1.28.2006
Best Read of 2005: Climbing Parnassus
I will post a list of my 2005 reads a bit later, but I thought with my first review I should mention one book that stands tall as I survey the year’s landscape.
Climbing Parnassus
Tracy Lee Simmons
2002, ISI Books
Wilmington, Delaware
Mount Parnassus lies a short way inland from Corinth and rises majestically above the city of Delphi. This limestone mass, marked at its base by the sacred and life-giving Castalian spring, has from the early days of Greek intellectual culture been a symbol of that which man can achieve, the heights to which man must strive. In this book the mountain becomes the metaphor for the arduous ascent to the uplands of thought.
I lingered for a couple weeks over the above title by Simmons who spends considerable time examining the purpose and history of Classical Education, as well as its content, practice and practical value. He is classically trained himself and is presently a journalist. He knows the demands of what many would consider an archaic and elitist form of education. He also knows its real usefulness.
It may seem a bit anachronistic to expect modern students to learn Latin and Greek so that they can (and will) read the classical writers in their original tongue. After all, we ARE in the electronic age. We blog. Haven’t we evolved beyond all this? Surely there are more important things to gain mastery over than enclitics and pluperfects of irregular Latin verb forms; you know, things like pixels and terabytes and megahertzes. What should it matter if I engage in the studia humanitatis or can understand the ramblings of Livy or Aurelius or Pliny the Younger or (heaven forbid) Plutarch?
For someone whose early roots were sunk deep in Science and Forest Ecology, this is an important question. History was impractical and literature only remotely interesting. But Science is here and now; innovation and far-reaching theory are best. Being tied to the past, especially the dead past, is a liability.
Simmons argues cogently for making the effort, not only from the standpoint of a journalist, but also with a healthy regard to the interests of engineers, scientists and musicians. He makes the case that the discipline of learning Latin and Greek "was never meant to yield value - at least for anyone but the pupil. They were calisthenics." It was a building process, a mental weight bench for cultivating and strengthening certain habits of mind. Classical education, however rigorous it may be during training, yields a deeper appreciation of human creativity and a more sophisticated and nuanced manner of thinking which lends itself to analysis and creative problem solving. This cuts across the grain of a contemporary educational pragmatism which is too often fixated on mere technical skill, salaries and careers.
Ultimately the fruit of a classical education, says Simmons, was that it fostered an intellectual and aesthetic culture in the mind. Knowledge was to be sought for its own sake; for the sheer love and joy of acquiring it. This then would become the surest footing of all for viewing everything pertaining to the thought life, arts and convictions of man in all his various periods of time, particularly the modern.
Climbing Parnassus is wide-ranging and rich in its erudition, and at times the reader feels like he is thrashing his way upward through thickets and vines to get to his destination. Yet the returns are worth the reader’s time and effort. Before reaching the last chapter, you may conclude, as I did for myself, that you were at one time only given a glimpse of the foothills, and now you long for the bracing ascent into the heady highlands of human intellectual achievement.
I have every intention to read this again before Summer.
Just finished: Doubts About Darwin, by Thomas Woodward. Prey, by Michael Crichton.
On the Desk and open: A is for Ox, by Barry Sanders. Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Will.
Playing in the background: Lyle Mays; Mendelssohn Choral Pieces; Planetary Chronicles vol. I by Jonn Serrie.
Climbing Parnassus
Tracy Lee Simmons
2002, ISI Books
Wilmington, Delaware
Mount Parnassus lies a short way inland from Corinth and rises majestically above the city of Delphi. This limestone mass, marked at its base by the sacred and life-giving Castalian spring, has from the early days of Greek intellectual culture been a symbol of that which man can achieve, the heights to which man must strive. In this book the mountain becomes the metaphor for the arduous ascent to the uplands of thought.
I lingered for a couple weeks over the above title by Simmons who spends considerable time examining the purpose and history of Classical Education, as well as its content, practice and practical value. He is classically trained himself and is presently a journalist. He knows the demands of what many would consider an archaic and elitist form of education. He also knows its real usefulness.
It may seem a bit anachronistic to expect modern students to learn Latin and Greek so that they can (and will) read the classical writers in their original tongue. After all, we ARE in the electronic age. We blog. Haven’t we evolved beyond all this? Surely there are more important things to gain mastery over than enclitics and pluperfects of irregular Latin verb forms; you know, things like pixels and terabytes and megahertzes. What should it matter if I engage in the studia humanitatis or can understand the ramblings of Livy or Aurelius or Pliny the Younger or (heaven forbid) Plutarch?
For someone whose early roots were sunk deep in Science and Forest Ecology, this is an important question. History was impractical and literature only remotely interesting. But Science is here and now; innovation and far-reaching theory are best. Being tied to the past, especially the dead past, is a liability.
Simmons argues cogently for making the effort, not only from the standpoint of a journalist, but also with a healthy regard to the interests of engineers, scientists and musicians. He makes the case that the discipline of learning Latin and Greek "was never meant to yield value - at least for anyone but the pupil. They were calisthenics." It was a building process, a mental weight bench for cultivating and strengthening certain habits of mind. Classical education, however rigorous it may be during training, yields a deeper appreciation of human creativity and a more sophisticated and nuanced manner of thinking which lends itself to analysis and creative problem solving. This cuts across the grain of a contemporary educational pragmatism which is too often fixated on mere technical skill, salaries and careers.
Ultimately the fruit of a classical education, says Simmons, was that it fostered an intellectual and aesthetic culture in the mind. Knowledge was to be sought for its own sake; for the sheer love and joy of acquiring it. This then would become the surest footing of all for viewing everything pertaining to the thought life, arts and convictions of man in all his various periods of time, particularly the modern.
Climbing Parnassus is wide-ranging and rich in its erudition, and at times the reader feels like he is thrashing his way upward through thickets and vines to get to his destination. Yet the returns are worth the reader’s time and effort. Before reaching the last chapter, you may conclude, as I did for myself, that you were at one time only given a glimpse of the foothills, and now you long for the bracing ascent into the heady highlands of human intellectual achievement.
I have every intention to read this again before Summer.
Just finished: Doubts About Darwin, by Thomas Woodward. Prey, by Michael Crichton.
On the Desk and open: A is for Ox, by Barry Sanders. Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Will.
Playing in the background: Lyle Mays; Mendelssohn Choral Pieces; Planetary Chronicles vol. I by Jonn Serrie.
