I was supposed to read
The Slave Dancer today, but I put it down somewhere and the house ate it. I hope it turns up again fairly soon. Anyway, when I finally gave up on finding it on time I grabbed the next skinny book, which was
The Greek Gods by
Bernard Evslin, Dorothy Evslin, and Ned Hoopes, which was about what you expect from the title.
 |
| BarockSchloss CC License |
I did enjoy these versions, which gave a bit more time to the diverse emotions and needs of the gods, so that Persephone, for example, enjoys the power she has over Hades even as she misses her mom, and she eats the pomegranate seeds through the temptation of a boy killed by Demeter in her first shock of grief. Little touches like that keep even the most well known myths fresh. But I'm sorry to say that my most vivid memory of this book was triggered by the history video on The Columbian Exchange that I watched right before reading it, because that meant that when Ceres is identified as the goddess of the cornfield I laughed outright and showed the book to P, who also smirked knowingly. I actually doubt that ancient Greek gods assigned corn fields to anyone in particular.
Anyway, today was a good book day, including a very pleasant book club with delicious food, great weather, and interesting conversation. (We read Soulless, by Gail Carriger, which got different opinions so made for fun talk.)
No comments:
Post a Comment