Star's Reading Blog

Longing For Wisdom: The Message of the Maxims
Allyson Szabo; Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2008.
(Doing my own little OpenBook-esque thing here, since OpenBook thinks this ISBN belongs to a Spanish medical text.)

I’m finding myself a bit disappointed in Longing for Wisdom. It’s not that it’s a bad book; it’s just that it’s not what I was hoping for. It purports to examine thirty-four of the Delphic Maxims in both a historical and a modern context. You may have noticed the amount of ancient Greek material, both primary and secondary sources, that runs through my reading list. The Delphic Maxims are something I find interesting, but hadn’t run across much information about in my previous reading, so when I saw this book, I thought — hey, perfect opportunity to expand my knowledge base. (I was going to link to more info on the Maxims here, but I’m finding it strangely difficult to find a link I’m satisfied with. Oddly, Wikipedia does not have an article on the Maxims as a group, but does have an article on possibly the best known — “Know Thyself” — which might contain enough information to convey the general idea, I guess.)

I went into this knowing that this was not a scholarly study, that the author is not a scholar and does not claim to be and was mostly presenting her personal views on the subject. Nonetheless, I was sort of expecting a little more in-depth look at it. Each maxim gets only a couple of pages’ worth of examination and discussion. Of that, a very small portion is dedicated to giving some vague historical information. There’s quite a bit more space used up in looking at how the maxim might apply in a modern context, and then usually a suggested exercise for getting a better feel for the concept and/or applying it to your life. While I was not expecting a scholarly study, I thought there would be more historical background given about the cultural context in which these moral and ethical guidelines were developed, maybe not so much weight put on the modern interpretation.

None of that is bad, I hasten to stress. At about a third of the way through, my general feeling is that while Szabo could have spent more time on each maxim, what’s there isn’t bad. Some of these sayings require a bit of twisting and turning to make them fit into a modern context, but the author doesn’t overdo the mental gymnastics. She does a pretty good job of showing how one can apply these concepts in a way that will improve one’s life without diluting the meaning too much. If you’re looking for a Hellenic devotional book, or a different sort of take on life improvement from most self-help books out there, this is probably a good choice. (There is a bit of a Hellenic Polytheist spin on the whole thing, but the basic concepts do not require a Hellenic religious structure to be useful.)

I’m not looking for a devotional, though. I knew that would be a part of this book when I bought it, but had been under the impression that there would be more solid information there too. As such, I’m not sure it’s really as much what I was looking for as I had thought. I think I may put it aside for the moment until such time as I’m feeling more like doing that sort of reading.