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A review by rachelevolve
History of Beauty by Umberto Eco
1.0
I got through this book by pure endurance I built by jogging 2-3 miles a day, 4 times a week. Otherwise I wouldn't have made it through. Good thing I have mental stamina. It's gotten me through a lot of difficult times in my life.
I loved Umberto's book "On Ugliness". I gave that five stars, which is the reason I asked for a copy of "On Beauty" for Christmas, so I could have the set, and forever cherish them both. I learned a lot about literature from "On Ugliness". I believe it was one of the ultimate driving forces which inspired me to start reading classic works. So when I opened my copy of the beautifully illustrated book "On beauty" and saw that one of the very first pictures of the book was a nude picture of what our society has been conditioned to recognize as beauty, I was disappointed.
I somewhat expected in this book, the transition of the history of beauty to eventually lead to what our warped over-sexed society has come to consider beautiful, but I didn't expect to open the book to the very first pages and see a modern image/photograph of a topless woman with what seemed like literally painted on black patten-leather boots that went up to her waist. I think that adding this image to the very first pages of this beautiful book was a serious offense, and I was indeed offended.
Other than that, the book was deeply disappointing. It was a tedious bore to get through. I found a driving manual more interesting to read.. I can safely say I got nothing from reading it, and I read it from cover to cover. I guess I'm more fascinated with the nature of ugliness than with that of beauty, since beauty these days seems to be so generic and un-original. Also none of the Art that Umberto chose moved me. Waste of a potentially gorgeous book.
This is hands down one of the shittiest books I've ever read in my life.
I loved Umberto's book "On Ugliness". I gave that five stars, which is the reason I asked for a copy of "On Beauty" for Christmas, so I could have the set, and forever cherish them both. I learned a lot about literature from "On Ugliness". I believe it was one of the ultimate driving forces which inspired me to start reading classic works. So when I opened my copy of the beautifully illustrated book "On beauty" and saw that one of the very first pictures of the book was a nude picture of what our society has been conditioned to recognize as beauty, I was disappointed.
I somewhat expected in this book, the transition of the history of beauty to eventually lead to what our warped over-sexed society has come to consider beautiful, but I didn't expect to open the book to the very first pages and see a modern image/photograph of a topless woman with what seemed like literally painted on black patten-leather boots that went up to her waist. I think that adding this image to the very first pages of this beautiful book was a serious offense, and I was indeed offended.
Other than that, the book was deeply disappointing. It was a tedious bore to get through. I found a driving manual more interesting to read.. I can safely say I got nothing from reading it, and I read it from cover to cover. I guess I'm more fascinated with the nature of ugliness than with that of beauty, since beauty these days seems to be so generic and un-original. Also none of the Art that Umberto chose moved me. Waste of a potentially gorgeous book.
This is hands down one of the shittiest books I've ever read in my life.