Tow #4 IRB: The Buried Book by David Damrosch (Part 1)

For my independent reading book, I chose to read The Buried Book written by David Damrosch, a professor that has his Ph.D from Yale University and currently teaches Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Damrosch did an extensive amount of research on the people that discovered and deciphered the Epic of Gilgamesh and so he decided to write this narrative. Among those people were George Smith and Hormuzed Rassam, which were the two men that were most emphasized and seemingly the most important people part of this discovery. It is obvious that Damrosch was writing for an intelligent audience of college students or professors because of his informative, almost robotic, tone. Also the structure of the book so far has been starting from the end, the discovery of the two thousand year-old cuneiform tablets in the 1800s, and getting closer to details about the time period when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written. Because of this structure and the sophisticated language Damrosch uses, that indicates the audience was not someone looking for a bit of light reading. So far I think that Damrosch has been effective in informing his audience about this piece of history. Although it seems like a history textbook at times, it is effective because there is no "fluff" to make it more fun to read, but instead all of the information is either straightforward and relevant or it seems like it will be important at the end of the book. However, to keep readers interested, Damrosch tells relatively extensive side-stories about the key players in this discovery. For example, with George Smith, Damrosch informs his audience of how Smith was able to translate the cuneiform tablets that the Epic was written on over the course of fifteen years, and the fame he gained after the public found out he was translating the dead language. Rather than leaving it at that, Damrosch goes deeper and provides background information on Smith's wife and letters he sent to his wife before he tragically died. I predict that after I read the last half of the book, Damrosch will tie in every main story and side story he tells to reduce confusion and hopefully achieve his purpose to compile all of his research and retell the story of the rediscovery of Gilgamesh.