[.uk] Seneca: The Life of a Stoic

Whew - An Interesting But Bitter and Very "Advanced" Read:
I'm going to spare the efforts to write an erudite and impressive philosophical review, I'm too exhausted after slogging through this book. I don't know what Seneca ever did to Author Veyne, or if this is just the way French professors deal with philosophy, but this book is dripping with bitterness and sarcasm against stoicism and Seneca personally. Add that to the fact that Veyne writes in such a manner that you have to keep going back and re-reading sentences to figure out what he just said (every other word appears to have a mandatory four-syllable requirement), it is really hard to digest this work. The general underlying commentary is interesting, but so badly tainted with an obvious arrogance and dislike, and so hard to wade through - unless perhaps you have an advanced degree in philosophy and are French - that you would do much, much better with almost anything else. Some of the basic Seneca/Stoic premises on which Veyne basis his conclusions stuck me, even as an admitted lay person, as so obviously mistaken in what Seneca was saying, that I really had to question if this book had any objectivity at all. Be warned.