Where Jason Gets Everyone Else to Steal the Golden Fleece

The Voyage of Argo by Apollonius of Rhodes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like a lot of ancient books, this is more interesting as a cultural artifact or as a historical curiosity than as a fun rainy-day read. It's fairly interesting; it connects things you know from one place to things you know from another; it's an education on ancient Greek customs; and it's a box to check on the big Literature Checklist in my imagination.

I don't mind the style. I feel like the author, Apollonius of Rhodes, reads more modern than many ancient authors (though that could be due to the translation). He gives us a complete picture of action, dialogue, and inner thoughts and states, keeping these in better balance than I would have expected had I given it any thought. He keeps the plot moving forward while giving us a pretty good idea of what the main characters are feeling. The story isn't that great; it's primarily a bunch of dudes nearly getting killed as they try to steal a prized item, but they survive and succeed in their caper by getting helped out time and time again by the gods, by nymphs, by allies, and by anyone but themselves. It's deus ex machina all over the place.

But it comes from myth, and myths don't follow the rules of fiction.

Anyway, this is modestly entertaining and reasonably worth the effort it take to read it. It's not all that long or difficult. It ends with Jason returning home, before he betrays Medea and she kills their children. Maybe that all happens in the sequel.......

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