Laughter in Ancient Rome
on Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up

I thought I'd give Beard another shot after Confronting the Classics left me so cold (and sick to my stomach, after reading her commentary on the eroticism of pedagogy). My mistake. Beard manages the signal accomplishment of making a book on laughter boring and impenetrable. Again, she focuses on th......more

Holy crap. Mary Beard has a true gift for making things people thought they knew practically unrecognizable. This time the study is Roman laughter: but even more broadly speaking, the idea of laughter as a field of historical inquiry (whether to study the practice of laughter itself or simply the th......more

I'd previously heard Mary Beard interviewed on radio and had therefore picked up and read her book on Roman triumphs. This new title came as a gift from a Canadian bookseller friend. If you're expecting to join in the hilarity of the ancients, I doubt that this book will do the trick. Only four of th......more

Normalmente DEVORO todo lo que escribe Mary Beard, pues es una de mis autoras favoritas. He aprendido muchísimo sobre la antigua Roma con ella y me gusta mucho su forma de escribir. Pero este libro no: este libro me ha costado la vida terminarlo; se me ha hecho árido y pesado, y el vocabulario un poc......more

The material, although interesting, is delivered in a long-winded and dry fashion. In particular, the first three chapters rhapsodising on what laughter is, could have been condensed or, in my opinion, omitted entirely.......more