Review: Classical Mythology, by Helen A Guerber

Hot(ish) off the heels of her excellent book on Norse mythology I bought Guerber’s work on classical mythology, which I know rather better. As such, there were fewer surprises and less novelty value. Also, as the intro mentions, she deliberately avoids what might be called the racier details. In this edition, which is illustrated, there’s plenty of fantastic artwork covering the gods, heroes, and monsters of classic myth. Note that Roman rather than Greek names are usually used, with the exception of Cronus/Saturn.

We start off with the creation of the world, then proceed through the various gods and goddesses, before covering major heroes and then, briefly, minor gods/spirits. As much be expected, some gods and heroes have bigger chapters than others (Hercules gets a lot, as one might expect).

Overall, the coverage of stories is very good indeed, although personally I prefer Greek to Roman names as (almost always) the origins are Greek. It’s also worth noting there’s no mythological comparison, so this might be better preceding than succeeding the Norse book.

While there’s no detail of the racy stuff (and I think nothing homosexual whatsoever, though I could be wrong) there is still reference to rape and abduction etc. Which is just as well for Jupiter or his chapter would’ve been rather short. In addition to the excellent artwork there’s also a map at the front/back which isn’t strictly needed but can be interesting for the various journeys.

As with the very enjoyable Norse book the writing style presents an engaging amount of detail without wandering into flabby padding territory, and I often read more than intended in a session.

My decision to add this to my sizeable reading pile was very much vindicated, and I recommend this to anyone after classical mythology tales in a single volume.

Thaddeus

Medea and Other Plays, by Euripides

I read this some time ago (maybe 15 years now) and reacquainted myself with this excellent little book recently. My edition is the Penguin version, translated by Philip Vellacott. The plays included are Medea, Hecabe, Electra, and Heracles.

Each play is a tragedy, the collective lesson of which appears to be that fate is cruel and you’re probably going to be vengefully murdered by a close friend or relative.

The plays are all very short. Despite there being four included, the page count (including the introduction and endnotes) is scarcely above 200 pages. This makes each play more or less a premise developed within a scene. However, this is done in an excellent fashion.

Euripides is extremely good at eliciting sympathy for someone’s unjustified plight, and then making one wonder whether the consequences of their anger are worse than the causes (to paraphrase Marcus Aurelius). The sense of human tragedy is not eroded one iota by the long time that has passed since the playwright’s lifetime in the 5^th century BC. If anything, that prolonged period highlights the unchanging essence of human nature, of tragedy, cruelty, the will to revenge and the irresistible twisting of fate.

The plays all feature characters of some note in Greek myths, but for anyone not up on that the premise is clearly laid out so foreknowledge is not required.

I tend to go for history over literature, but this is a very good quartet of plays. If I didn’t already have a to-read pile I’d probably be looking at buying some more of Euripides’ works.

Downsides are few but clear. Endnotes remain the work of Satan, and they’re (rather oddly) not even flagged up in the text with small numbers or asterisks.

All in all, an excellent book.

Thaddeus