Friday, November 25, 2005
Love, Sex and Tragedy – Simon Goldhill
There’s little sexy about economics; as a student I was not surrounded by mooning girls gasping for the skinny on the J-curve. I had humanities-envy. A couple of my friends were classicists – I enjoyed hearing them talk about their subjects. In comparison I felt like a gawky kid stuck to the wall of a school disco. The coolest kids did classics, and the spoddiest.
Simon Goldhill was the Lay Dean, whatever that means, of King’s when I was there. He was a forbidding figure to non-classicists, but his students loved him, his get-togethers were bacchanalian orgies compared to the sober affairs of the economists – glass and a half of white wine, some stilted chat, see you later. I suspected what he said was worth listening to, but assumed I would be out of my depth with it. When I saw that this terribly-titled book was aimed at the general reader I immediately bought it. And it did that startling and rare thing, it changed the way I looked at the world. Right from the first chapter I was noticing legacies of the Greeks everywhere - a trivial example, the names of the ugly neo-classical buildings around my office. I immediately bought from Amazon the book that made his name, Reading Greek Tragedy – it’s decorating my shelf nicely.
I sent him an email, thanking him. He replied graciously. I can only assume that he’d forgotten the other time we’d communicated: in the summer term of my first year I babbled in front of his impassive face after he’d dragged me into his office to explain a misdemeanour I will certainly not be recounting here.
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There’s little sexy about economics; as a student I was not surrounded by mooning girls gasping for the skinny on the J-curve. I had humanities-envy. A couple of my friends were classicists – I enjoyed hearing them talk about their subjects. In comparison I felt like a gawky kid stuck to the wall of a school disco. The coolest kids did classics, and the spoddiest.
Simon Goldhill was the Lay Dean, whatever that means, of King’s when I was there. He was a forbidding figure to non-classicists, but his students loved him, his get-togethers were bacchanalian orgies compared to the sober affairs of the economists – glass and a half of white wine, some stilted chat, see you later. I suspected what he said was worth listening to, but assumed I would be out of my depth with it. When I saw that this terribly-titled book was aimed at the general reader I immediately bought it. And it did that startling and rare thing, it changed the way I looked at the world. Right from the first chapter I was noticing legacies of the Greeks everywhere - a trivial example, the names of the ugly neo-classical buildings around my office. I immediately bought from Amazon the book that made his name, Reading Greek Tragedy – it’s decorating my shelf nicely.
I sent him an email, thanking him. He replied graciously. I can only assume that he’d forgotten the other time we’d communicated: in the summer term of my first year I babbled in front of his impassive face after he’d dragged me into his office to explain a misdemeanour I will certainly not be recounting here.
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