Through a collection of stories, both old and new, Mary Beard begins Talking Classics with her experience of what the ancient Greeks might term thauma (a wonder, or wonderment) when visiting a museum in her youth, upon viewing a piece of ancient Egyptian bread.
Bizarre as it may sound, this experience sets the scene perfectly for the journey Talking Classics takes the reader on, seamlessly coalescing the world’s vast history with that of the present day.
Readers are invited to reflect on their own meditations – classical pun intended – of classics as a whole, noting on how the fixated appreciation of the Greeks and Romans can lead to an overall misinterpretation of what that time was really like.
Overall, Beard’s friendly, colloquial writing style makes for an easy read when sitting down with Talking Classics, from depicting rich images of historic life in ancient Pompeii to present day America; evoking images of the past and contrasting them with how modern-day eyes might view it. Although I’m no historicist (or classicist, for that matter), Talking Classics is a stimulating, accessible read which I would recommend to anyone with even the faintest of interests in the classics.
