At the beginning of this year I wasn’t sure what I should expect from this task. At first I asked myself how I should become friends with a book that I’m not really capable to read. Throughout this year I’ve got to say that it was kind of possible.
The first task already woke my interest. I read a lot about the author and how the book arose. I also found it interesting how we are still able to read books which are hundreds of years old in physical and digital versions.
The second task was undoubtedly my favourite. I was excited to finally see the book physically not only as a pdf. I liked looking at the beautiful drawings made by Desgodets. I even tried to read but actually that was the point where I realised that my French needs to be improved. Even though I couldn’t really read the texts I was very entertained while flipping through the book.
The third part did not catch my attention that much. It was quite hard finding out about translations, abridgments, reeditions and reprints. Also I have to say I didn’t really feel like it would actually bring me closer to my book. The fourth task then, tore me back in. It seemed to get very interesting especially with regard to task five. I liked the idea of letting the different books talk to each other and finding out about similarities and differences. The second part of task four brought me closer to my book as I had to deal with its structure and the topics it’s treating.
The whole process came to a very nice end with task five. It was the first time we could really talk about the book with other students and discuss disparities. I actually think it was the one part that in the end really made me feel like I’d have a friendship with my book.
While working on the tasks I realised that it was really hard finding information about such an old book. I couldn’t just google what it was all about and get all the information I needed. In fact I really had to work with pdfs of the book and translators to find out all the information which was required. I think it showed that there are limits to the internet and we can not always rely on getting all the information out of it.
As I said before, it was the fifth task that really led me to the conclusion that I was now friends with “Les édifices antique de Rome”. I liked the creative aspect but even more I liked the discussion. I think it could be an improvement for the whole idea of “Friends with an old book” if there were more discussions. It urges one to really think about the position which the author had in mind. Also the last task, as all the books in one group had similarities, made me look a lot closer to find the small differences between the different oeuvres.