Best Book Review Ever

August 26, 2024 3:47 AM

"A burglar who broke into an apartment in Rome on Tuesday night was arrested after stopping in the middle of the robbery to read a book about Greek mythology."
posted by cupcakeninja (29 comments total)

Captivating prose creates captives.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:05 AM on August 26 [9 favorites]

Giovanni Nucci, the author of The Gods at Six O'Clock, which explains the Iliad from the perspective of the gods, told Il Messaggero: "It's fantastic."

"I'd like to find the person caught red-handed and give him the book, because he'll have been arrested halfway through reading it. I'd like him to be able to finish it. (bbc)
posted by emmling at 4:18 AM on August 26 [26 favorites]

Now, when people say I have too many books, I can defend my library as a security measure.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:23 AM on August 26 [22 favorites]

Book 'em, Daniele!
posted by chavenet at 5:30 AM on August 26 [6 favorites]

person caught red-handed

It’d only be read-handed if they finished the book.
posted by zamboni at 5:40 AM on August 26 [8 favorites]

Oh no... so much for "the reader does not steal and the thief does not read".
posted by bigendian at 5:40 AM on August 26 [6 favorites]

There's a famous news story in Iceland about a burglar who chanced upon a book of poems by mid-20th Century modernist Steinn Steinarr in the house he was burgling, started to read it and got so captivated that he was discovered by the inhabitants when they came home. It became such a well-known story that the guy, named Lalli Johns, became the subject of a popular documentary, and ended up as a national treasure in Iceland.
posted by Kattullus at 5:42 AM on August 26 [15 favorites]

this is the most adhd situation imaginable
posted by pullayup at 5:43 AM on August 26 [29 favorites]

There but for the grace of God...
posted by BrashTech at 5:54 AM on August 26 [5 favorites]

Haha. I saw this at work. Its exactly what I would do.
posted by Didnt_do_enough at 6:31 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

Does anyone know if this book checks out? I'd hate for this fun story to milkshake because the book was problematic.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:39 AM on August 26

It me.
posted by midmarch snowman at 6:52 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

Curses! Foiled by my only weakness; an insatiable thirst for knowledge!
posted by wabbittwax at 7:11 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]

Did it not cross his mind to just take it?
posted by thecincinnatikid at 7:17 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

Did it not cross his mind to just take it?

Why does Ross, the largest "Friend," not simply eat the other five?
posted by zamboni at 7:29 AM on August 26 [23 favorites]

There isn't an English translation, but after all this publicity, I expect there will be.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:50 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]

anyone know if this book checks out?
3 stars on goodreads: Pensavo meglio.

humanity in the iliad interests me more than gods. based on feedback received here, i've been doing a bit more Homeric reading. Alice Oswald's Memorial is something i read recently. there's a neat summary/thread on reddit:

I highly recommend Alice Oswald's Memorial, a poem which transforms the Iliad into paraphrases of each death in chronological order, interspersed with pastoral stanzas. Stripped of everything but a series of obituaries, it becomes a powerful litany.

posted by HearHere at 8:18 AM on August 26 [5 favorites]

Nerd's gotta nerd.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:37 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

Did it not cross his mind to just take it?

Had to make sure it was worth taking.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:16 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]

this is the most adhd situation imaginable

There, but for the grace of god, go I.

(someone beat me to it, which I missed because, well, ADHD. *sigh*)
posted by bashos_frog at 9:27 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]

Actually, far from being a rave review it appears the burglar was on the fence over whether the book was worth stealing. "I can appreciate what the author is trying to do, but does the divine perspective really warrant its own telling? Hmmm..."
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:37 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]

He was looking for Hermès but found Hermes instead...
posted by tempestuoso at 9:54 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]

Speaking as a person who has stopped to look at a book and noticed 5 hours passed in an instant I definitely identify with the burglar on that part.
posted by sotonohito at 10:19 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]

humanity in the iliad interests me more than gods.

transforms the Iliad into paraphrases of each death in chronological order, interspersed with pastoral stanzas

Both these things are funny to me (not in a mean way, just an interesting way) because my recollection of the Iliad is, first, humanity acts very godlike in it, and the gods act very human, so they're practically interchangeable except for the size of rock they can grasp (and even for the humans, that's much larger than "men, such as they are today," my favorite epithet of all). And once you get the preamble out of the way, it's basically just a series of deaths interspersed with pastoral stanzas! But I understand what is said in both occasions and it's interesting to think about.

Also, thanks for the post, this is hilarious and clearly not unprecedented. Imagine a collective of burglars attempting to raid that bookshop town in New York and all getting so wrapped up in it that they settle down and start a true crime store.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:56 AM on August 26 [5 favorites]

Love this story so much. Really want to read the book now and what time is it?
posted by doctornemo at 1:56 PM on August 26

what time is it?
sidereal? [wiki]
posted by HearHere at 4:00 PM on August 26

No one has yet commented "they threw the book at him"? Or just too obvious?
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:23 PM on August 26

BlackLeotardFront, interchangeability is a good description. the word “gods” more represents ‘distance’: meaning’s highly context-dependent (see e.g. six o’clock [wikileaks]) rather than the principle of humanity’s centrality, as seen here:

...metonymy (in which aspects of the physical body felt to play a role in mental functioning come to serve as ways of referring to those functions) and in various forms of metaphor (chiefly reification and personification), Homeric thumos is implicated in a wide range of mental functions. But it is not the only such entity: a variety of other parts of the body, including the heart (kradiê and êtor) and the phrenes, are also credited with mental functions. For an older tradition of scholarship, the existence of these ‘psychic organs’ illustrates the primitiveness of Homeric concepts of self and agency. For [g:] Bruno Snell, the explanation of mental process in terms of the promptings of thumos, other organs, and the gods makes Homeric man ‘a battleground of arbitrary forces and uncanny powers’ [Edinburgh]

a question about the book is how it deals with this complexity, i.e. there’s humanity even in gods:

As Zeus looks, he processes internally (θυμῷ) the information he perceives, but this processing also involves the evaluation of present circumstances in the light of a long-term plan that is now potentially subject to a degree of modification as a result of Zeus’ emotional response to Sarpedon’s death. [ibid.]

posted by HearHere at 6:00 AM on August 27

Four and a half stars on Amazon, including a five star from the guy who got robbed (or someone pretending to be the guy who got robbed - note the date)

Ho 71 anni, non sono proprio nel fiore degli anni. Fortuna che c'era questo libro nel mio appartamento quando un ladro ha provato a svaligiare casa. Lo ha distratto e sono arrivate le forze dell'ordine giusto in tempo.

"I am 71 years old, not exactly in the flower of youth. By chance, this book was in my apartment when a burglar attempted to burgle the house. It distracted him and the police arrived just in time."
posted by BWA at 7:03 AM on August 27