ʻAlī ibn Manṣūr Ibn al-Qāriḥ

I persevered and made it through, but it was hard work. I think there's a good reason why this book had previously been translated into English only in an abridged form: in order to fully appreciate al-Ma'arrī's grammatical and etymological musings, you would need to read Arabic, so there's little to be gained (and, presumably, much to be lost) in the translation. Even the section that most interested me, the Danté-esque journey into Hell, was punctuated with dense passages of the grammarian's lore, which I felt made it drag.

There are gleams of gold amongst the sand, but surely not eighty dinars' worth. Of course, I place the fault in myself, rather than in the text: the wrong reader for such an erudite work.… (more)