Rating: 
Summary: "Western Cannon" its not
Review:
This was not a great book, This reader envies and admires the author being able to return to Columbia College and partake in the "Great Books Program". The author could not maintain this reader's attention. Many passages from the classics seemed to drone on, peppered with some side-light descriptions of the author's younger "college aged" classmates. I can see by the number of five star reviews that this book was a hit with many readers. I thought it provided a narrow scope on classic literature. The book I read previous to this book was Harold Bloom's "The Western Cannon". Harold Bloom gives concrete examples and rules why a book should be considered a classic in Western Literature. This book by David Denby offers a more intuitive approach. I recommend Harold Bloom's book instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Puts Oxidant Deconstructionists in their place
Review: A great book which defends the classics and succeeds in warding off the oxidant/deconstructing left who are dedicated to trashing the western canon (since they have nothing original or life affirming themselves to offer). A hot topic with me considering I live in PC Minnesota where a legions of mediocre, pseudo liberal hacks have taken over the universities causing curriculum mutations of a very nightmarish variety (Andrea Dworkin's Menacme 101). The author re-enrolled in a literature class at Columbia University, having first taken it back in the early 60's and describes the sorry changes over the last thirty years. A must read for anyone disillusioned by the left and what they've tried to do the classics. Long live Dead White European Males!
Jaye Beldo: Netnous@Aol.Com
Rating:
Summary: Puts Oxidant Deconstructionists in their place
Review: A great book which defends the classics and succeeds in warding off the oxidantly deconstructive lefty creeps dedicated to trashing the western canon (since they have nothing original themselves to offer). A hot topic with me considering I live in PC Minnesota where a plethora of mediocre, pseudo liberal thugs have taken over the universities causing curriculum mutations of a very nightmarish variety (Andrea Dworkin's Menacme 101). The author re-enrolled in a literature class at Columbia University, having first taken it back in the early 60's and describes the sorry changes over the last thirty years. A must read for anyone disillusioned by the left and what they've tried to do the classics. Long live Dead White European Males!Jaye Beldo: Netnous@Aol.Com
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book itself
Review: As a former classics major, I have followed the debate over the western canon with a great deal of interest. But after slogging through Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" for over a year and a half, this book was an absolute delight. David Denby reminds us just why these books are so important--they make you strugle to build a self, which is (or should be, anyway) the true purpose of education. I am also fascinated by how much his perspective has changed in the thirty years since he read many of the books in college. And in the chapter on Shakespeare--focusing on the parallels between King Lear and Denby's own relationship with his mother--the essay itself actually brought me to tears. I have been recommending this book to everyone I know, and now I'll recommend it to everyone I don't know...read it! It's amazing!
Rating: 
Summary: Can't go home again; can go back to school
Review: David Denby's "Great Books" proves that even if we knew then what we know now, our academic struggles would still be up-hill. Denby gives us essentially a travelogue of his journey through the "great works of Western literature" at Columbia University, where he has returned to revisit the course material. Unsurprisingly, Denby gives brief descriptions of the works on the syllabus, paying particular attention to particular passages that struck his fancy. More surprisingly, Denby also brings us into the classroom, discussing the professors in detail while relating the other students' efforts to master the material. These exchanges are fascinating because Denby refuses to patronize the students, who seem to be a genuinely scholarly bunch, capable of digesting and reacting personally to the material. Sure, there are some low points, such as when the students run up against Dante and the eternal damnation of the "Inferno," which the students seem to reject as "so non-20th century"(!). On other works, the students are as engaged and insightful as Denby, even though they lack his life experience. Denby avoids looking down on the students for their inexperience, and he tries to see the works from their perspective as well as his own. Perhaps unexpectedly for Denby, his perspective isn't all that different from the students' in one critical regard -- he is reminded how difficult it is to keep up with the reading. In some of the more humorous passages in a surprisingly funny book (not slapstick, mind you), Denby laments falling behind in his reading, or struggling to find a quiet place in Manhattan to read, or finding moments of solitude during the daily pell-mell of parenting. In a refreshingly candid book, we are not force-fed another "education is wasted on the young" tirade. Denby's various synopses of the books on the syllabus hit and miss -- of course, he is writing as much about his reaction to the books as the books themselves, and it's a bit frustrating when Denby doesn't fall in love with one of our favorites. Denby's less-than-ecstatic reaction to the aforementioned "Inferno" is one chapter where I found myself shaking my head, disgreeing with Denby. And one wishes that a few of Denby's chapters were longer -- but hey, if you are wishing for more, that's got to be the sign of a good book, right?
Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable Odyssey in its Own Right
Review: David Denby's GREAT BOOKS is a compellingly written, nostalgic joyride of a book proving that in some ways, we can go home again. Home for Denby is his alma mater, Columbia University, where during the 1991-92 academic year he retook the classic western literature courses that welcomed him to college thirty years before. With more than even your average eighteen-year-old's vigor, middle-aged Denby chronicles his own odyssey of sitting back down in the classroom and becoming a student again. The often amusing classroom scenes are interspersed with insightful commentary on the cultural scene of the early 1990s, as well as the movie critic's own musings on how certain of the works were and are tied significantly to moments and themes of his own life. The book is deeply enriched by Denby's capacity for wonder, and not harmed all that much by his prominent ego. Denby discovers that however much we think of ourselves, the great writers will always teach us humility--or at least the folly of hubris! Those who have also taken such courses and read similar works with serious intent may not agree with all of Denby's critiques, but then examining each other's interpretations is what we do in literature class and in life. Though some 460 pages, GREAT BOOKS rarely drags, and left me wishing it was even longer. There's no doubt that the author left a part of himself in college that it was killing him to get back, but he's mature enough to realize that attempting such reclamation is a doomed venture. Renewal is what Denby's after, and that's what reading the gargantuan likes of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare gives us. With a frank and friendly tone, Denby does a fresh and impressive job of inspiring this renewal in the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Not so deep
Review: Denby's "Great Books" is a great book itself insofar as one treats it as a guide to the accepted seminal works of Western literature rather than a thorough investigation of these works. That said, Denby's book is no subtitute at all for a real comprehension and understanding of the books in question nor an appropriate surrogate for the Core Curriculum at Columbia. The Core is the central subject addressed by the book. In between attempting to serve as a digestion of the works in question, Denby explores the rationale for a body of knowledge which, as Columbia would assert, "every educated person should know". In his search, Denby hits upon a number of notable reasons for the maintenance of the Core and its promotion in society versus the relativist perspective of many liberal students, which he portrays as rather insolent and uninformed reactions. Even faculty objection to the Core is rendered with a certain hostility for such opinion. Denby is writing the book with the clear premise of proving the worth of the Core, rather than the purported search for its relevance. This alone makes "Great Books" a bit of a disappointment. What really drags down the book, however, is Denby's writing itself. Some books, such as Augustine's "Confessions", are treated merely with an allegorical story related to Denby's incomparably mundane daily life. In fact, most of the book is composed of Denby's rather superficial and sometimes even erroneous interpretations of the works he reads. I suggest "Great Books" only as a rather cursory overview of the Columbia Core and nothing more- unless one takes a great interest in the autobiography of a mediocre film critic or wishes to garner ideas for a tirade against liberal relativism. "Great Books" at times is little more than a typical neoconservative reaction to nontraditional ideas- ironic, given the dismissal of the students' reactions themselves as clichéd.
Rating:
Summary: Action and Thought
Review: Denby's book accomplishes what seems impossible; bringing meaning and life to the "Great Books" in an entertaining and literate way. In "Great Books" Denby, film critic for New York Magazine, describes his adventures as an adult student when he returns to his alma mater, Columbia University to take two "western civ" courses. Over two semesters, he reads works that range from the Iliad and the Odyssey to Plato, Sophocles, the Old and New Testaments, Machiavelli, Dante, Hobbes, Locke, Shakespeare, Austin and Woolf in the company of professors and undergraduate students. Denby relates each work to the text's historical context, to the class, to the other works and, in his most unusual achievement, to his own life and our modern culture by allowing us into his most personal experiences and relationships. You will enjoy this book enormously even if you have never read the "Great Books" and if you have read them, you will probably want to read them all over again. Bravo!
Rating: 
Summary: A not so great book.
Review: I didn't read the book for the classics, I'm not much interested in them. But I was very interested in the experience of going back to university and if his real-world experiences / age would make a difference of how he perceives university education (both in form and content). We only get very little of this in the 5 page epilogue. I think that should have been the main focus of the bow. It's like the film critic forgot (or was unable to) to criticize (that is: evaluate, look for different perspective) and not just carbon copying his reading of books. The book is a very personal book, almost a diary. The author writes his personal thoughts about (some of) the books they are reading. We hear about the other students only when it's relevant for his reading/understanding, but nothing else. I thus don't get insight from reading Great Books, just a story, and very simple introduction to the books. The book didn't help me to become interested in Great Old Books, nor gave it me any understanding of them. It's nice talk for people already interested in them, and already knowing the stuff he writes, but he doesn't enable readers to learn. Every objection to the list of books by other students are dismissed without much thought. Every teacher is perfect (he surely doesn't criticize them). It's like it so important for him that the year back at university is his nirvana, that it disables him from seeing anything negative, from performing criticism. So I think the book is a tribute to the books of Great White Men, what he surely denies because that wouldn't be politically correct...
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent, inspiring, life-changing. Read it!
Review: I won't echo what other have said - just a couple of personal reactions: I've always read more books than anybody I know, but Denby humbled me. Not only did he "live the fantasy" of going back to school, he did it in the real world, too. No ivory tower, no luxury life - he truly did it in medias res, with kids bounding around the house, ongoing obligations at his job as a freelance writer, and all this in the midst of that barely controlled chaos called Manhattan. Yeah, yeah, he took on a tough task ... but the insights! the freshness of his point of view! This is a book to treasure, and re-read. It made me go back to the classics and read them with new eyes. And, yes, I *still* have that go-back-to-school fantasy in spades. I'll do it, someday, I swear, I'll really do it, even if I have to wait until I'm retired. In the meantime, if you're hugely pressed for time, get Ian McKellen's audiobook reading of Robert Fagles' translation of Homer's Odyssey. It'll keep your spirits up until you can live the fantasy, too. It's doing it for me, right now. Thanks, David Denby, for sharing your journey with us.
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