Wilde woman
10-14-2010, 07:10 PM
The only Latin novel to survive from Classical Rome, the Golden A s s is told from the PoV of Lucius, a very horny and curious protagonist. Because of Lucius' penchant for sleeping around and his all-consuming obsession with magic (when he's not sleeping around), in his first attempt at a magic spell, he inadvertently turns himself into a donkey. (No, he's not a golden donkey...that was added later by St. Augustine, who referred to it as "The golden tale of the a s s.") The only way to make himself human again is to eat a rose. But, of course, that turns out to be much harder than it sounds. The rest of the novel concerns Lucius' hard and hilarious journey as a donkey who is constantly being bought, sold, stolen, beaten, and even (in the novel's most notorious scene) sodomized. :yikes: But even as an a s s, Lucius has not lost his curiosity, and he sprinkles his narrative with stories that he overhears. Many of the inset stories reflect or complement things that Lucius, as a beast of burden, experiences. The ending feels a bit like a cop-out, from a modern perspective, but fits with the themes that Apuleius is portraying (and could even be said to be autobiographical to some extent).
But besides the humor, there's plenty of scholarly stuff to take from the book, should you so desire. It could be read as a commentary on the Roman slave trade, an exegesis on the Classical concept of love, or as a plug for the mysterious cult of Isis. With all the inset stories, Apuleius also questions what it means to be an author or artist. And the story was so popular that there have been many adaptations of it (including, yes, Bottom's transformation in A Midsummer Night's Dream.) I read it for the second time for my romance class, looking specifically at romance tropes that are constantly popping up.
I highly recommend the Jack Lindsay translation because it does a really good job capturing the amazing wordplay and humorous tone of the original Latin. It's a hysterical book. Highly highly recommended.
But besides the humor, there's plenty of scholarly stuff to take from the book, should you so desire. It could be read as a commentary on the Roman slave trade, an exegesis on the Classical concept of love, or as a plug for the mysterious cult of Isis. With all the inset stories, Apuleius also questions what it means to be an author or artist. And the story was so popular that there have been many adaptations of it (including, yes, Bottom's transformation in A Midsummer Night's Dream.) I read it for the second time for my romance class, looking specifically at romance tropes that are constantly popping up.
I highly recommend the Jack Lindsay translation because it does a really good job capturing the amazing wordplay and humorous tone of the original Latin. It's a hysterical book. Highly highly recommended.