This one might just be better than "the Only Good Indian." It has horror, humanity, history and a fantastic vampire narrative bleeding through all theThis one might just be better than "the Only Good Indian." It has horror, humanity, history and a fantastic vampire narrative bleeding through all the pages. SGJ is brilliant at bringing humanity to the horror and not letting anyone off easily. We are all monsters, we are all gluttons, we all survive on the corpses of our past dead. God I loved this. ...more
I'll have to chew on this. Not an easy novel. Judy wears the reader down. Eventually, too, does Neva (and the others). Nobody gets out alive or with tI'll have to chew on this. Not an easy novel. Judy wears the reader down. Eventually, too, does Neva (and the others). Nobody gets out alive or with their dignity, I guess....more
A great structure to examine Western Asia, Judaism, and Christianity's early history of a corporeal God. Dr. Stavrakopoulou dives into her intense disA great structure to examine Western Asia, Judaism, and Christianity's early history of a corporeal God. Dr. Stavrakopoulou dives into her intense dissection of God by examining religious writings looking at God's: Feet and Legs, Genitals, Torso, Arms and Hands, and Head. She gets right in there.
I grew up a Mormon so the early view of God(s) having a real body wasn't a big stretch for me. But I was impressed with the depth and exactness of her vision and she examines in detail God the Father and Jesus and those Gods that came before. ...more
I'll come back to finish and review this, but DAMN. Go pick it up and read it.I'll come back to finish and review this, but DAMN. Go pick it up and read it....more
"Doesn't the mind understand as simply as the tongue tastes?" - Job
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Loved Mitchell's powerful translation. Sometimes, I'm not exactly sure what m"Doesn't the mind understand as simply as the tongue tastes?" - Job
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Loved Mitchell's powerful translation. Sometimes, I'm not exactly sure what method Mitchell uses to translate/interpret, but it might just be magic. The poetry of Job flowed like blood and pounded like the waves. It burned like fire. I'll write more tomorrow when I have time and the weight of justice and the eyes of God are a bit kinder....more
"I am death, shatterer of worlds, annialating all things" (11.32). - Bhagavad Gita, tr Stephen Mitchell
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I’ll review later as it sinks deeper in. I"I am death, shatterer of worlds, annialating all things" (11.32). - Bhagavad Gita, tr Stephen Mitchell
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I’ll review later as it sinks deeper in. I need some time to chew on it. And, yes, perhaps just let go and let the book be -- what it already is....more
"But a nation, like an individual, can be too sensible, too prosaically sane and unbearably right." - Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage
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I jumped"But a nation, like an individual, can be too sensible, too prosaically sane and unbearably right." - Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage
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I jumped into this series with not a small amount of skepticsm. How can you not be skeptical of a project that is basically 10,000 pages, in 11 volumes, totalling about 4 million words? But I was curious. This series is ubiquitous in used bookstores. I was more than curious. It almost seemed stupidly large. That was a selling point. It also seemed nearly (11/12) designed for a year-long big book quest. My worries increased when a friend of mine suggested I abandon my copy back to a "little free library or used bookstore". But I figured I'd give Vol 1 a shot. I was apprehensive because a History of Civilization written in 1935 is going to come from a completely different perspective than the one I'm used to from contemporary historians (academic or otherwise). But that same worry also made me curious. The fact that this series was published over forty years (Vol 1 = 1935; Vol 11 = 1975) made me interested to see if/how the Durant's approach to history changed from pre-WWII to post-Vietnam.
Vol 1: "Our Oriental Heritage" is 938 pages that span:
I. The Establishment of Civilization - pages 1 to 110 II. The Near East (Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Judea, Persia, etc) - 111 to 386 III. India and Her Neighbors - 387 t0 634 IV. The Far East - 635 to 824 V. Japan - 825 to 944
The introduction almost turned me off. Durant's almost causal use of "savage" and "primative" to discuss early man and civilization irritated me, and there were brief periods where I was worried Durant was going to emerge as a fangirl of eugenics. But I also had to remember this was written by an American, white male intellectual in the middle of the 30s, almost 80 years ago. It is also a book aimed at the general reader not the academic. I kept on reader, because once engaged I'm an indulgent reader. And... it got better. Actually, it became quite good. I enjoyed his style. I felt Durant was (as much as an outsider can be) fair to most of his subjects. I enjoyed his horde of historical truisms/maxims/aphorisms that he sprinkled willy-nilly throughout the volume. I felt, after reading Vol I, like I learned a lot. It was just ambitous enough, broad enough, and interesting enough to warrent me continuing to Vol II next month. There was plenty of fluff, and I'm sure academics in any of the areas he covered could shake up his views considerably, but like Durant said: "most of history is guessing, and the rest is predjudice"
Some of my other favorite of Durant's historical aphorisms in Vol I, Section 1 The Establishment of Civilization:
"Societies are ruled by two powers: in peace by the word, in crisis by the sword" (22). "Time sanctifies everything" (24). "Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization" (29). "To transmute greed into thrift, violence into argument, murder into litigation, and suicide into philosophy has been part of the task of civilization" (53). "men are more easily ruled by imagination than by science" (56). "It is the tendency of gods to begin as ogres and to end as loving fathers" (63). "In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like a body and soul, in a harmonious death" (71). "Possibly every discovery is a rediscovery" (107)....more
"For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing." - Ursula K Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
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I rarely venture into YA fiction. Less often "For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing." - Ursula K Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
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I rarely venture into YA fiction. Less often still do I pick up and read a book of fantasy. There are exceptions. When I trust the author, we I think there is art/beauty/originality lurking there, I will often venture into spaces and places I usually avoid. Ursula K Le Guin died last year and I started reading her bit by bit, largely focusing on her Hainish novels/cycle. I needed more women in my 2019 plan, and Saga Press recently (on the 50th aniversary of the publishing of Book 1 [this book]) published a wonderful omnibus, illustrated, edition: The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition. So, I figured I might as well get into the Earthsea boat and give it a go.
I loved it. I didn't read much YA fiction when I was a kid. I've read more with my own kids when they were younger, but mostly skipped over this stuff. At the time, I'd rather read Bradbury or Vonnegut. My sister-in-law drives me nuts with her books with swords and dragons. I usually ignore the pulp. But THIS. This is great stuff. It is essentially a Bildungsroman with Taoist elements (equalibrium, etc). It is carefully plotted and spare. She isn't flitting around talking too much about the dragon or the gold and jewel -strung lair of the dragon. She weaves a story about very human things: jealousy, fear, guilt, pride, friendship. The risk was worth it. The journey to other islands in this fantasy archipeligo will continue. I also think it is strangely fitting I finished it on Epiphany (bring on the Mages/Magi).
“Happy endings are best achieved by keeping the right doors locked” ― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
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I like looking at myths and great literatu“Happy endings are best achieved by keeping the right doors locked” ― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
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I like looking at myths and great literature in another way. I enjoyed the book, but it just wasnt' great Margaret Atwood. It felt a bit dashed-off, almost an afterthought. Great in idea, but just OK in execution.
Things I liked: 1. the conception 2. the re-evaluation of Penelope in conjunction with Helen, Odysseus, Eryurycleia, Telemachus, etc. 3. the re-evaluation of Odysseus 4. the idea of the 12 maids 5. the idea of Penelope as female-goddess cult-leader
Things I didn't like: 1. the prose 2. the Chorus Lines 3. general execution
Anyway, I still adore Atwood. This one just happens to be my least favorite I've read so far....more
"The difficulty Akhenaten and Zarathustra faced is that people generally have a hard time relating to a god who, having no human features or attribute"The difficulty Akhenaten and Zarathustra faced is that people generally have a hard time relating to a god who, having no human features or attributes, also has no human needs." - Reza Aslan, God: A Human History
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A basic overview of the development of Monotheism written for popular consumption. Nothing really new, except for Aslan's obvious narrative skill (there are a certain band/level of nonfiction writer that always seems like the nonfiction version of a TED Talk, Aslan fits into this band). His basic thesis is that the need to humanize god (make him like us) is neurological, etc. At the root of this book, Aslan travels from early ideas about the development of religion down to Islam and Sufism to explain how pantheism progressed to monotheism through several iterations.
Personally, I prefer Bob Wright's 'Evolution of God' (Loved) and Karen Armstrong's 'History of God' (perused, but haven't finished). Here is where Aslan's book is different. He isn't telling a history of God as much as he is telling the story of Man told through the developement of our God(s)*. Aslan's book deserves to be near these books, while not perhaps, to be treated as an equal among God books.
* One of the great takeaways from this book was the term politicomorphism: "the divinization of earthly politics."...more
It is amazing how much we know about Druids comes from Roman era histories and writings built around one agenda or another's. Cunliffe does a good jobIt is amazing how much we know about Druids comes from Roman era histories and writings built around one agenda or another's. Cunliffe does a good job of exploring what we know through writings, archaeology, etc., and separating THAT from the myths and romantic reconfigurations of Celtic and Druid myths and histories. There are certain civilizations and certain expressions of our past that seem to capture the imagination far beyond the actual knowledge base. I fair and interesting exploration of Druids (and fairly the decline of Druid culture). ...more
"Classical mythology only happens when the stories become active agents; when people use them." - Helen Morales, VSI Classical Mythology
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An inte"Classical mythology only happens when the stories become active agents; when people use them." - Helen Morales, VSI Classical Mythology
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An interesting take on Classical Mythology. Just like Mary Beard begins and ultimately frames her examination of the Classics for VSI by exploring the British Museum's Bassae room and the Temple of Bassae in Greece, Helen Morales uses Europa on the Bull (on the Euro and on a 3rd Century Roman coin) to BEGIN to examine how myth is used and transformed by cultures, governments, etc., as emblems and powerful statements. While she travels beyond the myth of Zeus (as Bull) and Europa (and beyond governments), she will often return again and again to this myth to explain and illuminate other aspects of classical myths.
In the book Morales looks at the context of Classical myths, Gods and heros, the metaphorphoses of mythology (muthos to logos), she looks at Freud's role in our modern view of Classical Myths (how myth impacted analysis and analysis impacted Classical myths), the sexual politics of myth, and myths and the New Age.
I liked it. I'm always interested how scholars will attempt to tackle the distilation process of VSI. Some cram, some thin, some find creative ways to obliquely tackle and introduce their subjects to amateurs. It is a venture that is (for many subjects) a challenge worthy of a mental Hercules (Heracles). ...more
"All this while, I have been a weaver without wool, a ship without the sea. Yet now look where I sail." - Circe, Madeline Miller, Circe
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This mig"All this while, I have been a weaver without wool, a ship without the sea. Yet now look where I sail." - Circe, Madeline Miller, Circe
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This might be a 5-star book. I need to let it soak. I really enjoyed it. Feminist. Marxist almost. It looks at the gods and at Man from the perspective of a banished nymph, a witch, a daughter of Helios. The myths get brushed, twisted and woven in a way that is both familiar and new. Miller changes the myths by simply changing the narrator, removing the hero, and looking at the narrative from a different perspective. This has been done before, but Miller's approach and craft is hard to replicate. I'm not sure she is Robert Graves, but she is definitely on the same island as Mary Renault....more
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