Ann Patty's memoir of learning Latin in her retirement.

Her musings on the process of learning Latin and how it tied in with or reminded her of earlier parts of her life were interesting.

However, as a former editor herself, she really should have got someone to cast an eye over her work. Nouns don't have a first person singular and first person plural (I think she meant nominative singular and nominative plural) and she should know the difference between 'hoard' and 'horde'.

And although she comes across as a driven, self-reflective but on the whole likeable woman, she did come perilously close to suggesting a gay male friend is an accessory every sophisticated New York woman should have. ( )

When the professor reminds her that studying Latin is a lot of work, she answers ”To keep my brain, and thus myself, alive” (249-250)

Ann Patty communicates her passion for Latin full of enthusiasm. For her, it is not only an art for young and old but also a tool for aging graciously. The author's study of Latin is inspired by her mother’s love for the language and her own determination to avoid aging as her mother did, to never let age or marital life obliterate her passion, as occurred with her mother.
She is aware that besides being food for the brain, Latin is also a language linked to her past and linked to our past throughout millennia, perpetually "undead."

“How concise Latin is! The language, like Roman architecture, is sturdy, carefully fitted together, built to withstand the incursions of time. Roman edifices and bridges have weathered millennia, one heavy stone placed next to or atop another, their mortar the architectural equivalent of declensions and conjugations. Everything fits snugly, compactly. That’s what gives the language its ponderous feel and its grandeur.” (453) ( )

DNF. Am ~60 pages into this one, and while I'm fairly well enjoying the memoir aspect of it, the Latin stuff is mind-numbing. Not because I'm not interested or because I don't care for Latin or anything--it's just that Patty's lengthy discussions of the ins and outs of the language are dry dry dry and seem to assume some knowledge of the language. She's not explaining things fully enough to really follow her discussions of the cases and declensions and so on and those discussions go on too long and in too much detail for someone who doesn't understand what she's on about. Bummed about this one, as the memoir/language study combo seemed like an excellent fit for me.

This seemed like a good book, but I went off to Iceland and had to return it to the library (someone else had a hold, and I’m not abusing my override powers).

I got a few chapters in, and probably would’ve finished it eventually. The basic premise: Divorced and enjoying an earlier-than-expected, less-than-voluntary retirement, editor Ann Patty takes up a college Latin course to rekindle her lifelong love of words -- and to keep her mind busy. The text bounces between personal narrative, linguistic fun, and the nitty-gritty of Latin grammar. Knowing Latin well enough (it was more or less my college major) the explanations of Latin were a little repetitive.

I’m putting a pin in this one because I’m in more of a fiction mood, but I do want to see where else she goes. Although if the book doesn’t move past the basic premise I outlined, it’s never getting finished… ( )

Somewhat uneven, but on the whole I enjoyed this very much. I give “Living With a Dead Language” 4 stars, but will note that, unless you are a middle-aged woman trying to motivate herself to study Latin (not, I'm assuming, a huge demographic), some sections may be sloggish. Well, to be honest, even if you are a middle aged woman trying to learn Latin you may have to do some slogging, but more on that later.

In terms of books in which “a middle-aged woman moves to the country and finds fulfillment and love in a new endeavor,” or even “a middle-aged person returns to college and observes the youngsters and recent developments in academia,” there are undoubtedly better books. Not that there's anything wrong with Ann Patty's tale, which would fit into either of these categories. But the central drama is Latin study, which, except for a narrow audience, may not prove gripping. Still, this was the aspect that grabbed my attention when I came across a review for the book in my Facebook feed (posted by The American Classical League) and prompted me to dash over to Amazon and order it right away. After making half-hearted efforts to learn Latin with my kids for several years, this year is going to be the year I finally start making some real progress! I hope. Anyway, Patty leaves her long-time career as a high powered book editor and publisher (admittedly, a “high powered editor” of some spectacularly sordid books, but, still, successful in the book world) in New York City to live in semi-retirement in her country home. After boredom sets in, she decides to study Latin at Vassar, both to preserve her sanity (her mother's early death, apparently from alcohol and depression after all her children were grown is an issue Patty deals with over the course of the book) and to enjoy the pleasures of playing with words and language.

Patty's story may not be action-packed, but for my purposes it was very satisfactory. A review I read before purchasing described the book as “delightful,” and, though it took quite a while for me to warm to the story, eventually I did. The delight here is in Patty's infectious enthusiasm for the peculiarities, nuances, and connections involved in words and grammar. The author has a real passion for words, and a gift for conveying her excitement in delving into grammatical thickets and exploring unexpected rabbit trails. For her, language study is an adventure, and careful study and consideration of how ideas are expressed, in both poetry and prose, reveals much about the beliefs and priorities of a culture. Gratifyingly (for me), Patty actually includes a fair lot of the grammar she studies in the book. We review Latin cases and declensions, talk about moods, tenses, etc. I really enjoyed her clear, thorough descriptions, with example sentences in Latin, of the grammar. For things I've already studied it was a nice review, and for others which I've either not met yet or have completely forgotten, like the ablative absolute, the passive periphrastic, and the epexegetical infinitive she gives entertaining and clear explanations. And for comic relief she offers amusing, self-deprecatory stories, such as how, when a fellow student suggested she buy index cards and make herself flash cards for memorizing, she does, but she's so cheap that she puts three words, and definitions on one side of each card, saving the blank side of the card for future use. (Considering that she was driving an hour and a half a day, four days a week, to get to her Latin class, I'm assuming the thriftiness with index cards was meant to be funny.) She also talks about her eagerness to impress her teachers, and her dismay when she, an excellent student in her youth, is no longer one of the top students in her classes. I was taken aback, however, when she tells how surprised she was at the beginning of her second year class, an intermediate level course “devoted to Catullus,” when the professor hands out a syllabus “which included the warning: 'Some of our poems contain lewd language and sexually explicit subjects. If that will be offensive to you, please talk to me.'” Her response? “Well, this was news!” Okay. Really? Wouldn't she have Googled “Catullus” at some point after registering for the course? And, anyway, as an educated, middle-aged woman, had she really never heard that Catullus is famous for being filthy? Even assuming this pretended naivete was for dramatic effect, I found it unconvincing, and it did make me feel a bit less confidence in the honesty of her narration.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was Patty's recognition of how much harder it can be to learn a language when one is no longer young. Heck, even when I was young I was no good at languages (Patty is fluent in French, so this was not the case for her), but at this point the old bean stubbornly resists retaining things like new vocabulary, case endings, etc. But our author soldiers on valiantly. I was delighted with her enthusiasm about memorizing her first Latin poem, and sympathized with her dismay when none of her friends want to listen to her recitation (though I could see their point. It is all very well to listen to one's progeny recite Latin memory work, but such things do, generally, require parental-type devotion.).

The personal memoir component, while not badly done, was less interesting to me than the sections relating to Latin study, and on a few occasions she really annoyed me. Patty relates personal challenges which range from the sympathy inspiring (a bout with cancer) to the “suck it up, buttercup” variety (her daughter is difficult as an adolescent and “has” to be sent to boarding school). Her romance with her current boyfriend is quite sweet (he sounds like a lovely, patient man), but I could have done with less information on why her marriages failed (she tells more than I had any desire to know about her libido in contrast with that of her second husband). Her stories about her life in the world of book publishing were mildly interesting, and would have been better if they'd been told without the martyred attitude. Apparently she was involved in some sort of publishing scandal, which she is legally not allowed to tell us about, but in which, she assures us, she was the wronged party. Which might possibly be interesting if I had any idea of what she was referring to, but I don't.

Speaking of “parental,” one of the ideas which Patty returns to throughout the book is that of avoiding her mother's fate, a decline into alcoholism and early death due to lack of interests once her children were raised, but she also wishes to “please” (or honor?) her mother (posthumously) by pursuing the study of Latin, a subject her mother had talked about enjoying in school and had wished her daughter to study (Patty had chosen to study French instead). This aspect of the book felt a little unsatisfactory to me. Her relationship with her mother is clearly something she regrets – she repeatedly mentions her mother's anger when, on her first marriage, she declines to take her husband's name. Her mother takes this as a criticism of her own choices, and the two do not seem to have had a close relationship. Patty sees taking up the study of Latin, and especially visiting Rome, as a way of connecting with her mother through their shared passion. Despite my nagging feeling that her efforts would have been more usefully offered earlier, Ann does find comfort through her studies, and that is a fine thing.

A couple unnecessary gibes at groups she dislikes left a bad taste for me all out of proportion to their significance in the book. She manages to segue from a description of the medieval German religious sect, the Abcedarians, who avoided using the written word for fear of its corrupting power, to a slam against “creationists, climate change deniers, FOX News watchers, much of the Republican party,” who, she claims, are the modern forms of this determinedly ignorant group. Though not a member of any of the groups she is insulting here, I found this rather offensive and unnecessary. Rather like her obsessive habit of speculating on the sexual orientation of all the male students in each class she takes...

”After class, I visited Curtis (her professor) in his office, and we discussed the students in the class.
'And there are two longhairs, Xavier and Siddhi,' I said. 'They've already my favorites.'
He shook his head. 'Of course,' he said. 'Ever the Berkeley girl.'
Xavier, he explained, was a Greek specialist, and flat-out brilliant.'Straight or gay?' I asked. No one knew. 'And hottie Siddhi,' I said, 'what about him?'”

This sort of commentary, while strikes me as bizarre and prurient, is carried out each time she encounters a new set of classmates. Not only does she speculate on the sexual proclivities of the young men she meets, but she tends to describe each man she meets as “thin and geeky” or a “hottie.” To me this seems particularly ugly given her frequent talk of being a “feminist.” Though perhaps for her, being a feminist means claiming the right to freely ogle and objectify the opposite sex. At least when she insults people who hold traditional Christian beliefs it is in reference to her study of Lucretius, though her mockery of religious believers struck me as peculiar in light of her enthusiasm for astrology (when talking with a young girl she is tutoring she asks the girl's zodiac sign, and is delighted at having correctly guessed that the girl, like herself, is “Aries”) and spiritualism (she says, “I once had a session with my friend Susan, a 'seer' who channels the African spirit Garuda. Garuda claimed that I was being watched over by a tall, thin, white-haired man. 'Did I recognize him?' she asked. 'Of course,' I said, 'it must be my grandfather...'”).

Fortunately, the forays into religious and political snarkiness and personal melodrama are a minor, if aggravating, part of the book, the great part being given to the story of her “romance with Latin.” And that is a story she tells very nicely.

Though I sometimes found Patty an uncongenial companion when we moved from discussions of language and grammar to the more personal sections, for the most part I enjoyed this very much. The frequent shifts from discussions of Latin grammar and literature to stories of about her life do keep the book from becoming “textbook-like,” and are generally smoothly accomplished. She has some stylistic quirks, most notably an excessive enthusiasm for exclamation marks (a fault I'm guilty of myself, but I expect better of professionals), but mostly her writing is unremarkable and moves along at a fine clip. Generally, her unusual memoir, combining her journey into the world of Latin study with a look back over her previous life, with its triumphs and regrets, and a newly hopeful view of her future, including companionable romance and opportunity to serve her community through volunteer work, is entertaining, and it made me feel more inclined to have another run at Wheelock's come September! ( )