Tag: From my diary

Slightly horrified to discover that the last email exchange with the translator of Origen’s Homilies on Ezekiel was 18th May 2010!  It’s been a hard year, I know, and the Eusebius has eaten all my time and energy, but even so that’s too long.  And it’s my fault; I simply cannot keep track of everything I have going on, and someone does have to do this.

I’ve written to the translator suggesting that we see if we can finish the thing off.  All the work has long since been done; it’s merely a question of revision.  I think only homilies 3-7 need that revision.  There may be some formatting work to do, in which case various friends will be getting emails in the not too distant future.

I also need to devise a cover.  Something green, I think, with a landscape photo.  Hum.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work, to a job where I don’t feel all that comfortable.  Fortunately it’s only for a couple more months.  If people would remember me to the Lord, and ask for something else, something good, enjoyable, and well-paid, that would be kind.

An email has arrived, inviting me to publish commercially an English translation of the World Chronicle of Michael the Syrian.  This is a surprise, although a welcome one.  It is a very great honour also.

The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian is an enormous thing.  The French translation by J.-B. Chabot, made a century ago, fills three large volumes.  I borrowed the volumes, one by one, from a library and laboriously scanned them.  The resulting PDF’s may be found on Archive.org.  The translator estimates around 1200 pages, for the English translation, which is three times the size of Eusebius.

I don’t see my role in life as conventional publishing.  There are enough people who could do that.  Rather my job is to get things into the hands of people who want to read them.  This means three different types of people:

1. Research libraries, where students can find them, and where journals can review them.  Hardbacks with dustjackets is my approach to these.
2. Ordinary people involved in the subject.  This means cheap paperback, although I don’t know how cheap any book of 1200 pages can be. 
3. Ordinary people who just want to look at bits now and then, or do searches.  This means freely available online — no other form will cut it. 

What I have done for the Eusebius and Origen volumes is to buy the copyright (although allowing the translators to do whatever they like with it as well — hey, why not?).  If I own the copyright, I can do #3.  But before I do, I get the book typeset and a cover designed, so that I can make #1 and #2 available through Amazon.com, etc.  I’ll do some marketing to scholars and libraries as well.  Once the sales die down, and whatever money is to be made is made, I can then do #3.

Of course a press like Cambridge University Press would be able to give the book a far more sumptuous production than I can.  They can market it to places who wouldn’t look at me.  But … they would also hold the copyright until all of us are dead, and none of us would ever see the book.

I’ve made a proposal to the copyright holder, anyway.  It may come to nothing, and it doesn’t matter if so; I’m quite busy enough right now!  But if it does happen, it will mean that Michael comes out of the shadows and into all of our lives.

It would also mean that I would have to start finding a typesetter!

For the last few days I have been dipping into a general tourist guide to Rome at odd points during the day.  It’s been very pleasant, imagining myself there, thinking of the Piazza Navona or the Spanish Steps, or the little shop not far from the Pantheon where one can buy bread and cheese and other essentials.

But today I found myself reading a section about the Appian Way, running south-west from the city.  The Baths of Caracalla I have seen; but beyond these the road runs out through the Aurelian walls of Rome, and down past various catacombs to the tomb of Cecilia Metella (reconstruction image left from here).  The circus of Maxentius is nearby, and the guidebook vaguely refers to the ruins of an “imperial palace” nearby.

I’d like to see these.  But I realise that I have no real idea how to do so.  In central Rome I walk, or I take the metro.  But I would like to be able to get a bit further.  I’d like to be able to hire a car and driver and go to Ostia, or to the ruins of Hadrian’s villa.

What does one do?  Has anyone any tales to tell?

I mistrust taxis in Rome.  I well remember picking up a taxi at Termini to go to my hotel — which was almost walking distance away — and noticing with surprise that the meter started, not at zero, but at 20 euros.  That was a pricey trip; and when the time came to return I walked back.

I must go to Rome again.  Only … my last visit was by myself, to photograph a manuscript.  It was cheap enough to do, and to take a flight by Easyjet — was it Easyjet? — to Rome and an Easyjet minibus as far as Termini.  But it was a lonely trip, really.  I remember feeling lonely while I was there.  My other trips have been as part of tours, with people to talk to if I wanted.  Perhaps I need to find a Rome tour that will do much of this with me.  But where, I wonder?

On Easter Saturday, some of my readers are rather busy.

I can tell that they are busy from my inbox.  It’s stonkingly hot out there today — it reached well over 80F today, or 27C in our devalued French measures.  But too many of you were sat in front of your computers for my comfort, when I finally got home from visiting my family today.  I think I’ve replied to you all, tho.

There are some snippets of good news, tho, in between the death threats (just joking), and the demands for money from incompetent Oxford Patristics Conference organisers who haven’t noticed that I paid them a month ago (sadly not).  Oh yes there are.

Firstly, we have a treasure incoming.  Some time back I asked Andrew Eastbourne to translate the section on the month of March from John the Lydian’s De Mensibus (On the Months) book 4.  The first draft of this has arrived, and made me feel somewhat guilty.  Of course I had no real idea of what was in the chapter.  It turns out, tho, that it is full of philosophical and astrological  and mythological stuff, as well as calendar events.  It’s actually much more interesting than I had expected.  Look forward to this one, chaps – it’s good stuff.  I had only a few comments on the flow of the English, so it should be available in final form soonish.

Next, I have received some more letters of Isidore of Pelusium in English from Clive Sweeting.  I’ve not opened the files yet — too late and too tired these evening –, but these too will appear online soon.

Finally I have had an interesting email about the possibility of my publishing a translation that someone has already completed of a rather interesting Syriac text.  This may come to nothing; or it might mean a third volume in Ancient Texts in Translation, the series title for the books like the Eusebius which I am publishing.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.  As ever on Sunday, I shall have my laptop turned off and in the cupboard.  I recommend the practice to all my readers, and I wish you all a happy Easter.

It’s time.  I’ve had enough.  I’ve decided to dump all the Falco novels by Lindsay Davis after The Jupiter House down at the charity shop.

This series is one that I used to really enjoy.  I even bought some of the hardbacks, rather than wait for the paperback.  But it has got steadily less good.  I suspect the author has changed editor.  The results are less than inspiring.

Sorry, but I find I do not reread these later novels, so they have to go.

I have a bunch of books which I should like to send from the UK to a scholar in the Czech Republic.  Trouble is, this could easily get pricey!

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how best to do this?

You’re expecting blogging on a day like this?

I’ve been out in the garden, giving the grass the first cut of spring.  I’ve been down at the sea side, walking along the sea wall, buying an ice-cream from a vendor.

Go thou and do likewise.

… that over the last 5 days, since 4pm on 1st April, I have received or sent 184 emails.

No wonder I find myself gasping for breath!