A walk around Thebes

How do I convey the pleasure of Krawczuk's Seven Against Thebes? I could try to explain them, but would that amount to the same thing?

The book is a kind of stroll through things Theban. It starts with a paraphrase of Plutarch's essay on Socrates' protective spirit which reads like a kind of Platonic dialog; its action is set in the city of Thebes in the year 379 B.C.: several notables are assembled in the house of Charon for a party; they entertain themselves with philosophical discussion; suddenly a messenger arrives to report that seven plotters left Athens the previous day and, having crossed Kitaeon, would be in Thebes that very night. Tonight must therefore be the night.

Incredibly, the book then makes a series of learned detours to discuss the previous two occasions on which seven heroes set out against the city of Thebes, the Theban mythological cycle, the Mycenaean civilization, the possible Egyptian or Phoenician sources of it, the several famous Thebaids, all but one now lost, some Theban antiquities and monuments, local places of worship, Spartan excavations of Theban antiquities and attempts to decipher (by appealing to Egyptian priests) linear B inscriptions, the Farnese bull (which is on a Theban theme), Pythagoreans of Greater Greece, and, indeed, Socrates' protective spirit, before returning to the Plutarch story, the coup attempt in Thebes and -- yes -- the fall of its pro-Spartan tyrant.

The pace of the book is a pleasurable andante, the language accessible -- easy without being condescending (Krawczuk writes to an audience whose familiarity with some things he can take for granted) -- and there are numerous entertaining asides:

It has not escaped the attention of the contemporaries -- people alive in the 5th ad 4th centuries B.C. -- that they were witnessing an interesting development: the old epic style was dying while a new way of speaking was arising. Were something similar happening in our times, doubtless a great river of works, articles and essays would pour forth with titles like On the condition of the epic, In defense of the true values of the epic, On the limits of experiment in epic production, Some problems of research on the theory and practice of the epic. There would be symposia and conferences. Countless persons would acquire PhDs and habilitations. Most the statements would be long-sentenced, intelligently impenetrable, and wisely sensitive the the slightest breezes from the ideological Olympus.

The book isn't a book, but a kind of conversation with a witty, charming older gentleman, tremendously learned, but not eggheaded; entertaining without any intention to teach or indoctrinate; something akin to a long walk on a sunny autumn day through a park.

Pure pleasure, in short.

Really, why are not more people reading it?