(no subject)

[skygiants]

Recently I keep having conversations with people that go like this:

me: allow me to show off to you how much I know about the Roman Empire
interlocutor: yes good job you've named four emperors, congratulations
me: it's because I just recently read this book on murder in ancient Rome! the book was very interesting and asked thoughtful questions and contained a lot of useful information thoughtfully presented --
interlocutor: sounds great!
me: BUT, also, unfortunately, it's written entirely in BUCKLE UP TWITTER style --
interlocutor: ah.
me: but the information IS really good, I just wish the book would stop apologizing to me for giving it to me! I'M READING THIS BOOK BECAUSE I WANT INFORMATION! PLEASE STOP ASSUMING THAT I'M BORED BY THE INFORMATION I PICKED UP THE BOOK FOR!!!
interlocutor: I see this book left an impression.
me: yes. sorry. would you like another factoid about the Roman Empire.

The book is called A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (as many of you already know as I have seen many of you already post about this book in more or less exactly these terms, and of course you were all right.) It's a detailed, thorough examination that begins by asking the question of what kinds of killings actually count as murder, and whether you can call something a murder if it's only considered as damage to an individual rather than a crime against the state for which retribution is enacted by a state, which in many cases ancient Rome didn't -- which is an angle I would never have thought to consider and provides a really good lens for through which to examine Roman society as a whole. The author works her way down from the big famous Imperial murders through patricides, matricides and street crime down to the perfectly-socially-acceptable-in-Rome deaths of gladiators and slaves with specific examples and useful analysis and I really enjoyed reading it, except when I hit a phrase like this and wanted to throw the book across the room:

Before we get there we need to see how murder became so central to Roman politics, and I'm sorry but it involves a lot of politics and chat about land reform policies, and it's awful. We can get through this together; I believe in us.

STOP! STOP THAT!! JUST TELL ME ABOUT THE LAND REFORM! I PROMISE YOU I TRULY WANT TO KNOW!

Comments

[skygiants]

YOU'RE SO WISE. I think the thing that bugs me about it in 'buckle up' context and as translated to this text is the sort of imposition of an imagined person on me, the reader; this imaginary person knows nothing about history and is bored by background and nuance but wildly eager to be wowed by salacious detail and I don't enjoy the superimposition of the portrait!

(And this is also wildly hypcritical of me, as I too often use the tool of 'imaginary interlocutor' to write about a thing, as in this very post! however.)

[kate_nepveu]

Oh geez.

It's like a self-deprecating fic summary, which always makes me quietly close the tab.

[aella_irene]

This makes me so mad. I might really enjoy this book, but "Buckle Up, Twitter!" makes me grit my teeth

[osprey_archer]

Never have I read a book simultaneously SO FASCINATING and yet SO INFURIATING in its insistence on apologizing whenever things got good. OH MY GOD, this is not a middle school cafeteria, I PROMISE I will not dump my mac and cheese over your head when you go on too long about the Gracchi. PLEASE go on about the Gracchi. There IS no such thing as going on too long about them.

I found the contextualization about Roman society good enough that I went on to read Southon's earlier book Agrippina, and it's much better about letting its geek flag fly without apologizing for it all over the place. I especially loved the way that it delved into the unreliability of all the available sources: they were all written decades if not centuries after the fact, the authors had their own emperors they needed to suck up to, ancient Romans believed devoutly in the statement "well-behaved women rarely make history" and they did NOT mean it as a compliment to the rare woman who did, etc etc.

[sophia_sol]

Oh that's EXACTLY what it's like, yeah! And I have the same reaction to it.

[brownbetty]

It's not like you're reading a book about air-conditioning repair, which you might be doing out of something besides unmotivated interest!

[lirazel]

This is so interesting--I feel like the book I'm currently reading (Forget the Alamo) is doing a similar thing and it irritates me as well. While I hate the "buckle up tumblr" stuff (which is where I experience it, seeing as I do not do Twitter), I would have thought that a conversational-style history book would at least be an interesting thing to read. But alas. I just don't like it at all. I guess other people do, though? It's certainly got very good ratings. And I think the actual research of the book is good; I just wish it were in a different style.

Before we get there we need to see how murder became so central to Roman politics, and I'm sorry but it involves a lot of politics and chat about land reform policies, and it's awful. We can get through this together; I believe in us

GROSS I HATE THIS.

[lannamichaels]

That sounds like a topic I would like, but a book I would throw across a room.

[lannamichaels]

I'm so confused. It's as if fanfic stopped in the middle to be like, before we get to the kissing I'm sorry but we've got to have some mutual pining while sharing a bed, I know, I hate it too, no one is here for this, but we can get through it together.

Next time I get a metafiction square in a bingo card, I should definitely do this, but I don't know if I could keep the bit up long enough to hit a minimum word count of even 500 words ;)

[larryhammer]

Bingo. I totally that too.

[copperfyre]

But but but - surely if you’re reading a book about Roman history you’re at least vaguely interested in, uh, Roman history?!? This sounds fascinating content wise but aggravating in execution, but I think the former outweighs the latter for me so I shall see if I can get hold of it! Thanks for the rec! (And the warning re: tone!)

Currently I’m listening to a podcast about the history of the Byzantine Empire and truly I am learning that the root of everything is actually land policies and reform.

[troisoiseaux]

OH MY GOD, this is not a middle school cafeteria, I PROMISE I will not dump my mac and cheese over your head when you go on too long about the Gracchi. PLEASE go on about the Gracchi. There IS no such thing as going on too long about them.

I don't want to armchair-psychoanalyze the author, here, but it definitely felt like a. she expected the selling point of her novel to be the "murder" instead of "in ancient Rome" part / her target audience to be listeners of true crime podcasts who aren't interested in ancient Rome per se; and b. she seemed kind of self-conscious about her interest/expertise, which as you said, makes sense in the context of a middle school cafeteria but less so in a book that she wrote and published and I am paying to read, you know? (We're not the Cool Kids, Emma! We're the fellow Weird Kids! Stop trying to write for the Cool Kids! Embrace your tribe!)

[evelyn_b]

Ha, exactly. I don't necessarily always mind the BUCKLE UP style as such, but. . .for heaven's sake, we're all nerds here; I promise you that I, the reader who deliberately bought a book about ancient Romans of my own free will, will not judge you for caring to much about land reform.

[lizbee]

But if you're reading ANYTHING about Roman history, a baseline level of interest in land reform is assumed! (My interest was sub-baseline, which is why I did not do grad school.) THAT'S HOW ROME WORKS! MURDER AND LAND REFORM! NOT ALWAYS IN THAT ORDER!

[plinythemammaler]

*vibrates* I enjoyed Italian Manpower and Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic by Peter Brunt as an undergrad and I'm very excited for other land reform mentions. I can also 1000% promise that unlike other ill fated.book recommendations no one hooks up with anyone's dad at any point in either of these

[bookblather]

Fully legitimate! For some reason The Invention of Anne Boleyn actually irritated me more than this book but I could not tell you why. Anyway. Different strokes, I guess!

[genarti]

RIGHT, this is exactly my dilemma.

[luzula]

...I have never heard of this "buckle up" style, and given people's responses to it, it seems I'm not missing much!

[skygiants]

I'm trying to decide how I would feel if a book I were reading about air-conditioning repair suddenly took a chapter to talk about land reform instead and tbh I wouldn't be mad.

[skygiants]

I don't know why it's so difficult to find nonfiction books that meet my general preferred standards of:

a.) well-written
b.) well-researched
c.) consistently clear and accurate about the difference between source documentation and speculation
d.) neither condescending nor annoying

but it's hard to even get three out of four and all four seems near-impossible!

[skygiants]

I don't at all regret reading it but experience was sometimes a fraught one!

[skygiants]

I hope you enjoy it! I did find the actual contents really fascinating and do truly wish I had taken notes.

It does seem like it's really important to get the land reform as grounding (so to speak) on almost every topic!

[skygiants]

Sometimes it bothers me more than other times, but in this case I desperately want Dr. Emma Southon to believe in herself and in me -- as indeed she says she does -- to an extent that presupposes that we can both handle some basic historical context!

[brownbetty]

But what if it's, like, 42 degrees outside?

I mean, I guess pages can be flipped, in that case, it's not like anyone can really force you to read it no matter what.

[skygiants]

I admit my interest in Roman history did largely originate with the Roman-set mystery novels I used to read as a teenager, but that's why I need to learn about the land reform now!