The Jewish War read-along (or: Classics Post #2)

[cahn]

Our beloved problematic author, Flavius Josephus, with the wild plot twist in the middle! Is anyone still interested in doing this thing?

I have the Oxford World Classics edition; I looked around and I liked this translation, and it's got copious footnotes. Each "book" is a little less than 100 pages on my kindle, and I think I can probably read about 50 pages every week (we can see how it goes and whether I can go faster or must go slower), so I propose dividing the first "book" into two, and reading half one week and half the next. (I did read the intro this past week, but I'm not sure how much I got out of it.) selenak, would you be able to find a good dividing point of that first book? My goal would be to post every weekend (probably on Sunday, but depending on time) on the reading thereof.

I also feel I should open up this post for general classics discussion if anyone wants it. Depending on how my reading goes I also reserve the right in this post to review whatever other random classics-related or modern-historical-novels-set-in-the-time-of-the-classics reading I do.

Comments

[skygiants]

oh I WISH I had time to do this but I'll be reading your posts with interest!

[cahn]

:D Excellent!!

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Just ordered the book! (I got it on paper, so I probably won't have it this week and will have to play catchup. But I hate footnotes on the kindle.)

[cahn]

Excellent!! I think it's gonna be you, me, and selenak. I wasn't sure whether to start this week or next -- since this week is already half over and you don't have the book yet, perhaps we just start next week, and/or I just post on the preface this weekend :)

You are wise to get a print copy and I may be following your lead. I don't usually mind footnotes on the kindle that much, but for whatever reason these are particularly bad -- they take forever to load and then half the time you only get half of it and have to go to the back to read it, ugh!

[selenak]

Hooray for the Josephus book club! I have a German edition, and I'm not buying an English translation, we'll probably spell individual names at times differently. Speaking of names, I'm glad your edition has footnotes, because Josephus, like all the ancient historians, doesn't put numbers behind his monarch names. And given that his recap of the history of Judea in the Hellenistic age which forms book 1 involves a lot of monarchs with the same names (usually named after an ancestor who fought with Alexander), I predict some confusion down the road. (I.e. lots of Ptolemies, for starters.) So a footnote telling you which one he's talking about at any given point is useful!

As for a good dividing point for book 1: I suggest reading up to and including chapter 22. That one ends with a cliffhanger (Herod the Great kills his favourite wife and thus makes the step to supervillain) and is only a bit less than half of Book 1. (Book 1 ends with Herod the Great's death in my edition.)

[cahn]

OK great! So since it's already Thursday (Friday for you) I will plan to post on the Preface this weekend, and then we'll get going on that next week, yay!

(uh, honestly, I won't be able to tell the difference between any of the Ptolemies, but I assume you will!)