PAPYRUS: THE INVENTION OF BOOKS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

An interesting blend of history and memoirs. This book traces the history of books from pre-Greek till the fall of Roman empire in two parts. The chapters are small and written beautifully. The only lacuna is the dearth of pictures. If this book contains (as most of the books fall under this category have) then it will become more interesting. Anyway the flowing and poetic language compensate for this lack.

An excellent history of the written word!

Our book group read Papyrus (US version) and with modest expectations we loved it. (Group members, save one, are ‘old’ … 5 attorneys/counsels, physician, banker, real estate exec, PE principal, technical exec turned to HR). Everyone was stunned at how much they liked it, one comment was this is in the few top books in last several years. We liked the holistic presentation, a 'painting' or mosaic of the development, and the history, of recording (ed) knowledge. It includes narratives of leading thinking and thinkers for each era. The book is only broadly arranged chronologically, Greek then Roman. Within each, the chapter theme leads from one sub era to another to explain the history, and to add richness to the overall story. Centered on the development of writing and recorded knowledge, Irene Vallejo affords insights to help us know the people of the time, the culture, major actors, societal behaviors ... all this encapsulated in about 380 pages. Selective reflections refer to later periods in history, more modern times, to aid to understanding the significance of the past. The author’s ‘voice’ comes through clearly - for the importance of recorded knowledge and its impact on the world. For our group this was marvelous, and we felt we could listen to Ms Vallejo for hours if she were here. There is much in the book to wet the reader's appetite to learn more with the realization of the importance of the Greek and Roman classical periods. It will be hard to find a better story teller.

A book that, unfortunately, does not do what the author ostensibly sets out to do. There is speculation of the "We know nothing about this - but I'd like to believe that..." kind. There are far-fetched comparisons and anachronisms. There are personal anecdotes, which are irrelevant, and, I am sorry to say, annoying. The relevant information is lost in all the detours - and in any case the reader cannot be certain where fact ends and the author's imagination starts. But since there are plenty of bows to the zeitgeist, at least the author got her critical acclaim.

Nowadays, alas! I’m a slow reader, but have at last completed this big juicy book, with considerable satisfaction, I must say, though I’d be hard put to it to say what it is exactly I’ve just read.It seems to ignore anything that does not fall within the purlieu of classics as traditionally conceived, its only readily visible structure being a bipartite division between the hellenosphere and Rome.Within that, it is divided into shortish (numbered) nuggets of wisdom, each exquisitely wrought and complete in itself. I never regretted what I was reading, but often wondered where she was taking me.Classics has long since ceased to be primarily about language learning; it has had two important offshoots, both really caused/necessitated by the grand tour: 1) archeology, so the grand tourists could see the actual vestiges of antiquity and 2)modern languages, so the grand tourists could make themselves understood in France and Italy. Each of these offshoots spawned a branch of modern classics: Irene is essentially interpreting the ancient world in the light of contemporary world literature.The trouble with modern languages, fascinating as they are, is that although they use the same analytical techniques as classics, after a spell with a perhaps-still-just-manageable canon, culture has exploded to a point where it is just too vast for any individual to embrace fully, though Irene comes as close to an encyclopaedic knowledge as anyone could.Students often see literature as a sort of tête-à-tête between author and reader, with the fancies and inventions of the former seamlessly transferred into the brain of the latter; it is perhaps in the field of classics that this model is most obviously deficient, and Irene traces the origins of the literary institution, starting with the invention of the book, the institution of the library, and the rise of distribution chains, first in Alexandria, then in Rome.Her style has a quirky charm, (proudly) displaying her own lifelong commitment to literature, and evoking fond memories of childhood discoveries at her mother’s side. She eschews both critical jargon and excessive quotation.Criticism? Autobiography? History? Hard to tell, but perhaps it doesn’t matter…

It is and excellent essay on the birth of the alphabet, the writing, the books, the bookshops, the libraries... Highly entertaining and very rich content. It's a book to go back many times to enjoy the puzzle of stories that makes up our culture