No - wait.
Just a few more seconds...
OK, now we can begin.
The year was 1964.
For the whole year.
Some people thought the US might advance to 1965 early, in October, just to stay ahead of the Russians. But in the end it was decided that we'd stick with 1964.
By December, some people were getting bored of 1964. After the JFK assassination, people were jumpy; reluctant to trust anything - even the year. The Beatles at one time claimed to be more popular than 1964. And despite the moral panic that was caused, they were probably right.
But it couldn't last forever. Soon it was 1965, but that's a whole other issue.
In several areas of the world, they don't use our calendar, and so it wasn't 1964 at all.
They were crazy times.
Just as Orwell had predicted before that fateful typo.
***
An Idiot Flaps Odyssey - Part 11
Welcome to this! Remember how this works?
Intro
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
I haven't done one of these since Christmas Eve Eve. But it hasn't taken me that long to read a single book. I've been busy with all manner of things. I've read other books, I've read the odd graffito, I've read the beginning of this paragraph and elected not to edit it.
But the odyssey is still ongoing. I'm not licked yet (as the unopened Calippo said to the ice cream van's ghost).
***
Ovid - Metamorphoses
[Maybe I should always have my book photo reflect the content of the book somehow. I don't know if it will always be too easy, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.]I wish I knew more about classical mythology. I can't help but feel that you're handicapped when reading the great works of literature, all the poetry, and pretty much all of Shakespeare, if you don't know about the legends of antiquity.
Every other line references an obscure nymph or centaur, and then you have to go and look them up on Wikipedia.
So, in an attempt to take the Minotaur by the horns, I've gone straight to the source.
Well, not the source. That would probably be Homer. But a reasonably old source. Older than that Troy film with the tedious elf and Mad-Eye Moody in, anyhow.
Ovid's Metamorphoses is a beautifully written compendium of classical tales, myths and history (if people being turned into trees can be considered history). Of course, this is a translation. I didn't have time to learn Latin. But it's a beautifully written translation, anyway.
It's probably my favourite book that I've read in this whole enterprise.
There's so much variety and weirdness that it never fails to entertain. You get explanations of the famous myths (the siege of Troy, Narcissus falling in love with himself, Pluto learning how to skateboard on the back of an AT-AT walker, etc), plus a load of minor ones.
There are great descriptions of battles filled with gory details. You get to hear about peoples skulls being crushed, and their brains coming out of their mouths. In a way, it's like a teenage boy's account of violence, and is no-less exciting as a result.
It's full of intense emotion, spectacular epic scenes, and (of course) eerie transformations.
People do get turned into trees a lot. And birds. And rocks and rivers.
One of the things I like most is the moral ambiguity. In fact, the tales are liberatingly amoral. Humans do wicked things, but the Gods are so petty and disproportionate in their rage, it's like a conflict between children.
So the thematic simplicity of other fables and biblical stories isn't there. People are punished for bad behaviour (abnormal acts, failing to honour the gods and so on), but it's like stories are pushing against the bounds of a single interpretation. The inner emotional turmoil of the characters is explored at length, the difficulty of their decisions is played out in full. And the final judgement, the odd twists, are so strange and haunting that there's so stability. For a place full of gods, the ancient world is a bewildering and uncertain one.
All in all, it's highly enjoyable stuff, and makes me want to read more.
The only trouble is the vastness of the whole thing. There are so many figures with so many names. The gods usually have both Greek and Roman names, and often have multiples of each. The lineage of the people is often difficult to follow - I spent a lot of time googling Greek names to remind myself who they were.
I'd like to get a handle on it all, but maybe that would ruin it. The immensity of that 'history' is what's so impressive. You really get a sense of the incredible scale of all these characters and their history.
So whilst I probably won't remember everything, I hope I've stuffed a few more myths in my locker. So next time I see Marlowe referencing some obscure figure, I might be able to say "Oh yes! He accidentally ate his mother and was turned into a fire hydrant!".
The grandeur of it all reminds me of Marvel Comics (which is a bit of a geek segue, but the comparison works in a number of ways).
It too is a grand narrative, spanning eons. But also, the Marvel Universe actually includes the Greek gods. (Which is one of the great things about comics - you can have gods meeting spacemen, meeting Raymond Chandler-style detectives, meeting demons, meeting Franklin Roosevelt, meeting a talking gorilla: all in the same restaurant).
Which means you get cool stuff like this:
One final thing I like about Ovid is that he brings the history of the world right up to date, describing how Julius Caesar became a star in heaven. All in an attempt to ingratiate himself with Augustus, the ruler of the time.
That kind of sycophancy is impressive. At university, I should have included mention of the glory of my lecturers, just to get a better mark.
Unfortunately, Ovid died in exile from Rome, so it didn't work.
Join me next time, for something completely different.
Well, not that different. It's still a book. I'm not going to read you a wine rack or anything.
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