Rating: 
Summary: Can't go home again; can go back to school
Review: David Denby's "Great Books" proves that even if we knew then what we know now, our academic struggles would still be up-hill. Denby gives us essentially a travelogue of his journey through the "great works of Western literature" at Columbia University, where he has returned to revisit the course material. Unsurprisingly, Denby gives brief descriptions of the works on the syllabus, paying particular attention to particular passages that struck his fancy. More surprisingly, Denby also brings us into the classroom, discussing the professors in detail while relating the other students' efforts to master the material. These exchanges are fascinating because Denby refuses to patronize the students, who seem to be a genuinely scholarly bunch, capable of digesting and reacting personally to the material. Sure, there are some low points, such as when the students run up against Dante and the eternal damnation of the "Inferno," which the students seem to reject as "so non-20th century"(!). On other works, the students are as engaged and insightful as Denby, even though they lack his life experience. Denby avoids looking down on the students for their inexperience, and he tries to see the works from their perspective as well as his own. Perhaps unexpectedly for Denby, his perspective isn't all that different from the students' in one critical regard -- he is reminded how difficult it is to keep up with the reading. In some of the more humorous passages in a surprisingly funny book (not slapstick, mind you), Denby laments falling behind in his reading, or struggling to find a quiet place in Manhattan to read, or finding moments of solitude during the daily pell-mell of parenting. In a refreshingly candid book, we are not force-fed another "education is wasted on the young" tirade. Denby's various synopses of the books on the syllabus hit and miss -- of course, he is writing as much about his reaction to the books as the books themselves, and it's a bit frustrating when Denby doesn't fall in love with one of our favorites. Denby's less-than-ecstatic reaction to the aforementioned "Inferno" is one chapter where I found myself shaking my head, disgreeing with Denby. And one wishes that a few of Denby's chapters were longer -- but hey, if you are wishing for more, that's got to be the sign of a good book, right?
Rating:
Summary: Can't go home again; can go back to school
Review: David Denby's "Great Books" proves that even if we knew then what we know now, our academic struggles would still be up-hill. Denby gives us essentially a travelogue of his journey through the "great works of Western literature" at Columbia University, where he has returned to revisit the course material. Unsurprisingly, Denby gives brief descriptions of the works on the syllabus, paying particular attention to particular passages that struck his fancy. More surprisingly, Denby also brings us into the classroom, discussing the professors in detail while relating the other students' efforts to master the material. These exchanges are fascinating because Denby refuses to patronize the students, who seem to be a genuinely scholarly bunch, capable of digesting and reacting personally to the material. Sure, there are some low points, such as when the students run up against Dante and the eternal damnation of the "Inferno," which the students seem to reject as "so non-20th century"(!). On other works, the students are as engaged and insightful as Denby, even though they lack his life experience. Denby avoids looking down on the students for their inexperience, and he tries to see the works from their perspective as well as his own. Perhaps unexpectedly for Denby, his perspective isn't all that different from the students' in one critical regard -- he is reminded how difficult it is to keep up with the reading. In some of the more humorous passages in a surprisingly funny book (not slapstick, mind you), Denby laments falling behind in his reading, or struggling to find a quiet place in Manhattan to read, or finding moments of solitude during the daily pell-mell of parenting. In a refreshingly candid book, we are not force-fed another "education is wasted on the young" tirade. Denby's various synopses of the books on the syllabus hit and miss -- of course, he is writing as much about his reaction to the books as the books themselves, and it's a bit frustrating when Denby doesn't fall in love with one of our favorites. Denby's less-than-ecstatic reaction to the aforementioned "Inferno" is one chapter where I found myself shaking my head, disgreeing with Denby. And one wishes that a few of Denby's chapters were longer -- but hey, if you are wishing for more, that's got to be the sign of a good book, right?
Rating: 
Summary: An Enjoyable Odyssey in its Own Right
Review: David Denby's GREAT BOOKS is a compellingly written, nostalgic joyride of a book proving that in some ways, we can go home again. Home for Denby is his alma mater, Columbia University, where during the 1991-92 academic year he retook the classic western literature courses that welcomed him to college thirty years before. With more than even your average eighteen-year-old's vigor, middle-aged Denby chronicles his own odyssey of sitting back down in the classroom and becoming a student again. The often amusing classroom scenes are interspersed with insightful commentary on the cultural scene of the early 1990s, as well as the movie critic's own musings on how certain of the works were and are tied significantly to moments and themes of his own life. The book is deeply enriched by Denby's capacity for wonder, and not harmed all that much by his prominent ego. Denby discovers that however much we think of ourselves, the great writers will always teach us humility--or at least the folly of hubris! Those who have also taken such courses and read similar works with serious intent may not agree with all of Denby's critiques, but then examining each other's interpretations is what we do in literature class and in life. Though some 460 pages, GREAT BOOKS rarely drags, and left me wishing it was even longer. There's no doubt that the author left a part of himself in college that it was killing him to get back, but he's mature enough to realize that attempting such reclamation is a doomed venture. Renewal is what Denby's after, and that's what reading the gargantuan likes of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare gives us. With a frank and friendly tone, Denby does a fresh and impressive job of inspiring this renewal in the reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Leonardo di Caprio as Rimbaud
Review: David Denby's need to validate his life as a movie reviewer results in this prescribed reading list which is not very different from the officially approved culture of say Harold Bloom, the N.E.A. or Jessie Helms. As a teacher's pet Denby try's to fuse radically different media to bolster his reputation among urban liberal effectuaters who read the New Yorker & "high end" low life rags like Talk.
Rating:
Summary: Book Lovers Take Notice!
Review: David Denby, a writer for the New Yorker , among other things, decided to enroll in the Columbia University Great Books program and re-read all those old masters that he had not understood the first time around. This is a friendly way to renew acquaintance with Plato and Descartes and all the "old boys". Denby gives an awestruck description of what these masters are trying to tell us, enlivened by his own observations, the gist of what his Columbia professors want him to learn and the passionate opinions of the 18 to 21 year old college students who share his classes. Here is the book I needed 30 years ago-a "user friendly" guide to the classics.
Rating: 
Summary: Classics - lite
Review: Denby goes back to Columbia College after 30-some years and retakes the two required survey courses: Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization. Although 'retakes' isn't the right word, he sits in on several different sessions as someone doing a 'project'. So although he does the readings and at least takes one of the exams, he isn't a student. His book is then his record of this experience. There are several threads running through the work: 1. His interpretation of the actual texts being read, 2. His experience of how the reading of these work influence him, 3. And to a lesser degree, how the students in the class interact with the texts and the professors. My favorite part was when he spoke of how the texts influenced his experience of his life. Although I liked this book a lot when I first read it, the further I am from it, the less I like it. I was reading a book on criticism that had the line that someone else can't read the classics for you and in the end I think that is the 'charm' of this book. Someone else reading the classics for you and you get to get the experience without having to face the discipline of doing it yourself, and it doesn't work.
Rating:
Summary: No substitute for the real thing...
Review: Denby's "Great Books" is a great book itself insofar as one treats it as a guide to the accepted seminal works of Western literature rather than a thorough investigation of these works. That said, Denby's book is no subtitute at all for a real comprehension and understanding of the books in question nor an appropriate surrogate for the Core Curriculum at Columbia. The Core is the central subject addressed by the book. In between attempting to serve as a digestion of the works in question, Denby explores the rationale for a body of knowledge which, as Columbia would assert, "every educated person should know". In his search, Denby hits upon a number of notable reasons for the maintenance of the Core and its promotion in society versus the relativist perspective of many liberal students, which he portrays as rather insolent and uninformed reactions. Even faculty objection to the Core is rendered with a certain hostility for such opinion. Denby is writing the book with the clear premise of proving the worth of the Core, rather than the purported search for its relevance. This alone makes "Great Books" a bit of a disappointment. What really drags down the book, however, is Denby's writing itself. Some books, such as Augustine's "Confessions", are treated merely with an allegorical story related to Denby's incomparably mundane daily life. In fact, most of the book is composed of Denby's rather superficial and sometimes even erroneous interpretations of the works he reads. I suggest "Great Books" only as a rather cursory overview of the Columbia Core and nothing more- unless one takes a great interest in the autobiography of a mediocre film critic or wishes to garner ideas for a tirade against liberal relativism. "Great Books" at times is little more than a typical neoconservative reaction to nontraditional ideas- ironic, given the dismissal of the students' reactions themselves as clichéd.
Rating:
Summary: Action and Thought
Review: Denby's book accomplishes what seems impossible; bringing meaning and life to the "Great Books" in an entertaining and literate way. In "Great Books" Denby, film critic for New York Magazine, describes his adventures as an adult student when he returns to his alma mater, Columbia University to take two "western civ" courses. Over two semesters, he reads works that range from the Iliad and the Odyssey to Plato, Sophocles, the Old and New Testaments, Machiavelli, Dante, Hobbes, Locke, Shakespeare, Austin and Woolf in the company of professors and undergraduate students. Denby relates each work to the text's historical context, to the class, to the other works and, in his most unusual achievement, to his own life and our modern culture by allowing us into his most personal experiences and relationships. You will enjoy this book enormously even if you have never read the "Great Books" and if you have read them, you will probably want to read them all over again. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Action and Thought
Review: Denby's book accomplishes what seems impossible; bringing meaning and life to the "Great Books" in an entertaining and literate way. In "Great Books" Denby, film critic for New York Magazine, describes his adventures as an adult student when he returns to his alma mater, Columbia University to take two "western civ" courses. Over two semesters, he reads works that range from the Iliad and the Odyssey to Plato, Sophocles, the Old and New Testaments, Machiavelli, Dante, Hobbes, Locke, Shakespeare, Austin and Woolf in the company of professors and undergraduate students. Denby relates each work to the text's historical context, to the class, to the other works and, in his most unusual achievement, to his own life and our modern culture by allowing us into his most personal experiences and relationships. You will enjoy this book enormously even if you have never read the "Great Books" and if you have read them, you will probably want to read them all over again. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: A $12 crash course at Columbia!
Review: Denby's book does it all. He has written a sophisticated Cliffs Notes, respendant with insight, of the great authors. This is more than Durant's Story of Philosophy, more than Ivan Doig's Winter Brothers (which combines memoir with biography), more than a view from the back of the classroom of some of the best teachers. I am informed and inspired. This is good reading from a good writer.
|
