On "The Selected Poems of Li Po" by Li Po, translated by David Hinton ****

This work selects individual poems by one of the greatest Chinese poets, one who was active some 1400 years ago. Hinton introduction points out a lot of pertinent biographical details--Li Po's identification to Taoism (versus his friend Tu Fu's greater identification with Confucianism); his relationship with Tu Fu (he wrote two poems about Tu Fu, while Tu Fu wrote many more about Li Po, so the relationship seems to have been more meaningful coming from the other direction); Li Po's wandering ways and use of wine to reach states of ecstasy so that he could write better about the present moment; Li Po's political and military life and how in the civil wars of his later adulthood, he was exiled for the stances he'd taken; his disillusionment with war; and finally his return to solitude and wandering in nature. Interestingly, much of Li Po's written work, which was voluminous, has been lost. That which we have comes down to us from later collections of his material, and most critics think that as much as two-thirds of it is spurious. So much for the grand reputation I'd always thought Li Po had. It seems a shame that the fictional poet became so caught up with the real one such that we don't know whether what we have or how much of it is real.

The poems themselves are very enjoyable to read. What's amazing is the way that Li Po focuses on his surroundings such that the poems generally speak to us now even more than one thousand years later. A description of a mountain lends to thoughts about life and about moments in a given life, ones we share even now. Much is made of such thoughts especially toward the end of the collection, which I think I enjoyed even more than the beginning. Hinton had noted that Li Po's poetry had a certain carefree quality in his youth that was lost midlife as war took its toll. Indeed, the poems about war weren't that intriguing to me, but I found myself slightly more taken by the older Li Po than the younger. Experience leant a certain melancholy to the descriptions of nature that made the pieces seem all the more touching. It is amazing to think about how the wind and stream are the same that people generations ago also experienced and yet also how those things are never the same, even for us, from moment to moment, day to day.

On "Church: The Early Years" by Dennis Hawkes ***

This short e-book was put together with information one can glean from the Bible and various Bible commentaries. As such, it isn't really any great piece of research. But what Hawkes does here is still useful and perspective changing. Essentially, he tells the story of the early church, as it appears in the New Testament, through its various cities. By walking the reader through the cities mentioned in the Bible one by one, he helps the reader see connections that might not otherwise be as easily perceived. At least, that's how I felt.

It makes me wonder also about a book that simply records what we know about the various people mentioned in the New Testament. Sure, Paul and Peter and John are noted frequently and often the subject of writing, but putting together a set of various mentions of the more minor characters might also be a great new way to see the Bible and the various connections between its books.

On "A History of the Jews in Babylonia: The Parthian Period" by Jacob Neusner ***

This relatively short book is one of the few on the subject. One could wish that it were a bit more accessible, but I find that there is little written about the Parthians and even less that is not from a scholarly perspective. Neusner lays out why this is early on his book--namely, that the Parthians left few records that survived behind. Most of what we know about them comes from what the Romans and Greeks wrote about them--that is, the empire to the West, their enemies. The empire itself also had a mix of various who wrote in their own languages such that creating the whole of a Parthian history might involve knowing not one or two but multiple ancient languages, many of them obscure, which is not common among any scholar.

Neusner puts most of his history together from Jewish Talmudic sources, quoting generously from them. The sources are not terribly compelling, which is part of why the reading proves dull in the end. Neusner seems focused on discovering how much the Babylonian Jews depended on the Palestinian ones for their religious practices--that is, how much the two influenced each other and the degree to which they exercised power over one another.

Of note is the fact that the numerous Jews in the Parthian empire were not inclined to rebel against Parthia in the same manner in which those of Rome rebelled. One reason is that they were given a great degree of self-rule. This, in turn, inclined to make them likely not to get involved in Palestinian uprisings. That said, the animosity Parthia had for Rome meant that it had no problem letting Jewish animosity play to the Parthian advantage in times of war with Rome.

The destruction of Jerusalem led to a fair number of Palestinian Jews fleeing to Babylon and then forging academies that were similar to those that had been common in Palestine. That said, the Palestinian academies did not look kindly on Babylonian scholars doing such things as setting the calendar, even when there was an absence of authority in Palestine with regard to doing so. The expectation was that only people near Jerusalem could do such a thing, and the Babylonians, at least during this time, largely conceded to the Palestinians in this regard once a calendar was set.

Given that this is one of the few books on the subject, I found Neusner's book useful and interesting, despite its overtly scholarly nature.

On "Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero" by W. Warde Fowler ****

Fowler uses Cicero as the means to tell readers about the city of Rome especially, but to a certain extent about the empire in total, in the decades just before Rome turned from Republic to dictatorship. His use of Cicero's work made me want to read Cicero's own writings, particularly his letters, which seem to capture so well the times, at least from the perspective of an aristocrat.

Fowler's book itself doesn't start off very well. He tries to lay the groundwork for his study by describing the physical geography of Rome as a city. He essentially walks its streets in prose, telling us where this and that thing is. That sounds more interesting then it really is. I felt as if I'd have gotten a better sense of the city's layout by looking at a map. Missing from that description is much of a sense of how those streets actually would have felt at the time, which would have been a larger reason for providing such a long description.

However, after that first chapter, the book becomes markedly more interesting, as Fowler becomes more invested in the subject of the actual work--the social life of people living in Rome. There are chapters on the lower class, the business class, and the aristoricracy; chapters on women, slaves, and family life; a chapter on education and a couple chapters about the lives of the well-to-do. Finally, he closes with chapters on religion and festivals.

What he does well in these chapters is show how the life of the Romans was changing--and also why that change was occuring. His book does this better than many others books I've read by giving readers a clear sense of why such changes were occurring and by making comparisons to Britain in the 1900s, when he was himself writing. Of course, his views regarding why such changes were occurring are weighted in his own perspective, but such still makes one feel as if one understands what's happening more than just being told that there were more immigrants or there was an increasing amount of entertainment. Fowler gives readers a sense that Rome was a society in moral decline, and that that decline is part of what enabled a number of social changes as well as a change to the system of government.

War had led Romans to feel less of a connection to the gods. As philosophy (most especially Epicureanism) replaced religion at the core of elite thinking, a certain kind of wayward lifestyle took hold, as well as lesser concern for the state as opposed to the individual (the reason the republic eventually folded), such that population began to decline. To make up for the loss of labor, slaves were imported, then given more and more power; as such, foreign elements made up more and more of the population. The import of foreign slaves, as well as the inadequacies of philosophy, led to the import also of foreign religions--new gods. In addition, Stoic philosophy managed to merge religious concerns with philosophy such that it became more popular as the age of Cicero came to an end. As such, religion also made its recovery, as the age of the emperor took hold.

On "The Book of Songs" translated by Arthur Waley ***

This book of ancient Chinese poetry proved less interesting than earlier passages I'd read from the work had led me to believe it would be. The poetry included here definitely are song lyrics insofar as the pieces usually quite repetitive, with minor variations made in each stanza. As such, the work can be interesting. But as well as Waley does in terms of trying to provide context for the poetry through occasional introductions and frequent footnotes, much of it didn't really speak to me in our contemporary times (in fact, the footnotes often proved distracting, as they provided alternative translations or generally ruined the feel of the songs when I paid attention to them). There are poems here about serving the king, about sacrificing to the gods, about dynasties, about hunting, about farming, much of the material seeming quite remote.

The real beautiful pieces of the collection come in the first third of the book. Those are the love and marriage songs. The human heart, it seems, doesn't change, and many of the songs about losing one's loved ones seem to carry the same anguish that folks today would also serve up. I look forward to turning my attention to some more contemplative classical Chinese poets, who may well run down similar paths to these songs.