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Jul. 15th, 2021 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsRecently 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!
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!
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Date: 2021-07-16 04:25 pm (UTC)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!)