Review of the Consolation of Philosophy

I have finished the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Boethius was an Gothic philosopher who lived during the fall of Rome and the rise of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in the Italian peninsula. He served as a trused advisor to King Theodoric until a turn of events resulted with Boethius on death row. There he wrote the Consolation, and trust me the story behing how the book was written is far more interesting than the book itself. The entire book consists of one giant dialogue between him and Sophia, the feminine personofication of God’s wisdom, on the nature of reason, fate, providence, neccesity, time, fortune, and a bunch of other things that would have been quite interesting if there was some form of narrative. While it is one of the most influential books ever written, I found it to be mindnumbingly dull and only finished it because it was required reading. Unofortunately, it is foundational to Medieval and Renaissance thought; meaning I may be at a deficit for my later study of those eras. One thing that was rather interesting was the concept of the “Wheel of Fortune” (not the show) where the King sits at the top, the poor on the the bottom, and commoners hanging on the sides of the Wheel. That went on to become a very common theme in illuminated manuscripts, and for centuries the Consolation was one of the most copied books other than the Bible.

Other than that allegory, I didn’t get much from the Consolation. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have spent 27 straight hours translating it from Latin to English, so it is pretty obvious that some people have a LOT out of it. Perhaps I would have been able to enjoy it if it weren’t for the fact that I have like two or three other books I need to juggle reading at any given time. Whatever the case, I did not enjoy The Consolation of Philosophy and wouldn’t recommend reading it unless you have to.

Now we are on Dante’s Inferno, I’m only two cantos in and I already find it infinately more interesting than the Consolation.

The Life and Times of djgarcia94

First of all, let me make it clear that NOBODY (except for maybe some very kind friends and family) would want to watch a movie about my life. My life as I have had it so far, anyway; who knows what may happen down the road. I challenge you to find something that would be film worthy:

I lived in Japan until I was six, which was far too young for me to know the difference between there and America; living on a US Army base especially blurred that. I actually did some modeling for Japanese magazines as they have a big demand for gaijin children so readers will want to get these clothes because Americans supposedly wear them. The first few years following my family’s return to Washington is excrutiatingly dull. After then I was involved with Boy Scouts for several years. My original troop dissolved because my dad was the scoutmaster but he got deployed to Iraq and there was no one to replace him. That was followed by a few years where I was very lonely and depressed much of the time, most of my time was spent playing PC games. Then I joined another troop and while it was very rewarding it would make a horrible movie.

The last few years have been a bit more film worthy. My time at junior college was much like my time in the second troop I was in. I won far more accolades though. I have allready blogged quite a bit about my time in Costa Rica and Montana, so click on those catagories if you want to know more about all that. Here I am now, I have left my Theological literature class and am killing time until my African Civilization class. Every hour seems like a juggle between reading Boethius, Gogol, and the Epic of Sundiata.

If anyone could make a rough concept of adapting any of these events into a film I will be highly impressed.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/daily-prompt-superstar/