# Recommend me an enjoyable Greek Mythology read. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 8, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382 "2010-04-08T04:44:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/21 "2010-04-09T11:47:47Z")
I couldn’t disagree with you more., **Sage** – Homer spends a huge amount of time on descriptions of many events, and on why and how people and gods do things. He certainly spends more time on some items than others, but that’s more a measure of how important they are. Odysseus’ character is pretty plainly defined both in description and illustrated by his actions, as you’d expect in the Odyssey. You may say what you’re doing is hyperbole, but I call it gross m,isrepresentation. As for the Ciccones – that’s pretty clearly seen by Homer as a minor incident on the way home. I can pick similarly vague descriptions of events out of my favorite fiction. Your unfamiliarity with it is, I maintain, more a symptom of the difference between Homer’s audience and us – people back then were familiar with the idea of raiding, and they condoned their own “good guys” doing it. It’s an aewful thing to us – why would our heroes massacre a town of innocents? Doesn’t that make them not heroes anymore? But it wouldn’t have bother Homer or his audience. So you can cherry-pick incompletely described actions and highlight things unfamiliar, but to say that Homer just gives lists of actions – which is what you DO say – isn’t hyperbole, it’s misleading, and wrong. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/22 "2010-04-09T11:53:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Robert Graves, the novelist and poet most famous for I CLAUDIUS/CLAUDIUS THE GOD, wrote my favorite: The Complete Greek Myths. As always, I caution people – Take Graves with more athan a grain of salt. He had a vast knowledge of Greek Myths, but his interpretations are most definitely his own, and most scholars wouldn’t support a lot of them. In particular, he was addicted to his _iconbotropaic_ theory that many myths were the result of misinterpretation of illustrations of a completely differenyt myth. It seems certain that this has happened, but Graves saw it everywhere, and confidently states that in happened in many cases where the supposed illustration has never been found, of a myth otherwise not recorded elsewhere. That’s too many steps removed from a provable reality for my taste. So when he interprets the myth of Perseus ands Medusa as Hermes encountering the triple goddess with her Secrets in a bag protected by the apotropaic gorgoneion (and himself draws a picture of what he believes was the original illustration on his book cover), I’m awfully suspicious. Take his explanations and perceived connections with extreme caution. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/23 "2010-04-09T14:52:10Z")
As I kid, I read [this](http://www.amazon.com/Ingri-Edgar-Parin-dAulaires-Greek/dp/B0006AXYHU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270824493&sr=8-4) illustrated book of Greek myths so many times that it fell apart and my parents had to buy me a second copy. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/24 "2010-04-09T15:50:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As always, I caution people – Take Graves with more athan a grain of salt. He had a vast knowledge of Greek Myths, but his interpretations are most definitely his own, and most scholars wouldn’t support a lot of them. In particular, he was addicted to his _iconbotropaic_ theory that many myths were the result of misinterpretation of illustrations of a completely differenyt myth. It seems certain that this has happened, but Graves saw it everywhere, and confidently states that in happened in many cases where the supposed illustration has never been found, of a myth otherwise not recorded elsewhere. That’s too many steps removed from a provable reality for my taste. So when he interprets the myth of Perseus ands Medusa as Hermes encountering the triple goddess with her Secrets in a bag protected by the apotropaic gorgoneion (and himself draws a picture of what he believes was the original illustration on his book cover), I’m awfully suspicious. Take his explanations and perceived connections with extreme caution. But his _[The Greek Myths](http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Myths-Complete-Robert-Graves/dp/0140171991#noop)_ is organized to “segregate” his dangerous ideas. Each brief chapter recounts different versions of that topic–beginning with the various creation myths and ending with the Return of Odysseus. Then there’s a section showing the sources of the often widely divergent variants. Finally, you get his personal interpretation–which I just consider another variant. It’s _all_ myth & legend–although his Goddess veneration has been widely influential, even if it isn’t “true.” (After all, Jesse Weston’s _From Ritual to Romance_ has been superceded by modern scholarship–but it still helps you understand \*The Waste Land.) \*Robert Graves writes beautifully & the book has been published so often that cheap copies are easily available. Two of Graves’ fine historical novels are based on Greek myth. _Hercules My Shipmate_ recounts the search for the Golden Fleece. His vision of Ancient Greece here is strongly colored by his Goddess worship; consider it alternate history if you must. Alas, it’s out of print. My ratty paperback edition is available for $999.99! But cheaper versions can be found. _Homer’s Daughter_ explores the idea (not original to Graves) that the Odyssey was written by a woman… I wouldn’t suggest the works of Robert Graves as an absolute beginner’s introduction to Greek Myth. Edith Hamilton’s _Mythology_ remains a classic–& offers a bracing taste of the Northern stories. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/25 "2010-04-09T16:18:28Z")
I have to agree with **CalMeacham** regarding _The Odyssey_; Homer alludes or ellipses various events because they aren’t pertinent to the story of Odysseus, just as Shakespeare or Tolkien make allude to events (real, although often somewhat mangled in Shakespeare tragedies and historicals, concocted in Tolkien as part of the larger universe of Middle Earth) outside of or peripheral to the story but don’t develop them in detail. This is done to place the story in context, but as they have no bearing on the main story they aren’t developed. It is true that Homer, writing in dactylic hexameter and as a thematic rather than character focused story, is unlike the modern prose novel (the form of which wasn’t established until the 17th Century), and translations that place it in a prose format lose the rhythmic flow of the story so it does seem list-like and disjointedly episodic, but a good poetic translation shows the central themes repeated in cycles. The same criticism can be made to poor translations of _Beowulf_ and _Gilgamesh_. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/26 "2010-04-09T16:51:55Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > As I kid, I read [this](http://www.amazon.com/Ingri-Edgar-Parin-dAulaires-Greek/dp/B0006AXYHU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270824493&sr=8-4) illustrated book of Greek myths so many times that it fell apart and my parents had to buy me a second copy. mine fell apart too. i don’t know how much that is us being avid readers or how much is it just shoddy publishing. i did read it a good bunch, but none of my other books fell apart like that book did. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/27 "2010-04-09T20:18:53Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > mine fell apart too. i don’t know how much that is us being avid readers or how much is it just shoddy publishing. Quite possibly. But in any case I did read it a whole bunch of times. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/28 "2010-04-10T16:50:49Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > As I kid, I read [this](http://www.amazon.com/Ingri-Edgar-Parin-dAulaires-Greek/dp/B0006AXYHU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270824493&sr=8-4) illustrated book of Greek myths so many times that it fell apart and my parents had to buy me a second copy. I still have my (also falling apart) copy. I came in to recommend it. I also recommend Eddie Campbell’s Deadface comics. Most are the adventures of the gods (Who have discovered they aren’t immortal, just very long-lived) and their descendants AFTER the myths have ended. But some are surprisingly faithful retellings of the classics. ETA Go watch the ORIGINAL Clash Of The Titans. Not only does it feature Harryhausen Dynamation, it’s much more faithful to the myth. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/29 "2010-04-10T17:49:09Z")
I just read C. S. Lewis’s [Till We Have Faces](http://www.amazon.com/Till-We-Have-Faces-Retold/dp/0156904365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270919575&sr=8-1) a few days ago, and I cannot recommend it strongly enough. It’s a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid in modern prose – with one small but characteristically Lewisian twist. The result is haunting, breathtaking, and emotional. Lewis himself thought it his best work of fiction; and though I’m an ardent fan of both the Chronicles of Narnia and his Space trilogy, I have to agree. And he hasn’t turned it into a Christian allegory either, to defend Lewis preemptively from one of the favorite accusations of his detractors. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.Pu-du-he-pa-as)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/30 "2010-04-10T18:45:39Z")
Classicist/linguist here. When I was young I absolutely loved D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, although that may be too much towards children’s literature to you. Someone recommended Mary Renault’s _The King Must Die_ for the Theseus myth. I would recommend all of her novelizations about the ancient Greek world. My favorites are probably _The King Must Die_ (and I can attest that her treatment of the Bronze Age stuff was really quite good) and _The Mask of Apollo_, which follows a tragic actor in the declining days of Greek theater. I also love the Iliad and the Odyssey, and my translation recommendations would be Lombardo’s Iliad-- I think his translations into colloquial English are great and easy to read. He is also interested in performing Classical literature, and I think he has an audiobook out of at least the Iliad. I’ve been to his performances many, many times, and always find them to be gripping and very moving. But my recommendation with translations in general is to flip through several, see which one speaks to you the most, and then read that. For the Medea myth, if you can find or rent the movie _A Dream of Passion_, staring Melina Mercouri, I highly recommend it. For secondary literature about Greek mythology, here are some of my favorite reads: Calvert Watkins’ _How to Kill a Dragon_. It discusses the poetics of dragon-slaying myths in Greek and many other Indo-European languages, like Sanskrit, and shows how they call came from a common source in Indo-European. He also discusses a lot of other mythological and poetic material. It is soooo interesting! Jonathan Shay’s _Achilles in Vietnam_. Written by a VA psychiatrist who treats Vietnam veterans, he discusses how the characters in the Iliad suffer from the triggers and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder the same way as the veterans he works with, and then how we can use what’s in the Iliad to improve the prevention and treatment of PTSD in the US military. It sounds weird, but it’s unbelievably good. Walter Burkert’s works on Greek religion, like _Homo Necans_ and _Greek Religion_– I found them to be really insightful and enjoyable reads. If you’re interested in the historical period in which many of the Greek myths originated, read John Chadwick’s _The Mycenaean World_. If you’re interested in the mythology of some of the Greeks’ neighbors, and people they probably had historical contact with, I recommend Harry Hoffner’s _Hittite Myths_. You may have trouble getting your hands on these, since they’re papers and not books, but Stephanie Jamison’s “Penelope and the Pigs: Indic Perspectives on the ‘Odyssey’” and "Draupadi on the Walls of Troy: Iliad 3 from an Indic Perspective,” they offer really fascinating explanations of the Penelope and the bow episode in the Odyssey, and the abduction of Helen in the Iliad. Full disclosure: Most of the people named herein are my colleagues. ---
**Author:** ![bearman217](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@bearman217](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bearman217)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/31 "2010-04-25T19:14:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I was introduced to mythology through Edith Hamilton’s **Mythology** , which I recommend. > You can’t go wrong with the original classics – **the Iliad** and **The Odyssey** in Fitzgerald’s or Fagels’ translations. If you’re really into it, get the Penguin translations of **the Voyage of Argo** (Argonautica), and Ovid’s **Metamorphoses**. > For fun intros, there are > > **Don’t Know Much About Mythology** by Kenneth Davis > > **Mythology for Dummies** by Blackwell > > For intros to various mythologies, I’d suggest the Paul Hamlyn series, iff you can find them. They combine intros to the various mythologies with lots of photos of artwork: > > [http://www.howardnowes.com/books/detail.cfm?itemnum=b1542](http://www.howardnowes.com/books/detail.cfm?itemnum=b1542) I was going to recommend both **Mythology** by Hamilton and **Metamorphoses** by Ovid myself. **Mythology** is a good overview of mythology in general, but **Metamorphoses** is probably the best source for Greek myth which is what Percy Jackson is based off of. So, of those two, I would definitely suggest **Metamorphoses** more. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/32 "2010-04-25T20:15:18Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Those are not minor events. Who the heck are the Cicones and why are you killing their men and raping their women? How did you take over an entire city? Why would you do so when you’re simply on your way home? They were Trojan allies. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/33 "2010-04-25T21:26:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As for the Ciccones – that’s pretty clearly seen by Homer as a minor incident on the way home. I can pick similarly vague descriptions of events out of my favorite fiction. Your unfamiliarity with it is, I maintain, more a symptom of the difference between Homer’s audience and us – people back then were familiar with the idea of raiding, and they condoned their own “good guys” doing it. It’s an aewful thing to us – why would our heroes massacre a town of innocents? Doesn’t that make them not heroes anymore? But it wouldn’t have bother Homer or his audience. Whether it’s awful, justified, heroic or is irrelevant to anything I said. The point is that in a space of four paragraphs, our heroes have done four things of sufficient proportion to merit an entire book each. > [@](#): > > So you can cherry-pick incompletely described actions and highlight things unfamiliar, but to say that Homer just gives lists of actions – which is what you DO say – isn’t hyperbole, it’s misleading, and wrong. You say that ignoring that I’d just given full examples. And in fact, I can handily prove my point. Let’s say that we have a random group of modern people of varying age. We will give them each the first book of Harry Potter and the Odyssey for free. What percentage, do you think, would read the entirety of Harry Potter versus the number that would read through the entirety of the Odyssey? Of those who had read both, which book do you think would be more often listed as the answer to the following questions? Which of the books… 1. Had fuller description of the characters actions? 2. Had more and better dialogue? 3. Had the more developed characters? 4. Explained the characters’ motivations more fully? I’m fairly certain that the answer to these would overwhelmingly be Harry Potter, and it’s hardly the golden standard for dialogue and developed characters. It’s more towards the middle-lower region for acceptable writing by modern standards. Once you start comparing to Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Ecco, or other respected modern day writers, the Odyssey is about as flat and lifeless (beyond flowery prose) as can be envisioned. Your average person might not want to read A Hundred Years of Solitude any more than they’d want to read the Odyssey, so on that criteria they might come out even, but on every other level, the book is clearly more developed, more nuanced, and less stilted. You can still get flowery and purple prose – particularly if you read some of the works of fiction that are considered _less_ skillfully crafted, in modern society – so it’s not like we’ve traded it out for something else. That doesn’t mean that the Odyssey is necessarily bad, it’s just out of date. Most people want significantly more from what they are reading, even if it’s the schlock that they buy in an airport book stand. If someone asks me for “an enjoyable read”, I’d be recommending Lawhead’s King Arthur series before I’d recommend Malory’s. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/34 "2010-04-25T21:47:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I recommend Mary Renault’s [The King Must Die](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_Must_Die) for its take on Theseus. > [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](#): > > Someone recommended Mary Renault’s _The King Must Die_ for the Theseus myth. I would recommend all of her novelizations about the ancient Greek world. My favorites are probably _The King Must Die_ (and I can attest that her treatment of the Bronze Age stuff was really quite good) and _The Mask of Apollo_, which follows a tragic actor in the declining days of Greek theater. I also like _The Bull from the Sea_ which is the ‘sequel’ to _The King Must Die_ and details Theseus’ life in Athens after his return from Crete. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/35 "2010-04-25T21:49:24Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > mine fell apart too. i don’t know how much that is us being avid readers or how much is it just shoddy publishing. i did read it a good bunch, but none of my other books fell apart like that book did. !!! I’ve always wondered what that myths book I loved as a kid was called - I checked it out of the library a billion times! ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/36 "2010-04-25T22:14:41Z")
Margaret Atwood’s _The Penelopiad_ is a take on Penelope and what happened to the maidens who supported the plotting suitors at Odysseus’s course while he was away. Lattimore’s translations of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are brilliant. Rhoda Hendricks _Classical Gods and Heroes_ is another compliation of Greek stories. For original sources, you might enjoy the sheer nuttiness of Apuleius’s _Golden Ass_. If you prefer didactic poetry, you could check out the origin of the Greek gods in Hesiod’s _Theogony_ and the origins of man in _Works and Days_. Apollonius of Rhodes modeled _Argonautica_ on Hesiod, not Homer, which is why the Ray Harryhausen film is more exciting that the original text. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/37 "2010-04-26T08:14:20Z")
For those of us who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about poetry, is there some broad spectrum interlinear version? ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382/38 "2010-04-26T13:34:51Z")
If you’re looking for something new, try Zachary Mason’s _The Lost Books of the Odyssey_ and find out what all that was _really_ about. > **[The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel: Mason, Zachary: 9780312680466:...](https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Books-Odyssey-Novel/dp/0312680465)** > > The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel \[Mason, Zachary\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel Surprise! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-enjoyable-greek-mythology-read/535382.md?page=1)