Product Description

Have you ever found yourself irritated when a sine qua non or
a mea culpa is thrown into the conversation by a particularly annoying
person? Or do distant memories of afternoons spent struggling to learn
obscure verbs fill you with dread?
Never fear! (or as a Latin show-off might say, Nil Desperandum!)
In this delightful guided tour of Latin, which features everything from a
Monty Python grammar lesson to David Beckham's tattoos and all the best
snippets of prose and poetry from 2000 years of literary history, Harry
Mount wipes the dust off those boring primers and breathes life back into
the greatest language of them all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45119 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-02
• Binding: Hardcover
• 269 pages

Synopsis
Those endless afternoons where you struggled to remember the third person singular present indicative of volo (vult) may be a long time ago. But, if you have the vaguest memory of the ablative absolute, the locative and the gerund, you mastery of Latin will spring back to life with Amo, amas, amat...and all that. In his trip through the world's most influential language, Harry Mount uncorks its magic, drawing on Latin lovers from Kingsley Amis to John Cleese, from Evelyn Waugh to Donna Tart. Read this book and you will know Latin. Know Latin and - mirabile dictu - you will know Wilfred Owen's misery, Catullus's aching heart and the comedy of a thousand bachelor schoolmasters.

Customer Reviews

Confusing
While this book amounts on one level to a light-hearted but informative take on Latin, its learning and its relentless demise in British schools, the (rather angry) final chapter left me confused as to what the author was actually trying to do.

As might be expected from a person of Harry Mount's standing, there is much humour in this piece; indeed, at times, the jocular tone and somewhat self-conscious attempts to jemmy in a joke at all costs serve to interrupt the flow and can become a smidge irritating and make the author seem a little too pleased with himself.

However, the final chapter, with its rather spiteful attack on modern textbooks and methods, sits rather uneasily with the tone of the rest of the book and gives the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Mount's intention was rather more serious than he might originally have implied. All in all, a rather confusing conclusion to a book which is certainly well worth reading by anyone who remembers those dark times of learning Latin declensions and cases by rote.

OK, but "Annus Horribilis" is better
I wanted to enjoy this book more than I actually did. I've recently got "Annus Horribilis: Latin for Everyday Life" (by Mark Walker, published by Tempus) which I found more fun and informative.

Tedious and pointless
Other reviewers have asked the question 'Who is this book for?' and that was the question going through my mind as I read it. The juxtaposition of trivia and detailed grammatical explanations is bizarre. The book attempts to be humorous but does not really succeed. This is not a book for someone who wishes to learn Latin as the grammatical explanations given are totally inadequate. Neither is it a book for someone who wishes to obtain a theoretical overview of how Latin works without actually learning the language. A reader who does not wish to learn Latin itself but wishes to learn the meaning of a few common Latin words and phrases would be advised to look elsewhere, such as James Morwood's Dictionary of Latin Words and Phrases, which despite its title, can be read from cover to cover, in small chunks, quite comfortably. Neither would I recommend this book as a refresher for the person who has already learned Latin (which is the reason I read it) as it is too lightweight.

I recognise that certain parts of this book may appeal to individuals who possess a particular type of 'schoolboy' humour, but such individuals (of which the author, presumably, is one) are not likely to be numerous. My general feeling at the end of the book was that I was very disappointed and that I had wasted my time, though fortunately not my money as I had borrowed it from my local public library.