I have downloaded some of Plato's dialogues, and trying to read them is absolutely maddening!
Part of the reason is that the free downloads are not the best translations. The translated language is stuffy and dry as cardboard. But then again, this is to be expected of any translation that goes for straight word for word directness in order to preserve the ideas where the translator themself does not understand the ideas. If you want word for word accuracy, it will be stuffy and dry as cardboard.
But my God, I read this as philosophy, expecting to have some nice juicy ideas to think of.
And it begins, inevitably, with reams and reams of mindless small talk before they get to any ideas.
I have to wade through reams and reams of inane mindless small talk on where someone was, how Socrates dissappered and showed up late, how they are relating a story from when someone was a child, that he only heard about, all this inane small talk
And all the while my brain is screaming out, Get to the Philosophy!
I feel like the pig character in the Pearls Before Swine comic strip when Rat was trying to filibuster the comic strip with Moby Dick, and Pig screams out, 'Get to the Whale! Get to the Whale!'
Get to the Philosophy!
And long before Plato gets to any actual philosophy, my mind is numb and cannot feel the ideas, if any philosophy comes up it has to wade through the drek of frustration and numbness in my mind and will not connect with anything!
Please, Plato, get to the philosophy!
I want to learn Plato.
I am going to drop the awful dialogues, and look up what the classic books on Plato are by others.
By the Neo-Platonics and the classical Greeks and Romans, because all us modern westerners seem to care for is Plato's stupid politics.
I will look up Plotinus's Enneads instead.
He will get to the philosophy, I hope!
Sorry for this rant.
Hope it helps someone having the same problem, or at least entertains with a short insight into your author!
God loves you! Whoo! It feels good to get that out of me!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson