic and complete that they could as well be the original flash fiction. It's the most surprising read of the year for me.

 

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Snapshots of an ancient world that was just like ours: replete with tourists, showoffs, and those torn up by love and grief. I’ll be honest: some of the most affecting of these are the pederastic ones; but there are excellent hetero sex and love poems here too. I also loved the dedicatory epigrams, through which tools praise the craftsmen who made or wielded them, and the epitaphs. Many of these are prefatory to, or otherwise hint at, lost works — another way in which the book opens its milieu to the modern reader. And it’s copiously rude, satirical, lowbrow.

 

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Nisbet’s translations into iambic pentameter are generally very fluent. He’s also a terrific annotator, going above and beyond in the introduction and, especially, the endnotes to really contextualise these condensed droplets of ancient human existence.

 

I'm not entirely sure what I expected from this book, but boi howdy, did it break my heart. There are some really funny poems in it and the erotic ones made me highly uncomfortable as I was on public transport, but the children ones... Just brace yourself if you don't want to read about the death of children, genuinely. Other than that I did really like this!