Malicious review in TLS strikes a chord with me

Copyright 2018, InterAmerica, Inc.

Harry Strawson, studying for an MA in Classics at University College in London, took to task Frederic Raphael’s Antiquity Matters [Yale University Press, $26] in TLS [the Times Literary Supplement] August 3, 2018 [Pages 28-29].

The review caused me to order the book posthaste from North Atlantic Books.

Mr. Strawson wrote that “Raphael’s sparkling conversational style has little time for the duller but enriching work of explication."

"Raphael is consistently interesting; but it can be hard to keep up once he settles into his digressive narrative.” [Page28

“More interested in displaying his own cleverness than in offering a meaningful introduction to the ancient world, Raphael fails to make a case that antiquity matters much beyond intellectual showboating.” [Page 29]

(Who does Raphael sound like?)

Frederic Raphael offers a riposte to Mr. Strawson in the August 17 TLS correcting Mr. Strawson’s slight slur that Mr. Raphael wasn’t a bona fide academic. [TLS, Page 6]

What enthused me about the review were the many examples of content therein: A note about Marcel Proust’s father, an anecdote about Pier Paolo Pasolini (the perverse film-maker whom I adore), a snide remark about the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, an insight about the "ban nuclear weapons" movement, and, especially a note about Lucian’s second-century tale of visiting the moon:

https://publicdomainreview.org/2013/06/26/lucians-trips-to-the-moon/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story

I sympathize with Mr. Raphael, a writer after my own heart and an academic chap who provides, it seems, entertaining material(s) that normal folks can understand and enjoy.

RR