Philosopher/humorist Daniel Klein has written about humor (Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar) and life and death (Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates). In Travels with Epicurus, he offers a thoughtful and witty meditation on old age. When Klein's dentist tells him he should choose between extensive dental work or dentures that would greatly affect what he could eat, he says hold on--then goes to the Greek island of Hydra to think it over. He takes us on a journey of this island and its people via his favorite philosophers--Aristotle, Aeschylus, Nietzsche, Sartre, even Frank Sinatra--to explore what it means to be old, to age. At 74, he wants to "figure out the most satisfying way to live this stage of my life."
Klein meets the elderly Tasso, who he watches eating and drinking and conversing with his elderly friends, all of them enjoying themselves. It puts him in mind of Epicurus: "Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitute our abundance." So Klein enjoys himself as he searches, as he talks to people, eats great food, observes beautiful scenery, smokes and gradually realizes this search for a fulfilling old age is really his way of coming to terms with a genuine death. He's not just a "befuddled old geezer barking at the moon," rather, to quote Cicero: "Old age is the consummation of life." --Tom Lavoie, former publisher