Book Review - Climbing Parnassus

"If I have brought anything original to the task -- a tricky when not ridiculous word -- other than my own limited experience, it's probably just a bit of retrograde thinking feared and eschewed by others saddled with that side-glancing reticence often awarded with academic tenure."

How's that for a representative sentence from Tracy Simmons's Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin? It never stops, every other sentence in the book reads like that.

I don't think I'm a complete illiterate and yet I would get just as much from flipping through the dictionary reading words at random. It will go down in my book log as surely the most overrated book I've ever read.

I've heard for years that Climbing Parnassus is so inspiring, encouraging readers to return to true roots of classical education, including the languages of Latin and Greek. At least I think that's what it's about. Well over 100 pages into this book, I finally gave up the mind numbing reading. The only thing keeping me awake was the turning of the pages and I'm relieved it's over. Books like this can explain why regular people find the idea of Latin and Greek 'tricky if not ridiculous' (see quote at beginning).

I have no doubt that the author is very intelligent, but I honestly cannot imagine anyone I know having the energy, mindset or desire to make their way through this unbelievably tedious book. I borrowed it via interlibrary loan, and the last --and ONLY-- time it was checked out was 2003. I'm just thankful that I waited so long to (try to) read it, because it seriously would have killed any of my enthusiasm of bringing the study of Latin (or Greek) into our home.

Climb Parnassus? Nope, not me. I'll take sea level. Or possibly even underwater.