Of Farming and Classics: A Memoir (Osiris) | David Grene

Of Farming and Classics: A Memoir (Osiris) | David Grene | Precise and thoughtful writing from an extraordinary intellect

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Of Farming and Cla...

	Of Farming and Classics: A Memoir (Osiris) David Grene University Of Chicago Press, 2008 - 182 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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A fiercely independent thinker, colorful storyteller, and spirited teacher, David Grene devoted his life to two things: farming, which he began as a boy in Ireland and continued into old age; and classics, which he taught for several decades that culminated in his translating and editing, with Richmond Lattimore, the Complete Greek Tragedies.
            In this charming memoir, which he wrote before his death in 2002 at the age of eighty-nine, Grene weaves together these interests to tell a quirky and absorbing story of the sometimes turbulent and always interesting life he split between the University of Chicago?where he helped found the Committee on Social Thought?and the farm he kept back in Ireland.
            Grene?s form and humor are quite his own, and his brilliant storytelling will enthrall anyone interested in the classics, rural Ireland, or twentieth-century intellectual history, especially as it pertains to the University of Chicago.
?An illuminating read for every classical scholar engaged with the current quest for the subject's roots, and the excavation of the way that it has evolved over the past century and a half.??Edith Hall, Times Literary Supplement
            ?David Grene reminds us of two crucial aspects of modern life exemplified by this rare individual. First is the symbiosis between the life of contemplation and action?and just how it is that hard physical and dirty work offers real value in rediscovering nature, bringing with it a certain pragmatism that permeates reading and thinking. . . . Second, Grene reminds us of what constitutes success in life.??Victor Davis Hanson, New York Sun

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Of horses and the humanities

Growing up on a small farm in eastern PA about 70 years ago, has left fond memories and a cognizance that one's young experiences play into evertday life. During a 40 year career , I lived in Europe and traveled the wine country meeting farmers . The bond was immediate regardless of language . We understood the earth and the sense of intimacy in a handful of cool, damp soil .
This book delved into those aspects to some extent and led the reader through a career in education . I related easily to his horse experiences (I now breed horses), but somewhat selfishly, expected a more intimate touch . An very enjoyable read without question . I have passed it on to my Brother , an educator in the humanities and a hose owner . It's the blood.

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Precise and thoughtful writing from an extraordinary intellect

The title of David Grene's autobiography reflects the twin passions of his life. He was (I betray the source of my own familiarity with him by giving this half of his life pride of place) a classicist who spent nearly all of his career at the University of Chicago. He is perhaps best known as the co-editor of Chicago series of complete Greek tragedies, but he is widely published otherwise. I will always think of him primarily for his translation of Herodotus, published in 1988: I'm wearing out the second copy of the book that I've owned. Grene divided his time between teaching and farming. He grew up in Ireland but bought his first farm in Lemont, Illinois, in 1940. In later decades he divided his year between Chicago and a farm he owned in Ireland.

Grene wrote his memoirs between 1993 and 2002. He died on September 10th of the latter year. The resulting book is brief, but rich in subject matter. Grene writes about his family's origins and the influence on his life and the peculiarities of his Aunt Mary; he discusses the architecture and ambience of the Dublin of his youth and the theater--for which he felt a great affection--and various stages of his professional career (including his thoughts about classical pedagogy).

On the farming side of things, Grene writes about his experiences working as a boy on his cousins' farm in Tiperary.

"That spring there were twenty men employed in Grenepark; the farm was and is over four hundred acres, and very little mechanization was then to be had and almost no system of contracting. Today I doubt if it needs more than five or six men to run it. The laborers in 1929 had, for years, earned twenty-five shillings a week--one pound five. ...Nicholas decided that, at the rate he was paying, the place would go bankrupt. So he did a most unusual thing then; he called the men together, explained the situation, and told them that if they could all take ten shillings he'd be very glad to keep them. The alternative was to reduce the total staff to ten men at a pound a week. They were to decide. They unanimously decided to take the cut and stay."

And he reminisces about farming in the Midwest in the 1940s, a discussion which leads to his discussing some of the characters he knew during the period. Among these was a certain Louis Jacobs, a Lithuanian Jew who'd emigrated to America in 1910:

"He had a little house in town and was himself funny and appealing in a very special sort of way. There was a convent in Lemont with a farm run by nuns with some male help, and they used Louis to do their trucking. He told me one day that Mother Superior had spoken to him and said, 'Mr. Jacobs, I saw you last week trucking stock on a Sunday and that isn't right.' 'No,' said Louis, 'but you know, Sister, that isn't my Sabbath.' 'Ah, but Mr. Jacobs, I saw you trucking livestock on the day before.'"

Grene returns repeatedly in the book to twin themes, the joy to be had from--the rightness of--working a small farm, and the inherent benefit of the bond that develops between man and animal when working a farm.

Grene comes across in these pages as an extraordinary man whose great intellect was coupled with humility and wide-ranging curiosity. His writing is dense, but precise and thoughtful, as if each sentence was polished until it carried its burden of meaning as perfectly as possible. It is an old-fashioned sort of writing, perhaps, but then Mr. Grene lived an old-fashioned sort of life.

-- Debra Hamel

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