What a name is "Hella"! If only her last name were "Goode".
I'm interested in The Giver, but I went to read more about it on its Amazon page and found that it is the first in a series. Series, series everywhere. With The Giver I was looking forward to a single book with a complete resolution, but still, I am considering whether to vote for it and either way I will read it if it wins.
I was also going to vote for The Swerve but then I went to read more about it on its Amazon page and came across some critical reviews including an excellent one by "Harold Kirkpatrick"
here, which includes this paragraph:
Quote:
|
Greenblatt seriously overstates the role of Lucretius, whose influence, until the mid to late 18th century was arguably quite marginal. Peter Gay's The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism, unfortunately not mentioned by Greenblatt, deals at length with the influence of Lucretius on French Enlightenment thinkers, many of whom really were "pagans", i.e., materialists and epicureans. The standard view, of course, is that a revival of Platonic idealism, not of "pagan" materialism, was responsible for the Renaissance preoccupation with beauty and harmony.
|
I don't like the idea of Greenblatt overstating the importance of a central point of his book; another commenter also says that Greenblatt "overreaches" in his analysis.
It is a shame. The book sounds interesting and some commenters say that despite the bias of his premise, there are still good stories and historical anecdotes in the book that are well worth reading, but I don't know now if I'll read it if it wins. I'm not a fan of slanted history in non-fiction. If I do I read it I may spend the book thinking about which things he may be overemphasising and wondering which other important things he may have left out.