My wife was tidying up the coffee table. "Is this yours?" She asked. She was holding a coffee table book on Troy. Apparently I bought it at the monthly used book sale at the library. McMarty's book is excellently well written. He combines a retelling of the Trojan Cycle (with historical sidebars) with the story of Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann discovered the lost city of Troy.
McMarty's description of Schliemann is repeatedly not flattering. (Think of Homer describing Thersites.). But McMarty compares hime to Achilles in his single mindness in getting his own way. ( I have noticed in science how often the dogged determination of one person was the key to the next great leap in our knowledge.)
My wife was tidying up the coffee table. "Is this yours?" She asked. She was holding a coffee table book on Troy. Apparently I bought it at the monthly used book sale at the library. McMarty's book is excellently well written. He combines a retelling of the Trojan Cycle (with historical sidebars) with the story of Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann discovered the lost city of Troy.
McMarty's description of Schliemann is repeatedly not flattering. (Think of Homer describing Thersites.). But McMarty compares hime to Achilles in his single mindness in getting his own way. ( I have noticed in science how often the dogged determination of one person was the key to the next great leap in our knowledge.)
McMarty's description of Schliemann is repeatedly not flattering. (Think of Homer describing Thersites.). But McMarty compares hime to Achilles in his single mindness in getting his own way. ( I have noticed in science how often the dogged determination of one person was the key to the next great leap in our knowledge.)
My wife was tidying up the coffee table. "Is this yours?" She asked. She was holding a coffee table book on Troy. Apparently I bought it at the monthly used book sale at the library. McMarty's book is excellently well written. He combines a retelling of the Trojan Cycle (with historical sidebars) with the story of Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann discovered the lost city of Troy.
McMarty's description of Schliemann is repeatedly not flattering. (Think of Homer describing Thersites.). But McMarty compares hime to Achilles in his single mindness in getting his own way. ( I have noticed in science how often the dogged determination of one person was the key to the next great leap in our knowledge.)
"It was a momentous discovery that destroyed the prejudice of the blind academics who had mocked him....without Schliemann we would know nothing of the city that many believe is the site of the real Troy."
McCarty's book is full of ancient and modern images. At first I noticed a few errors more typos than anything like Thebes/Thebe. Some of dialogue is straight from the Iliad and other is pure poetic license.
McCarty's book is full of ancient and modern images. At first I noticed a few errors more typos than anything like Thebes/Thebe. Some of dialogue is straight from the Iliad and other is pure poetic license.
"the stunted willow trees along the River Scamander bore strange fruit. The black carrion crows perched in the trees..."
"Words fail me to celebrate our marriage At all times you were to me a loving wife, a good companion and a dependable guide in difficult situations. As well as a dear companion of the road and a mother second to none...Therefore today I Promise that I shall marry you again in a future life." Schliemann
"Helen more lovely than the Moon."
Midway through the book (the death of Patroclus) I began to. Notice the errors running amok. McCarty didn't realize that Diomedes, son of Tydeus is the same person as Tydides (Son of Tydeus). This account of the Iliadic portion of the story of Troy was totally made up. I gave up reading. The last image I recall was a black and white image. It was the musemum boombed out by the Allies where Schliemann's legay was last seen
"Without Schliemann we would know nothing of the city that many believe is the site of the real Troy."
ReplyDeleteI disagree. Another person would discover Troy. Indeed, it would happen at a later time. But this would also be good, because archeological methods would have been more advanced and the discovery of Troy would destroy a much smaller part of it than the work of Schliemann did.
Maya,
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Someone else would have discovered Troy, but how much later. Without S's ruthless ambition and lust for glory, how much longer would it take to discover the birthplace of western literature? I often wonder where our civilization would be without obsessed impatient pig-headed people.
Bill
Such people must have started agriculture.
ReplyDelete"I often think of Demeter and her past great achievements. Back when all corn was still wild, she made the first harvesting tools. They were from antlers with inserted pieces of flint to make a sharp edge, similar to today's human tools. She was the first to weave baskets in which to collect the harvested spikes and to bring them from the hills where the plants grew. She invented baking of the seeds to prevent them from germinating, and also grinding them. She dug storage pits and found how to cover their walls and bottoms with clay to make them water-proof. She tasted tiny pieces of the bitter poisonous wild almonds to seek rare varieties which were less poisonous. Then, she decided not to rely only on plants growing on the hills on their own and started to sow their seeds in the field. She was spending all her days there, with a face heavily tanned despite her ever-present straw hat, and plants were gradually cultivated by her hardened hands. While we were laughing at her patient perseverance because we wanted everything now, she created forms that had not existed before and changed the world."
(I owe the details of this description to Jared Diamond and some museum exhibitions.)
Maya,
ReplyDeleteI love your story. Reminds me of the Tale of the Little Red Hen. Amazing how all the uninitiated think making cornbread is so easy. Your story doesn't even include the fire/gas/electricity to bake the cornbread nor the roads and bridges that get it there
I have translated a piece that is even more like the Little Red Hen:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mayamarkov.com/en/fiction/diary_of_prometheus/eng_10_demeter.htm
The human tribe is called Ants (cf. the Myrmidons). I have borrowed the chief's first words from a speech by the chief of some modern hunter-gatherer tribe. Some other sentences are borrowed from ancient works that I am sure you will recognize.
Maya,
ReplyDeleteI like your chacterization. Wow! Prometheus the politican! All of them are the same right?
Bill
They all try to be, with different success.
ReplyDeleteThe "Golden Age" of my human tradition actually reflects how the first humans lived before being evicted from their Paradise - the lab where they were created. Prometheus hasn't thought that any memory of these events could survive 3 human generations and is now taken by surprise. Of course, he cannot tell the truth. It is too damning.
In Abrahamian religions, the creation of humans is an admirable act of an omniscient and benevolent God; in polytheistic religions, it is a Frankensteinian effort by a bunch of immortal mad scientists controlled by a heavenly tyrant, a deed that wouldn't pass any ethical committee. (BTW, talking about the heavenly tyrant, I am interested in your tyrant table.)
Maya,
ReplyDeleteI like your interpretation of the Golden Age.
As to "an admirable act of an omniscient and benevolent God;" I read once a cabbalist tradition that God created the universe in response to the prayers of the unmanifest.
During the weekly tutoring session with Lenny we discuss tyrants. Ends up "king" is a hereditary position, "tyrant" is appointed, even elected. But over time the latter got a bad reputation, even though some of them were good.
Bill