Where Achilles Loses It

The Iliad Translated by Samuel Butler by Homer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(As always, I'm ranking this work of literature by how much I enjoyed reading it, how much fun it was, how interesting I found it. I am not gauging it's worth--I don't know how to do that. Not gonna try.)

My review of the Iliad: I liked it some. It's okay.

I don't remember if I've read it all the way through before, though I've definitely read big chunks at different times. I got this new hardcover version of an old (1898) translation as a gift, and though I may still read one of the new translations sometime, I decided to start here.

I thought it was not too bad--speaking both of the original work and the English translation. My least favorite part of the translation was that he used the names of the Roman gods instead of Greek--Jove, not Zeus; Minerva, not Athena; Juno, not Hera; and so on. Apollo was still Apollo.

I kinda forgot how narrow the story was. This takes us from Achilles deciding not to fight anymore to Hector's funeral (sorry! Spoilers!). The origins of the war and the first 9 years are skipped over; the end of the war isn't reached. What we do have is a lot of fighting and arguing, and naming of men as they die and which gruesome way it comes to them.

The parts I found most interesting were the places where they talked about the allies that came from this region or that city, on both sides of the war, and when they referred to towns and cities taken by the Achaeans before reaching Troy and the events of those campaigns. (The woman Briseis was was taken as a prize of war in one of those earlier fights, as were many slaves and treasures.) To be honest, it's this background stuff and the everyday life of the region I'm most interested in, like how much they knew about other lands, how much they traded with neighbors, what languages were spoken nearby, how the societies were set up, things like that, and in the midst of this war story we get some clues.

As far as storytelling and modern expectations, where we look for tension and a conflict that the main character tries to work through, where they succeed or fail on their merits, the Iliad is disappointing. This is largely due to the years separating them from us, and part of the issue is that they have different literary expectations. For example, it's clear that a lot of the background would be well-known to ancient listeners long before they heard any of the Iliad. Many of the characters that we barely get to know or know only by name could be heroes in other stories that Homer's audiences already loved, like Spiderman showing up in an Avengers movie. We don't have their background knowledge, so any pleasure we should have taken from that name-dropping goes whoosh over my head. And back then they might have been cool with all of the Olympian meddling going on, but I hated that. The gods move people around, deciding who wins today and who wins tomorrow, who lives and dies, so that striving makes no difference. Intention, bravery, effort all become pointless as far as storytelling goes if the gods are deciding everything. In a way, the story that matters is just what falls in the cracks between the interventions of the gods.

Priam begging Achilles to return his son's body to him is the most human and entertaining (IMO) part of the story. Even this was preordained, but at least their conversation is in their own words, and it's very dramatic and sad. That scene was probably the most similar to modern literature you could find in the whole epic, and it was the one that worked best for me.

I found things to entertain me in this, and some parts of it are straight up engaging on their own. Lots of it is less fun, tbh, but anybody picking up an ancient piece of literature expects that.

My recommendation? If you think you might want to read this, look for one of the new translations. You may enjoy it.

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Where the Haunting Takes a Turn

Good Spirits by B.K. Borison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was pretty good. 3.5 feels closer to how I experienced it. Mostly fun enough and clever enough to read a little each day, though I didn't connect with it emotionally as much as other readers did.

It's a brisk read with some likable characters, and I was especially curious about the mystery of it--how could this Ghost of Christmas Past character be so drawn to and connected to this modern woman? What was in his past or hers that made this haunting go down a path so different from the ghost in the Dickens version? They have some kind of fate thing going on, and their trips first to her past and then to his seem to be teasing something big, something cool, and I was very curious.

There is an answer of sorts, but it was a little underbaked. How the afterlife/haunting-for-a-purpose thing works is not really sorted out. It's mostly skipped over, taking us to the ending. We got the resolution I wanted--this is a romance, after all, and a happily-ever-after is required--but I would have liked there to be a little better explanation for why it worked. Why did this couple get a chance that (seemingly) no other couple have ever enjoyed?

It's quite a sexy book, and I can see that being a plus for some readers, maybe even the main draw, and probably a deal-breaker for others; for me it was--fine. It was fine. Not remarkably different from the fantasies and science fiction novels and historical mysteries that are my usual fare. A touch more explicit, though, if I'm honest. I'm curious what level of spiciness more experienced readers of romance would consider this...

Overall--a pleasant enough read with agreeable characters and nice resolution.

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Where Everyone Deserves a Do-Over

Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This wasn't quite what I thought it was, but I still enjoyed it.

I thought this was the third book in the series about Anne of Green Gables, and it may have been the third published, but it's not quite in the regular order. Anne barely figures here, showing up briefly in a a couple places, and these are short stories, not a novel. They take place in and around and near where the previous novels happened, but they're all new characters.

Most of them concern older people who've missed their chance at love and maybe they'll get one more shot at it. A couple deal with adopted kids, people taking in a child (rather like Anne) who changes their lives. All of the stories are about families, about people who are lonely, about people who push others away, and about making new families that bring us joy or peace or happiness. Like the first novels, these stories are a mix of regret and despair and sadness on one hand and the possibility of joy and hope and happiness on the other.

What surprises me most about the stories is that they could, any or all of them, become cloying, too saccharine, and maybe some have leveled that claim, and while I find them decidedly sweet, they are not over-sweet. They're touching, but they keep the people real. Complex characters--flawed, normal people who are sometimes grumpy, foolish, intimidated, proud, or rude--are reaching for a little happiness, and it doesn't feel (to me) like it's unreasonable or unbelievable. Melodramatic, maybe, yes. But real for all of that.

So I still liked it. I would rather see Anne in the stories, because she is the incredible creation of the author that is so easy to cheer for and follow around, almost a patron saint of seeing the beauty in the world, but these quick stories are still very much in the same vein.

Four stars. Recommended.

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Where Admetus Lucks Out

Alcestis by Euripides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have spent very little time studying Greek tragedy. It's been probably 45 years since I had a class that required it--and that was the last time I read any. I know about as much about Greek tragedy as your average--well, maybe a step up from that--nerdy college freshman. But my self-assigned reading includes plays, and I'm running out of Shakespeare/Marlowe/Jonson/Dryden/Moliere plays that I can find (cheaply). So I decided to take a shot at Euripides on my own.

Also, Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my two or three favorite writers, has sometimes made a case for still reading Greek literature. So I'm partly motivated by shame.

Anyway, this was good.

The end

Well, to expand, I found it pretty enjoyable to read, even the weird strophe/antistrophe stuff that used to give me fits. I just pretend it's a musical and imagine somebody singing those lines, and it all makes sense. The play is not too long; there aren't so many characters that it's hard to keep track of them; the plot is pretty tight (they really believed in that); and [spoilers!] there's a fricking happy ending. What? That's perfect for me. I hate "So everybody died sad" stories with a white-hot heat--and this ain't that.

I kinda hated the MMC Admetus. Apollo liked him and worked him a deal with the Fates where he could get someone else to die in his place. Everyone said no except his sweet wife--and he said cool, you die for me. So when she dies at the start of the play, he's not mad at himself. He's mad at his parents, who he thinks should have sacrificed their lives for him. Nobody else seems to be blaming him, though Admetus finally realizes how he looks.

"Look at the cheap coward," he says, "alive and well,/ who ran away from death--/so small he got his wife to die instead./ Do you call that a man?/ He execrates his parents but could not die himself."

Yeah, dude, it's horrible. It's really, really bad. And the idea of dying for someone, or letting someone die for you, is explored in the play in a way I found pretty useful. There are so many takes on it by the end that I'm not sure what a member of the audience back in those times would have thought. Yes, Admetus is a great man, but his wife was the best of women. Maybe she was awesome for doing what she did; maybe he was awful for letting her. (My opinion.) It's not like he's developing the cure for cancer and just needed a little more time. He just wanted to keep living.

He lucks out when Hercules comes to visit then saves the day by mugging Death and rescuing Alcestis. Sure, it's an unlikely, Deus ex machina-adjacent device--but the whole story is based on impossible mythological nonsense, so... I'm good with it. I like a happy ending.

I find myself encouraged to go on reading old Greek plays that are still new to me. There's a bunch, so no problem there.

4 stars.

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Where Joliffe Gets a New Side Hustle

A Play of Lords by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very satisfying novel.

This is book 4 in the series, and I'm glad that they are just getting better--more fun, more interesting, more complex. Joliffe is an actor in a small troupe in 15th century England. He's intelligent, a bit of a smart ass, generally ethical but no saint, friendly but not a pushover. As the series progresses, he's getting more and more focused on solving mysteries he's presented with or involved in; it's not just curiosity and gossiping leading him to solutions, but thoughtful action and deep reflection. The more intentional his investigations become, the more I like it.

[Some light spoilers.]
The players are in London for the first time in the series, playing for their sponsor, when Joliffe is asked to write a play that would help promote propaganda useful to a friend of the lord they work for. The play is a success, helping in a small way to spread a message that will smooth over a trade disagreement with Burgundy, but someone else sends goons to attack them and discourage them from continuing in this way. From that point on, Joliffe is trying to figure out what forces are on what side, and he is enlisted by Bishop Beaufort to do more of that thinking and watching and investigating in his service, pretty much as a spy.

Some of the thinking here, in the form "Maybe it's this faction trying to look like this, or maybe it's this other faction hoping to get a different outcome, or maybe it's a third group thing to make it look like the first group..." was pretty deep and I lost the thread. I'm afraid international trade, beyond the simplest level, does not make sense to me, so I just plowed through some of that, but the story is still entirely clear. The resolution makes sense and is satisfying, though (as I think I've noticed in previous books) I wouldn't mind another chapter fleshing out the consequences and final state for some of the minor characters. Much is implied, but I was enjoying the conclusion and would have liked a bit more of it.

In any case, it's a fun book, and as always the setting is well-researched and beautifully realized. Recommended for mystery readers.

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Where Will Has Some Crazy Luck

The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Decently entertaining. Pretty solid C. (IMO, obviously. Thrillers are sometimes exactly my thing, but usually are not. This is right in the middle.) So--not a favorite, but enjoyable enough to look at other books by this author.

I found this slow and vague for the first half, but not horribly so. I kept going. In part, for maybe 100 pages, it's about a journalist having a small lucky streak with unexpectedly well-received stories. Then it's about his wife being abducted and his attempt to find her on his own. That's most of the middle. He follows some clues; he gets beaten up and tortured; he reaches out to people for help; he still doesn't know what's going on. Then, maybe 2/3 of the way through, it becomes bigger than just a kidnapping--and that's when it become quite a bit more interesting. There are religious, spiritual, even supernatural aspects to events that he has become dimly aware of, and we are finally drawn into what I think should have been the center of the plot from the first page.

But that's just one reader's opinion. :)

It's written in a way that is meant to be believable despite the supernatural implications, which in a way are left up to the reader to make up their mind about--is it real? Or is it just belief? I think that part works. However, the number of coincidences in this stack up a bit, and it hurt more than it helped. I would explain more, except that they include serious spoilers, worse than what I've revealed above. IMO, none of the coincidences are necessary for the plot--well, maybe just one, the one that gets him involved--and I feel like a little revision would have improved the story. The many details he basically stumbles onto and the unexpected personal connections to the ancient global mystery at the heart of the story make for interesting moments, maybe, but they're too unlikely to leave the reader easy about it. If the author was committed to the coincidences, some serious lamp-shading would have helped my disbelief a little.

But overall, it's a decent thriller with some scattered exciting scenes, good prose throughout, and a few likable characters that you can root for. TBH, I was prepared to enjoy this novel because it's one of a dozen or so books I held on to from my brother's collection after he died, so I'm glad that it was pretty good in the end, despite my criticisms.

So, Jon, I don't know for sure whether you read this one, or whether you liked it if you did, but I thought it was okay. Maybe I'll read one of those westerns next. Point me to a good one. :)

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Where the Universe Just Keeps On Getting Bigger

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A nice book about the universe and stuff in it. Well worth reading.

NdGT is a pretty good popularizer of astrophysics and sciences connected to it. His essays are light, generally, and have a very gentle learning curve. That makes sense; his whole persona is that of middle school science teacher with a dad-joke sense of humor, trying to reach bored kids with some profound knowledge. In writing as much as on a talk show, he tends to be jocular and upbeat, but his science still has weight to it. And once in a while, he turns out a pretty deep and affecting bit of prose that gives the whole thing more heft.

His essays are usually pretty straightforward--one on dark matter, another on dark energy, one on the reason big things tend to be round, one telling the history of the discovery of "light" above and below the visible spectrum, and so on. I found many of the essays to be largely filled with things I already knew pretty well, but invariably he adds something that is entirely new in my experience, so that I always found it rewarding and time well spent. Other essays were even more revelatory, adding a lot to my store of knowledge.

My point is that even though other science writers often lean more toward the "technical science for sciency readers" end of communication, and Tyson leans more toward the "make it accessible for a broad audience" end, it's still filled with good stuff worth reading. But he's capable of even more. In the final essay, he's talking about his wish for a future where all of us, especially global leaders, take a broader view of our place in the world, our responsibility to the rest of creation, and though it's about science, it's really about saving ourselves. The essay is a sobering effort, and starts with him recognizing the privilege that allows him to travel the world looking at celestial events:

When I pause and reflect on our expanding universe, with its galaxies hurtling away from one another, embedded within the ever-stretching, four-dimensional fabric of space and time, sometimes I forget that uncounted people walk this earth without food or shelter, and that children are disproportionately represented among them.

When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day--every twenty-four-hour rotation of Earth--people kill and get killed in the name of someone else's conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God, kill in the name of needs or wants of political dogma...

His call for a broader way of seeing the world and our responsibilities toward it and its in inhabitants, with us as stewards, isn't itself new, but placed in the context of not just earth but the full universe, with us a minute part, made up of elements forged in ancient stars, it's very affecting. He takes a big swing and I feel like he connected.

It's a little book, but I liked it, and I recommend it.

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