resisting arrest with violence
31st March 2005, 15:36
I thought it was one of the most boring books I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Voltaire seems to agree with me hundreds of years before I was born.
Here is an excerpt from Voltaire's Candide:
Dinner being served they sat down to table, and, after a hearty repast, returned to the library. Candide, observing Homer richly bound, commended the noble Venetian's taste.
"This," said he, "is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany."
"Homer is no favorite of mine," answered Pococurante, coolly, "I was made to believe once that I took a pleasure in reading him; but his continual repetitions of battles have all such a resemblance with each other; his gods that are forever in haste and bustle, without ever doing anything; his Helen, who is the cause of the war, and yet hardly acts in the whole performance; his Troy, that holds out so long, without being taken: in short, all these things together make the poem very insipid to me. I have asked some learned men, whether they are not in reality as much tired as myself with reading this poet: those who spoke ingenuously, assured me that he had made them fall asleep, and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a place in their libraries; but that it was merely as they would do an antique, or those rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no manner of use in commerce."
http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire...chapter-25.html (http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire/candide/chapter-25.html)
Here is an excerpt from Voltaire's Candide:
Dinner being served they sat down to table, and, after a hearty repast, returned to the library. Candide, observing Homer richly bound, commended the noble Venetian's taste.
"This," said he, "is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany."
"Homer is no favorite of mine," answered Pococurante, coolly, "I was made to believe once that I took a pleasure in reading him; but his continual repetitions of battles have all such a resemblance with each other; his gods that are forever in haste and bustle, without ever doing anything; his Helen, who is the cause of the war, and yet hardly acts in the whole performance; his Troy, that holds out so long, without being taken: in short, all these things together make the poem very insipid to me. I have asked some learned men, whether they are not in reality as much tired as myself with reading this poet: those who spoke ingenuously, assured me that he had made them fall asleep, and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a place in their libraries; but that it was merely as they would do an antique, or those rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no manner of use in commerce."
http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire...chapter-25.html (http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire/candide/chapter-25.html)