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winterscape's review against another edition
4.0
I debated between a three and a four star rating — a lot resonated with me, a lot didn’t, but ultimately the fact that a book that so closely matches my own feelings towards Latin even exists pushes it over the edge.
I’m a copy editor studying Latin to stave off drudgery, so reading this memoir from a retired editor turned Latinist was completely relatable and inspiring (sometimes I feel old at 27, but she’s out there decades older learning new things without age-related embarrassment—goals!). Her childhood spent as a voracious reader and collector of words (I may have also had a dictionary game where I wrote down words I liked in a big list...) also rings true.
The fact too that part of her motivation was related to her late mother’s early interest in Latin reminds me of childhood stories about the grandmother I never met, but who I proudly knew as having studied Latin.
What detracted from the narrative for me were the little put-downs towards (mostly) other women, but all members of her undergraduate Latin classes really. Describing young women by their weight, acne, etc., or any student by their perceived lack of intelligence, just really rubbed me the wrong way (not to mention debating the sexual orientation of a fellow [“sexy”] classmate with a professor or needing to describe a picture of your mother in childhood as basically “way prettier than all the other girls”...).
Ultimately though, this book is a pleasant read for anyone who has taken up Latin later in life. Latin does have a certain allure for word nerds, speculative fiction fans, and those looking for something new in moments when the “void” yawns too menacingly.
I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Latin even a little bit.
I’m a copy editor studying Latin to stave off drudgery, so reading this memoir from a retired editor turned Latinist was completely relatable and inspiring (sometimes I feel old at 27, but she’s out there decades older learning new things without age-related embarrassment—goals!). Her childhood spent as a voracious reader and collector of words (I may have also had a dictionary game where I wrote down words I liked in a big list...) also rings true.
The fact too that part of her motivation was related to her late mother’s early interest in Latin reminds me of childhood stories about the grandmother I never met, but who I proudly knew as having studied Latin.
What detracted from the narrative for me were the little put-downs towards (mostly) other women, but all members of her undergraduate Latin classes really. Describing young women by their weight, acne, etc., or any student by their perceived lack of intelligence, just really rubbed me the wrong way (not to mention debating the sexual orientation of a fellow [“sexy”] classmate with a professor or needing to describe a picture of your mother in childhood as basically “way prettier than all the other girls”...).
Ultimately though, this book is a pleasant read for anyone who has taken up Latin later in life. Latin does have a certain allure for word nerds, speculative fiction fans, and those looking for something new in moments when the “void” yawns too menacingly.
I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Latin even a little bit.
margaret21's review against another edition
3.0
I'm the daughter of a Latin teacher and I found the subject irksome at school, but I am nevertheless glad to have studied it for the insight it's given me into my own, and other languages. So I was keen to read this book, written by a woman who'd had a long and successful career in publishing, who is an avowed feminist, and who took up learning Latin in later life. However. I found it instead to be a celebration of Ann Patty, by Ann Patty. There were nuggets in which she describes those Eureka moments of understanding how various words arrived in our vocabularies, but it dwelt in detail on too many of those Latin lessons, and I ended up largely skim-reading those parts. While her career and back story were interesting, I found her self-congratulatory tone irritating. One thing that really is interesting - to me at least - is then fact that there are people all over the globe, but especially in North America and Europe who get together and actually conduct themselves ENTIRELY IN LATIN. Even my mother couldn't do that! Two stars? Three stars? Oh, go on, it's still Christmas. Three stars.
terrimpin's review
2.0
If you're interested in learning more about what goes into learning Latin, this may be a good way to dip your toe into the water. However, proceed with caution if you have a low tolerance for secondhand embarrassment because this book definitely provides.
Overall I enjoyed following along with the author's language learning process, but I found myself cringing at many of her observations towards her peers. I can't help but wonder if she put any thought into how these professors, students, and her loved ones would feel about the way she was describing them in this very public book. I felt uncomfortable with how often she was describing young college freshmen as "oozing sex" - if this were a male author describing young female students the same way how would people feel? She also included statements from professors talking about the private lives of their students in regards to learning disabilities etc. - which is downright illegal.
I also felt bad for her boyfriend, George. While her previous husbands were given practically glowing anecdotes, George was constantly pushed to the side and described as if he were a blundering, unintelligent fool. At one point she even compared him to her previous husbands to point out how "unrefined" he was.
Her self-professed need to constantly have at least one gay "husband" in her social sphere was also cringey and outdated. I understand that the author is coming from a different era, but you'd think someone along the publishing lines would have pointed out her lack of self-awareness on occasion. Though perhaps the fact that the author herself is in publishing is what caused this.
Overall I enjoyed following along with the author's language learning process, but I found myself cringing at many of her observations towards her peers. I can't help but wonder if she put any thought into how these professors, students, and her loved ones would feel about the way she was describing them in this very public book. I felt uncomfortable with how often she was describing young college freshmen as "oozing sex" - if this were a male author describing young female students the same way how would people feel? She also included statements from professors talking about the private lives of their students in regards to learning disabilities etc. - which is downright illegal.
I also felt bad for her boyfriend, George. While her previous husbands were given practically glowing anecdotes, George was constantly pushed to the side and described as if he were a blundering, unintelligent fool. At one point she even compared him to her previous husbands to point out how "unrefined" he was.
Her self-professed need to constantly have at least one gay "husband" in her social sphere was also cringey and outdated. I understand that the author is coming from a different era, but you'd think someone along the publishing lines would have pointed out her lack of self-awareness on occasion. Though perhaps the fact that the author herself is in publishing is what caused this.
ariotofsunlightreads's review against another edition
informative
2.0
I don't generally come away from reading memoirs with a strong dislike for the author, but this one... Man. She's not only incredibly pretentious, but is also frankly offensive. The gay husband/ the "need" for her to have a gay man in her life, her description of her classmates as being "obviously cisgender", her complaints about how words are misused... Big yikes.
cer15712's review
2.0
Patty lives a boring life with minimal acknowledgement of her pretentiousness and zero attempts to do anything about it. There were some bright moments in the book and I did get a good sense of what it is like to be a Latin student at a liberal arts college, but her milquetoast feminism, ramblings about oriental religion and nitpicking of everything around her makes the book a total drag. She is truly the epitome of "OK Boomer".
In addition, Patty displays an awkward obsession with the LGBT community, and inserts stilted references to people being gay (or, in one particularly bizarre instance, refers to a classroom of students as "obviously cisgender" for no reason... What does that mean? They were all naked save for pronoun pins and medical charts?). Her "gay husband" designation is cringeworthy. She even asks a professor whether one of her fellow students is straight or gay, which is an incredibly inappropriate thing to do. I don't know what's worse: that she did these things, or that she decided to include them in this book.
Zero self awareness. Zero self improvement. Zero style.
In addition, Patty displays an awkward obsession with the LGBT community, and inserts stilted references to people being gay (or, in one particularly bizarre instance, refers to a classroom of students as "obviously cisgender" for no reason... What does that mean? They were all naked save for pronoun pins and medical charts?). Her "gay husband" designation is cringeworthy. She even asks a professor whether one of her fellow students is straight or gay, which is an incredibly inappropriate thing to do. I don't know what's worse: that she did these things, or that she decided to include them in this book.
Zero self awareness. Zero self improvement. Zero style.
michelleful's review
3.0
In later middle age, Ann Patty, a retired New York book editor, takes up the study of Latin, out of fear of turning into her mother, a woman whose intellectual curiosity was subjugated to taking care of her children, golf, and finally alcoholism. This is basically an account of her Latin learning journey mixed in with musings about her own past, her parents, her current life living in the countryside, philosophy, etc. It's a bit self-absorbed but as a language lover myself, I found it interesting to keep dipping into it and it held me enough to make it through to the end. I expected to learn a bit more about Latin but to be honest it didn't stick, but that wasn't really the point of the book anyway.
ssejig's review
4.0
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I knew it was about a woman who was wanting to learn Latin and I knew that I wanted to learn Latin so I went ahead and requested the book from NetGalley. And it turned out to be an interesting read. A lovely book that just sort of rolls along. Like reading a nonfiction Mary Jo Putney. There's not a lot of action but that doesn't mean it's not good. Although this has given me the insight to rethink my plans on learning Latin...
jaxcote's review
4.0
Thoroughly enjoyed this. I've been in a Latin/Ancient Rome/ancient history obsessive mode for the past two years, and this exploration of what it is to learn Latin (holy hell, declensions) as a late-life endeavour was beautifully (and challengingly) written. It's not a book to speed through, and you don't really want to. I really enjoyed the surveys of Latin poets too, and the discussion around Catullus and Ovid in particular.