—Admit that Homer was no good. —No. —Admit. —No.
June 28, 2024 1:36 AM Subscribe
Some things might be classics because they're just plain good. There was a lot of crap published around the same time, and most of it has rightly been forgotten, but some was great even by the standards of today. Like, maybe if you published Pride and Prejudice today, it would be received as "ah yes, this is an excellent entry in the niche genre of Regency-era romance. The few hundred committed fans of that genre will be very excited, and people who dabble in it will be well-advised to pick this one out". But as I said above, I don't think the Iliad meets that bar. from Book review: the Iliad [A Reasonable Approximation]
How very dare you? Fwiw, I think the Odyssey translates better into something like a modern novel.
posted by Phanx at 2:01 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
posted by Phanx at 2:01 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
If it's not just me, is the problem that writers today are better at writing than writers a long time ago? Or that they're operating under different constraints? (The Iliad was originally memorized, and meter and repetition would have helped with that.) Or do readers today just have different tastes than readers a long time ago? I don't know which of these is most true. I lean towards "writers are better" but I don't really want to try making the argument. I don't think it matters much, but feel free to replace "the Iliad isn't very good by modern standards" with "the Iliad doesn't suit modern tastes" or "isn't well optimized for today's media ecosystem".
It’s always so weird to me when people who dislike a book start from “I didn’t like it personally” and instead decide that there is something objectively wrong with it. The whole review reads like Hazelden is trying to explain how other readers than him can like a book that is inherently deficient, instead of considering that he might not be getting out of it what others find in it.
There have been plenty of classics that I haven’t gotten along with, but after taking stock of my own reaction I consider that millions of readers past and present have loved the text. It takes an incredibly narrow point of view to decide that one’s own personal reaction is more valid than everybody else’s.
posted by Kattullus at 2:08 AM on June 28 [43 favorites]
It’s always so weird to me when people who dislike a book start from “I didn’t like it personally” and instead decide that there is something objectively wrong with it. The whole review reads like Hazelden is trying to explain how other readers than him can like a book that is inherently deficient, instead of considering that he might not be getting out of it what others find in it.
There have been plenty of classics that I haven’t gotten along with, but after taking stock of my own reaction I consider that millions of readers past and present have loved the text. It takes an incredibly narrow point of view to decide that one’s own personal reaction is more valid than everybody else’s.
posted by Kattullus at 2:08 AM on June 28 [43 favorites]
Fwiw, I think the Odyssey translates better into something like a modern novel
like Ulysses?! one reviewer couldn't get beyond the first line. i'd rather read Finnegan's Wake
posted by HearHere at 2:13 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
like Ulysses?! one reviewer couldn't get beyond the first line. i'd rather read Finnegan's Wake
posted by HearHere at 2:13 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
I love the Odyssey and have read it about five times in different translations*, but the Iliad .. I can see why it could be a valuable read but (for me ) it was a turgid plod I've tried once.
When I was dating my wife we read it aloud while hiking on a rough trip including a pleasant afternoon in a roadside ditch.
posted by unearthed at 2:16 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
When I was dating my wife we read it aloud while hiking on a rough trip including a pleasant afternoon in a roadside ditch.
posted by unearthed at 2:16 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
Brave. Now do the Bible.
posted by Termite at 2:26 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
posted by Termite at 2:26 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
It takes an incredibly narrow point of view to decide that one’s own personal reaction is more valid than everybody else’s.
Yes, yes, yes, 10,000 times yes, Katullus.
posted by dutchrick at 2:32 AM on June 28 [8 favorites]
Yes, yes, yes, 10,000 times yes, Katullus.
posted by dutchrick at 2:32 AM on June 28 [8 favorites]
Talking about the Iliad in terms of entertainment value is like complaining about the caloric content of wooden houses. It's missing the point and the purpose.
The Iliad is ultimately a product of the Bronze Age Collapse, a cultural memory of the Dorian Greek emigrations and conquests of the Anatolian Luwite civilizations (much as Atlantis is a distillation of the cultural memories of Thera and the collapse of the Minoan Empire).
As such, it's about lineage. Like the King lists of ancient Sumeria. It's not about entertaining the crowd, it's about "hey look here's the the ancestor of my sponsors, the oligarch of Delos, and here's what they were doing and anyways that's why your city is ruled by a totally legit aristocratic family that did heroic things in the Before Time."
So if you understand the Iliad as being less about being a rollicking tale, and more being the poetic equivalent of all the sponsorship signs on the walls of our modern sports stadiums, now you're getting it.
Being a good story isn't the point. Being a repurposable oral history that is sufficiently fungible to encompass your local aristocratic patrons is the point.
Like the Epic of Gilgamesh, it was a pre-written chronicle that was converted into a cultural metaphor for the bases of the legitimacy of the polis state. And for evidence, consider the name of the heroine:
Helen. As in Hellene, as in Hellenic. At stake in the Iliad is the metaphorical avatar for Greece itself.
The Iliad is post-bellum heroification of what was, in the original instance, a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia. As such, it falls squarely as the literary originator of that sub-genre which includes the Song of Roland, Orlando Furioso, Gunga Din, the Harry Flashman books, Birth of a Nation, Fort Apache..... it's the retroactive recasting of an extinct and vanquished enemy as a noble and worthy opponent.
And for that context, The Iliad has lasting value. It's the ur-document of Western Imperialist narratives.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 2:38 AM on June 28 [70 favorites]
The Iliad is ultimately a product of the Bronze Age Collapse, a cultural memory of the Dorian Greek emigrations and conquests of the Anatolian Luwite civilizations (much as Atlantis is a distillation of the cultural memories of Thera and the collapse of the Minoan Empire).
As such, it's about lineage. Like the King lists of ancient Sumeria. It's not about entertaining the crowd, it's about "hey look here's the the ancestor of my sponsors, the oligarch of Delos, and here's what they were doing and anyways that's why your city is ruled by a totally legit aristocratic family that did heroic things in the Before Time."
So if you understand the Iliad as being less about being a rollicking tale, and more being the poetic equivalent of all the sponsorship signs on the walls of our modern sports stadiums, now you're getting it.
Being a good story isn't the point. Being a repurposable oral history that is sufficiently fungible to encompass your local aristocratic patrons is the point.
Like the Epic of Gilgamesh, it was a pre-written chronicle that was converted into a cultural metaphor for the bases of the legitimacy of the polis state. And for evidence, consider the name of the heroine:
Helen. As in Hellene, as in Hellenic. At stake in the Iliad is the metaphorical avatar for Greece itself.
The Iliad is post-bellum heroification of what was, in the original instance, a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia. As such, it falls squarely as the literary originator of that sub-genre which includes the Song of Roland, Orlando Furioso, Gunga Din, the Harry Flashman books, Birth of a Nation, Fort Apache..... it's the retroactive recasting of an extinct and vanquished enemy as a noble and worthy opponent.
And for that context, The Iliad has lasting value. It's the ur-document of Western Imperialist narratives.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 2:38 AM on June 28 [70 favorites]
do the Bible
there are too many translations. see, "The New King James, along with the original KJV, also puts added English words (which clarify the original Greek meaning) in italics. These two factors make the NKJV an extremely helpful study Bible; unfortunately, the MEV is missing this." [patheos]
my problematic fav is God’s Bestseller. honestly, it's all Greek to me
posted by HearHere at 2:46 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
there are too many translations. see, "The New King James, along with the original KJV, also puts added English words (which clarify the original Greek meaning) in italics. These two factors make the NKJV an extremely helpful study Bible; unfortunately, the MEV is missing this." [patheos]
my problematic fav is God’s Bestseller. honestly, it's all Greek to me
posted by HearHere at 2:46 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
Like, maybe if you published Pride and Prejudice today, it would be received as "ah yes, this is an excellent entry in the niche genre of Regency-era romance
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"....
This seems like a sophomoric take on classics, as in, during my literal sophomore year of high school, I groaned at a cliché pun in Julius Caesar, until my teacher pointed out that J.C. was the first recorded use of the phrase.
This author seems to have a fatal case of engineer's disease. I don't know if they are an actual engineer, but the whole "I don't like this book, let's analyze all the ways it is bad," is hubris on a truly Homeric scale. I found the complaint that there's very little gritty battle detail especially baffling. Like, tastes change?! And complaining that there's little psychological insight into the motivations of the gods, is this just trolling? Is it someone riffing on Borges, after all?
posted by basalganglia at 2:48 AM on June 28 [18 favorites]
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"....
This seems like a sophomoric take on classics, as in, during my literal sophomore year of high school, I groaned at a cliché pun in Julius Caesar, until my teacher pointed out that J.C. was the first recorded use of the phrase.
This author seems to have a fatal case of engineer's disease. I don't know if they are an actual engineer, but the whole "I don't like this book, let's analyze all the ways it is bad," is hubris on a truly Homeric scale. I found the complaint that there's very little gritty battle detail especially baffling. Like, tastes change?! And complaining that there's little psychological insight into the motivations of the gods, is this just trolling? Is it someone riffing on Borges, after all?
posted by basalganglia at 2:48 AM on June 28 [18 favorites]
*Finnegans. seriously though, i might prefer 'reading' a literal wake [internet archive]
posted by HearHere at 2:54 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
posted by HearHere at 2:54 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
Well, I like it. I have an old-fashioned education, so we spent ages reading it at school, both during middle and secondary education. And for some reason, the energy in our class(es) was: since we are going to spend far too much time on this, let's have fun with it. Which obviously made the teachers enjoy their time with our class, and a positive spiral happened. Also obviously: we were probably insufferable. We also read every page of the Bible, which is every atheist's best tool. In secondary school, I focused on math and biology, but they still forced us to read all the classics. That was life back then.
This has never, ever been a disadvantage for me or my classmates, since everything in Western culture favors people who have read their classics. Among other things, I enjoyed Ulysses on first read.
posted by mumimor at 3:13 AM on June 28 [13 favorites]
This has never, ever been a disadvantage for me or my classmates, since everything in Western culture favors people who have read their classics. Among other things, I enjoyed Ulysses on first read.
posted by mumimor at 3:13 AM on June 28 [13 favorites]
My first thought it that this guy is pulling our legs. He's pretending to be a 13-year-old who doesn't know who the Greeks and Trojans were.
But, looking through his blog... Ok, he's a LessWrong guy, he mostly posts about code, and occasionally superhero movies. He is probably reading way way out of his comfort zone. Which is probably good for him and should be encouraged.
It does seem that, right at the end, he figures it out: 'I can't read the marks in the Iliad. I don't know what parts of what it shows are "this is how stuff just is, in Homer's world" and what parts of it are "Homer showing the audience something unusual".'
Yep. He's reading something from another culture that he doesn't understand and isn't written like a superhero movie. It's no shame, but it kind of undercuts the points he thinks he's making in parts 1 to 4. Like, it's not that it's written badly, dude, it's that it wasn't written for you.
posted by zompist at 3:17 AM on June 28 [34 favorites]
But, looking through his blog... Ok, he's a LessWrong guy, he mostly posts about code, and occasionally superhero movies. He is probably reading way way out of his comfort zone. Which is probably good for him and should be encouraged.
It does seem that, right at the end, he figures it out: 'I can't read the marks in the Iliad. I don't know what parts of what it shows are "this is how stuff just is, in Homer's world" and what parts of it are "Homer showing the audience something unusual".'
Yep. He's reading something from another culture that he doesn't understand and isn't written like a superhero movie. It's no shame, but it kind of undercuts the points he thinks he's making in parts 1 to 4. Like, it's not that it's written badly, dude, it's that it wasn't written for you.
posted by zompist at 3:17 AM on June 28 [34 favorites]
reading something from another culture that he doesn't understand and isn't written like a superhero movie
idk, you may not be getting the reviewer's point. they're bringing in Keynes, which introduces the Bloomsbury Group [National Trust], et cetera
posted by HearHere at 3:52 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
idk, you may not be getting the reviewer's point. they're bringing in Keynes, which introduces the Bloomsbury Group [National Trust], et cetera
posted by HearHere at 3:52 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
It's also not actually written in iambic pentameter, as the author claims, but dactylic hexameter...
posted by james.nvc at 4:02 AM on June 28 [17 favorites]
posted by james.nvc at 4:02 AM on June 28 [17 favorites]
My first thought it that this guy is pulling our legs. He's pretending to be a 13-year-old who doesn't know who the Greeks and Trojans were.
I thought this! I was reading it as particularly turgid satire that went on way too long. Then I realized it was just that last part — rambling and far too long.
The Iliad is a beautiful book, but it’s also a moral horror — violent and cynical, full of rape and pointless revenge, the most toxic of toxic masculinity, and the gods are petty schemers held in check by the divine equivalent of a mob boss. A great tragedy of Western Civilization is that the Iliad is one of its founding texts.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:19 AM on June 28 [13 favorites]
I thought this! I was reading it as particularly turgid satire that went on way too long. Then I realized it was just that last part — rambling and far too long.
The Iliad is a beautiful book, but it’s also a moral horror — violent and cynical, full of rape and pointless revenge, the most toxic of toxic masculinity, and the gods are petty schemers held in check by the divine equivalent of a mob boss. A great tragedy of Western Civilization is that the Iliad is one of its founding texts.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:19 AM on June 28 [13 favorites]
Yep. He's reading something from another culture that he doesn't understand and isn't written like a superhero movie. It's no shame, but it kind of undercuts the points he thinks he's making in parts 1 to 4. Like, it's not that it's written badly, dude, it's that it wasn't written for you.
On the other hand, he is also making a very good point that there is a Literary Canon that gets held up for us all, and we can make the mistake of thinking that Therefore Everything On The Canon Is Good And There Is Something Wrong With You If You Don't Like It.
And....that's not the case. We are all free to just plain not like something, even if it is good. And that may not mean that we're too dumb or too coddled by superhero movies to "get it" - we "get it" fine, we just don't like it. And that's true of anything - here's a list of the top 100 best classic films on Rotten Tomatoes, and about half of the ones I've seen, my reaction was...."meh". Not because I didn't get what was going on or was ignorant about the context - I just didn't like it. And that absolutely is valid.
But too often we have this impression that something being a "classic" means that we have to like it. And that's not the case. If something wasn't a "classic" and you hated it, then it being designated a "classic" wouldn't instantly make you change your gut-level reaction to it. But we tend to act like it should, and that doesn't make sense. It's this sort of Emperor's-New-Clothes attitude we have towards "The Classics", and I think it's important for us to periodically check that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:34 AM on June 28 [10 favorites]
On the other hand, he is also making a very good point that there is a Literary Canon that gets held up for us all, and we can make the mistake of thinking that Therefore Everything On The Canon Is Good And There Is Something Wrong With You If You Don't Like It.
And....that's not the case. We are all free to just plain not like something, even if it is good. And that may not mean that we're too dumb or too coddled by superhero movies to "get it" - we "get it" fine, we just don't like it. And that's true of anything - here's a list of the top 100 best classic films on Rotten Tomatoes, and about half of the ones I've seen, my reaction was...."meh". Not because I didn't get what was going on or was ignorant about the context - I just didn't like it. And that absolutely is valid.
But too often we have this impression that something being a "classic" means that we have to like it. And that's not the case. If something wasn't a "classic" and you hated it, then it being designated a "classic" wouldn't instantly make you change your gut-level reaction to it. But we tend to act like it should, and that doesn't make sense. It's this sort of Emperor's-New-Clothes attitude we have towards "The Classics", and I think it's important for us to periodically check that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:34 AM on June 28 [10 favorites]
Just because something is considered classic doesn't necessarily make it good, any more than something being popular making it good. A lot of people read the 50 shades of gray books. They obviously had some entertainment value to a lot of people. That doesn't automatically make them worth reading for everybody.
There are works of classic literature I truly love. Sometimes difficult reading is good for the soul. Getting into the mindset to take on Moby Dick is rewarding for me. On the other hand, I feel like puzzling through a Faulkner or late Joyce book is the equivalent of watching an episode of literary masturbation. I mean, I get why other people like it, but to me it seems needlessly obtuse.
So maybe I come down somewhere in the middle. Not everything is for everyone, and some people miss the value in classics, but also some classics are just there for "smart" people to swan over. Literature is a world of contrasts.
posted by rikschell at 4:54 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
There are works of classic literature I truly love. Sometimes difficult reading is good for the soul. Getting into the mindset to take on Moby Dick is rewarding for me. On the other hand, I feel like puzzling through a Faulkner or late Joyce book is the equivalent of watching an episode of literary masturbation. I mean, I get why other people like it, but to me it seems needlessly obtuse.
So maybe I come down somewhere in the middle. Not everything is for everyone, and some people miss the value in classics, but also some classics are just there for "smart" people to swan over. Literature is a world of contrasts.
posted by rikschell at 4:54 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
A book that might have helped the author understand the Iliad (and answers at least some of his questions) is Caroline Alexander’s The War That Killed Achilles, a scholarly work written for a somewhat popular audience that works through the Iliad, explaining what’s going on, analyzing the text, and giving context. It’s a good read.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 AM on June 28 [9 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 AM on June 28 [9 favorites]
He's very much on to it but still doesn't entirely get it: what makes a text a "classic" is its reception. The Iliad is a classic because it has influenced countless other works through the ages, some of which are forgotten.
You can't learn much about bronze-age Greek culture from The Iliad, but you need the Iliad to make sense of the classical culture of Greece and Rome, a thousand years later. And then the references pile up, up to our day.
You can't learn much about the everyday life of Scandinavians during the early Middle Ages from the Sagas, but the language and stories are present all over contemporary Scandinavian literature, even among those authors who haven't read the Sagas.
I think what was compelling to us as teenagers reading the Iliad and the Odyssey was the utter humanity of the heroes and gods. They were as stupid as we were. Nothing made sense, just as our lives didn't make sense. We weren't very preoccupied with the roll calls, though they did offer a sense of scale and geography, but fighting over petty stuff as well as harboring deep friendships and being confused by other's decisions were right up our alley. I'm guessing that is why the Iliad survived the Bronze Age collapse and everything else up to our time.
A thing I learnt somewhat later was how the oral tradition works. In 1988 I saw Peter Brook's version of Mahabharata. It was a day-long performance in a minimalist center stage, and people sitting around like around a camp fire. I have never ever experienced anything like it, and if it had been possible, I would have done it again the next day, but tickets were sold out. In that setting, repetition works completely differently from when you read or listen to a text alone, and also differently from a "normal" theater performance. Repetition and lists work like choruses, you sort of sing along in your mind, enjoying the recognition. This was obviously before cellphones and the internet, and I wonder if it could be achieved today. On the other hand, many of us binge series that are similar to ancient myths, and are based on them.
posted by mumimor at 5:17 AM on June 28 [21 favorites]
You can't learn much about bronze-age Greek culture from The Iliad, but you need the Iliad to make sense of the classical culture of Greece and Rome, a thousand years later. And then the references pile up, up to our day.
You can't learn much about the everyday life of Scandinavians during the early Middle Ages from the Sagas, but the language and stories are present all over contemporary Scandinavian literature, even among those authors who haven't read the Sagas.
I think what was compelling to us as teenagers reading the Iliad and the Odyssey was the utter humanity of the heroes and gods. They were as stupid as we were. Nothing made sense, just as our lives didn't make sense. We weren't very preoccupied with the roll calls, though they did offer a sense of scale and geography, but fighting over petty stuff as well as harboring deep friendships and being confused by other's decisions were right up our alley. I'm guessing that is why the Iliad survived the Bronze Age collapse and everything else up to our time.
A thing I learnt somewhat later was how the oral tradition works. In 1988 I saw Peter Brook's version of Mahabharata. It was a day-long performance in a minimalist center stage, and people sitting around like around a camp fire. I have never ever experienced anything like it, and if it had been possible, I would have done it again the next day, but tickets were sold out. In that setting, repetition works completely differently from when you read or listen to a text alone, and also differently from a "normal" theater performance. Repetition and lists work like choruses, you sort of sing along in your mind, enjoying the recognition. This was obviously before cellphones and the internet, and I wonder if it could be achieved today. On the other hand, many of us binge series that are similar to ancient myths, and are based on them.
posted by mumimor at 5:17 AM on June 28 [21 favorites]
and there's a sequel! don't even get me started...
If the Odyssey came out today, it wouldn't even count as a sequel. Spin-off series featuring one side character.
posted by thecjm at 5:42 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
If the Odyssey came out today, it wouldn't even count as a sequel. Spin-off series featuring one side character.
posted by thecjm at 5:42 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
I groaned at a cliché pun in Julius Caesar, until my teacher pointed out that J.C. was the first recorded use of the phrase.
It's no "Infamy, infamy... they've all got it infamy", that's for sure.
posted by biffa at 5:57 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
It's no "Infamy, infamy... they've all got it infamy", that's for sure.
posted by biffa at 5:57 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
when i see a take as hot as “the writing quality” of the iliad is “frequently bad” i question whether freedom of speech is a good idea
posted by dis_integration at 6:11 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 6:11 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
what makes a text a "classic" is its reception
reception theory [Mieke Bal, pdf, 228 pages; wiki]? i don’t see where you're going
posted by HearHere at 6:15 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
reception theory [Mieke Bal, pdf, 228 pages; wiki]? i don’t see where you're going
posted by HearHere at 6:15 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
i don’t see where you're going
I don't see where you're at
posted by mumimor at 6:29 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
I don't see where you're at
posted by mumimor at 6:29 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
when i see a take as hot as “the writing quality” of the iliad is “frequently bad” i question whether freedom of speech is a good idea
Why?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:43 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
Why?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:43 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
Talking about the Iliad in terms of entertainment value is like complaining about the caloric content of wooden houses.
This is so good. I'll have to remember it.
I don't say it often because I don't want to explain, but I don't like Shakespeare. I don't have to! He's not there for me to like. He's part of the foundation of our language and literature. I am grateful for the solid foundation of my building, and sometimes I think of it gratefully when the weather is bad, but I don't go to visit it. That's why I generally don't go see the plays and why I think they should make way for new playwrights, but I don't complain about them.
The Iliad is in the same category, together with its possible usefulness to history, anthropology, and archaeology (although not of course through literal acceptance of fictional events). There are ways to enjoy the stories as a 21st-century person -- novels and modernized productions of Greek plays come to mind. Technically, movies should count, but I am only thinking of Troy here and I don't think anyone enjoyed that a whole lot. I think there was an Odyssey miniseries that people liked in the 80s.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:50 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
This is so good. I'll have to remember it.
I don't say it often because I don't want to explain, but I don't like Shakespeare. I don't have to! He's not there for me to like. He's part of the foundation of our language and literature. I am grateful for the solid foundation of my building, and sometimes I think of it gratefully when the weather is bad, but I don't go to visit it. That's why I generally don't go see the plays and why I think they should make way for new playwrights, but I don't complain about them.
The Iliad is in the same category, together with its possible usefulness to history, anthropology, and archaeology (although not of course through literal acceptance of fictional events). There are ways to enjoy the stories as a 21st-century person -- novels and modernized productions of Greek plays come to mind. Technically, movies should count, but I am only thinking of Troy here and I don't think anyone enjoyed that a whole lot. I think there was an Odyssey miniseries that people liked in the 80s.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:50 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
Ulysses 31? Though teenage me found that quite complicated to follow.
posted by biffa at 6:57 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
posted by biffa at 6:57 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
> when i see a take as hot as “the writing quality” of the iliad is “frequently bad” i question whether freedom of speech is a good idea
> Why?
It's a category error, first of all, because The Iliad is not a work of a single author who was trying to compose a ripping good story and wasn't even really "written" so much as compiled. But more than that, The Odyssey and the the Iliad are eruptions of pure language pulling the West out of Bronze age and emerging as a literate, humanistic culture. They are foundational of literature itself. There is no Western literature without them. It's not a book as much as it is an historical event. And as a story, its characters are striking emodiments of the fundamental human emotions, of loss and mourning, pride and wrath and jealousy, hubris and, eventually, wisdom and restraint, that continue to be the best way to understand "irrational" behavior. If you are not seized by the wrath of Achilles and drawn in by his hubris and tragic, inexorable fate, then wait a little while, live a little more, come back, and try again. If you don't get the Iliad, it's not the Iliad's fault.
posted by dis_integration at 6:58 AM on June 28 [14 favorites]
> Why?
It's a category error, first of all, because The Iliad is not a work of a single author who was trying to compose a ripping good story and wasn't even really "written" so much as compiled. But more than that, The Odyssey and the the Iliad are eruptions of pure language pulling the West out of Bronze age and emerging as a literate, humanistic culture. They are foundational of literature itself. There is no Western literature without them. It's not a book as much as it is an historical event. And as a story, its characters are striking emodiments of the fundamental human emotions, of loss and mourning, pride and wrath and jealousy, hubris and, eventually, wisdom and restraint, that continue to be the best way to understand "irrational" behavior. If you are not seized by the wrath of Achilles and drawn in by his hubris and tragic, inexorable fate, then wait a little while, live a little more, come back, and try again. If you don't get the Iliad, it's not the Iliad's fault.
posted by dis_integration at 6:58 AM on June 28 [14 favorites]
I'd say as much as anything else it's just a shift in expectations.
Look at Kurosawa for a movies example. Dude was lauded as a master director and his stuff was undeniably good. But by modern standards it is so.... fucking.... slow.... It just DRAGS out with endless scenes of nothing but people walking or whatever.
Or hell, for a more recent example, look at the original Superman movie from back in 1978.
You could easily chop half an hour out of Rashomon, beginning with all the endless scenes of people just walking, and by modern standards it'd be a better movie.
Or Superman. JFC they spent the first flipping half hour setting up for the sequels with the entire endless Zod scenes. Then the endless sequence of narration while baby supes travels to Earth, more narration while he grows up, and we don't even get to Clark at the Daily Planet until we're into the second hour of the movie.
Audiences of the times those movies came out liked and expected that sort of long crawling pace.
Similarly, the market and audience for epic poetry is, well, pretty niche. So yeah, it's not all that surprising that Homer doesn't really appeal much to the modern person. Do we really need an entire chapter devoted to Achiles getting dressed? Cuz Homer gave us one. I'm sure the ancient Greek audience he was reciting the poem for were hanging off every word and eager to hear the detials of how Achiles got into his boots and strapped on his pauldrons. Today, not so much.
Which is why retellings exist, but also why anyone who likes the classics of any media knows it's a somewhat niche thing for the modern audience. I loved every word of the first 3/4 of Wuthering Heights, and I thought the last 1/4 was at least vaguely OK. But it isn't a novel that would sell to a modern market.
I'm sure in another 100 years people may look back on today's novels and movies and find them similarly quaint and niche by comparison to whatever style is popular in that time.
posted by sotonohito at 6:59 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
Look at Kurosawa for a movies example. Dude was lauded as a master director and his stuff was undeniably good. But by modern standards it is so.... fucking.... slow.... It just DRAGS out with endless scenes of nothing but people walking or whatever.
Or hell, for a more recent example, look at the original Superman movie from back in 1978.
You could easily chop half an hour out of Rashomon, beginning with all the endless scenes of people just walking, and by modern standards it'd be a better movie.
Or Superman. JFC they spent the first flipping half hour setting up for the sequels with the entire endless Zod scenes. Then the endless sequence of narration while baby supes travels to Earth, more narration while he grows up, and we don't even get to Clark at the Daily Planet until we're into the second hour of the movie.
Audiences of the times those movies came out liked and expected that sort of long crawling pace.
Similarly, the market and audience for epic poetry is, well, pretty niche. So yeah, it's not all that surprising that Homer doesn't really appeal much to the modern person. Do we really need an entire chapter devoted to Achiles getting dressed? Cuz Homer gave us one. I'm sure the ancient Greek audience he was reciting the poem for were hanging off every word and eager to hear the detials of how Achiles got into his boots and strapped on his pauldrons. Today, not so much.
Which is why retellings exist, but also why anyone who likes the classics of any media knows it's a somewhat niche thing for the modern audience. I loved every word of the first 3/4 of Wuthering Heights, and I thought the last 1/4 was at least vaguely OK. But it isn't a novel that would sell to a modern market.
I'm sure in another 100 years people may look back on today's novels and movies and find them similarly quaint and niche by comparison to whatever style is popular in that time.
posted by sotonohito at 6:59 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
> Do we really need an entire chapter devoted to Achiles getting dressed?
Honestly one of my favorite parts of the Iliad, especially read in conjunction with the similar part of the Aeneid. Achilles armor is an epic poem of its own. I guess I'm Homer pilled. I did study ancient Greek and Latin, so you can just disregard it all, I guess.
posted by dis_integration at 7:01 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
Honestly one of my favorite parts of the Iliad, especially read in conjunction with the similar part of the Aeneid. Achilles armor is an epic poem of its own. I guess I'm Homer pilled. I did study ancient Greek and Latin, so you can just disregard it all, I guess.
posted by dis_integration at 7:01 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
I just finished reading The Song of Achilles an hour ago. That's a modern novel, telling the story of the Iliad and more as a love story between Patroclus and Achilles. I found it very moving and a really excellent read as a modern novel. Highly recommend it.
I struggled through The Iliad in college, barely understood it, barely remember it. It was fun revisiting the same story with its themes of vanity and hubris and anger and violence. But in a modern novel that I could easily relate to.. It made me want to try reading the Iliad again, a translation that is more accessible. But I know that the text is just very hard to access. Coming from a very different narrative tradition. I don't agree with this review that the Iliad is bad, that's a take of willful ignorance. But it definitely is an alien text for someone with contemporary sensibilities.
posted by Nelson at 7:04 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
I struggled through The Iliad in college, barely understood it, barely remember it. It was fun revisiting the same story with its themes of vanity and hubris and anger and violence. But in a modern novel that I could easily relate to.. It made me want to try reading the Iliad again, a translation that is more accessible. But I know that the text is just very hard to access. Coming from a very different narrative tradition. I don't agree with this review that the Iliad is bad, that's a take of willful ignorance. But it definitely is an alien text for someone with contemporary sensibilities.
posted by Nelson at 7:04 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
thecjm Don't forget, the Iliad ends before the war concludes. The famous wooden horse appears, briefly, in the first bits of the Odyssy as it concludes the Trojan War to start the journey home.
So technically the original ended on a cliffhanger and used that to hook you for the spin off series.
posted by sotonohito at 7:05 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
So technically the original ended on a cliffhanger and used that to hook you for the spin off series.
posted by sotonohito at 7:05 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
But more than that, The Odyssey and the the Iliad are eruptions of pure language pulling the West out of Bronze age and emerging as a literate, humanistic culture. They are foundational of literature itself. There is no Western literature without them. It's not a book as much as it is an historical event.
Okay, but as Countess Elena points out here, it's possible to appreciate the historic impact of a work but at the same time not care for the writing style itself. And yes, I saw what you said about "its characters are striking emodiments of the fundamental human emotions, of loss and mourning, pride and wrath and jealousy, hubris and, eventually, wisdom and restraint" - but this does not address the quality of the language used to convey this information, and I'm inclined to agree that sometimes that language is difficult to parse.
If you don't get the Iliad, it's not the Iliad's fault.
This isn't about not "getting" the Iliad, this is about not liking The Iliad. It's possible to "get" the Iliad, but just not like it. There are plenty of things I "get" just fine, but I just don't like them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
Okay, but as Countess Elena points out here, it's possible to appreciate the historic impact of a work but at the same time not care for the writing style itself. And yes, I saw what you said about "its characters are striking emodiments of the fundamental human emotions, of loss and mourning, pride and wrath and jealousy, hubris and, eventually, wisdom and restraint" - but this does not address the quality of the language used to convey this information, and I'm inclined to agree that sometimes that language is difficult to parse.
If you don't get the Iliad, it's not the Iliad's fault.
This isn't about not "getting" the Iliad, this is about not liking The Iliad. It's possible to "get" the Iliad, but just not like it. There are plenty of things I "get" just fine, but I just don't like them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
I don't say it often because I don't want to explain, but I don't like Shakespeare. I don't have to!
Exactly. Read what you like. Don't read what you don't like.
I do happen to like reading Shakespeare, but I probably wouldn't enjoy it if I had to examine and discuss and debate everything. I just like the poetry and I don't want it spoiled by any sort of academic approach.
posted by pracowity at 7:11 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
Exactly. Read what you like. Don't read what you don't like.
I do happen to like reading Shakespeare, but I probably wouldn't enjoy it if I had to examine and discuss and debate everything. I just like the poetry and I don't want it spoiled by any sort of academic approach.
posted by pracowity at 7:11 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
It's also not actually written in iambic pentameter, as the author claims, but dactylic hexameter...
I don't mean to defend the review in general, but it's a review of Emily Wilson's translation (noted at the top) with quotes from it that are all in iambic pentameter. So you're right about Homer's Iliad, and he's right about Wilson's Iliad:
I don't mean to defend the review in general, but it's a review of Emily Wilson's translation (noted at the top) with quotes from it that are all in iambic pentameter. So you're right about Homer's Iliad, and he's right about Wilson's Iliad:
Wilson’s return to iambic pentameter transposes the lyrical quality of Homeric verse into a key English speakers recognize from their own literary history. This is the meter of Shakespeare and Milton. This is music both formal and familiar.posted by Wobbuffet at 7:13 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
technically the original ended on a cliffhanger
*spoiler alert* maybe! some people-
posted by HearHere at 7:16 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
*spoiler alert* maybe! some people-
posted by HearHere at 7:16 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
I love The Iliad, and found it a brutal and heartbreaking parable about the horrors of war, especially a war that has gone on for so long that the war, and the culture surrounding it, feels like it's become about the perpetuation of war. Something about it always felt surprisingly timeless to me. But not everything is for everyone.
I would love this guy's hot takes on The Aeneid and its privileged fuckboy protagonist.
posted by thivaia at 7:22 AM on June 28 [10 favorites]
I would love this guy's hot takes on The Aeneid and its privileged fuckboy protagonist.
posted by thivaia at 7:22 AM on June 28 [10 favorites]
> This isn't about not "getting" the Iliad, this is about not liking The Iliad.
I think maybe I'm fine with people saying: I don't enjoy reading the Iliad. That's a subjective judgment of taste. But saying "the writing quality of the Iliad is bad" is a more objective judgment of quality which just doesn't seem to apply to the Iliad to me, as a text that forms the foundation of what quality in writing even means. Like, I don't enjoy John Updike because he's a self absorbed mysognist who thinks talking a lot about his penis is the height of literature, but he's not a bad writer. His grasp of the craft is pretty good. Well, Homer is practically the invention of the craft of poetry. It's weird to say he's bad at it.
posted by dis_integration at 7:24 AM on June 28 [10 favorites]
I think maybe I'm fine with people saying: I don't enjoy reading the Iliad. That's a subjective judgment of taste. But saying "the writing quality of the Iliad is bad" is a more objective judgment of quality which just doesn't seem to apply to the Iliad to me, as a text that forms the foundation of what quality in writing even means. Like, I don't enjoy John Updike because he's a self absorbed mysognist who thinks talking a lot about his penis is the height of literature, but he's not a bad writer. His grasp of the craft is pretty good. Well, Homer is practically the invention of the craft of poetry. It's weird to say he's bad at it.
posted by dis_integration at 7:24 AM on June 28 [10 favorites]
The filtering through the translators is one reason why the clunky writing issues often misses the mark too. These poems, like the bible, like the Viking Sagas, are filtered so heavily through their translators and adapters that they are effectively new retelling of a tale each time. Some translators take great liberties with the text to make it more compatible to their readers' expectations, some try to be a faithful to their understanding of the text as they can--and still may mess it up by later consideration.
If you don't like the Penguin Classics version, try another. There are dozens, ancient and modern. It's a bit like arguing which version of the bible is better.
posted by bonehead at 7:27 AM on June 28 [12 favorites]
If you don't like the Penguin Classics version, try another. There are dozens, ancient and modern. It's a bit like arguing which version of the bible is better.
posted by bonehead at 7:27 AM on June 28 [12 favorites]
Seconding Wobbuffet's comment that Wilson's translation is in iambic pentameter. The WashPo review has a lovely paragraph about that
posted by Nelson at 7:28 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
Wilson has forged a poetic style in English that captures the essence of Homeric Greek, a style that she explains in her helpful “Translator’s Note.” Eschewing rhyme, she has arranged her verse into a loose iambic pentameter, allowing it to spill over to occupy some 4,000 more lines than the original poem. On the page the metricality of Wilson’s verse is lost — the rhythm comes alive only when you read aloud, the words whistling up the windpipe, animating the tongue and striking the ear. No other translation communicates the oral nature of the poem so brilliantly.(This review says "the writing quality is frequently bad" while confounding the translation he read with the actual text of the Iliad. The review is coming from a place of willful ignorance.)
posted by Nelson at 7:28 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
hot takes on The Aeneid
another (promoted) spinoff [medium]
posted by HearHere at 7:28 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
another (promoted) spinoff [medium]
posted by HearHere at 7:28 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
Wait, wait, I think I know how to crack this chestnut. The Illiad is like Star Trek: The Motion Picture: long, turgid, stodgy, but not without its deep moments and some grandeur. The Odyssey is like Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan: tight, exciting, and about people and not huge ideas. Both are important and worthy in their own ways, and we wouldn't have TWOK without TMP.
posted by jabah at 7:39 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
posted by jabah at 7:39 AM on June 28 [7 favorites]
IDK, the Prose Edda really sucked in its modern Marvel movie adaptation.
posted by bonehead at 7:41 AM on June 28 [8 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 7:41 AM on June 28 [8 favorites]
I think maybe I'm fine with people saying: I don't enjoy reading the Iliad. That's a subjective judgment of taste. But saying "the writing quality of the Iliad is bad" is a more objective judgment of quality which just doesn't seem to apply to the Iliad to me, as a text that forms the foundation of what quality in writing even means.
I bolded the part above because - that "to me" is carrying a lot of weight there. This is "forming the foundation of what quality in writing means" to you. Which is precisely my point. "Quality in writing" is a highly subjective thing - and for every person like you who thinks it is the bedrock of Quality Writing, there is a person who finds it turgid, florid, meandering, overhyped, or [insert negative adjective here]. And that is absolutely fine - neither opinion is the "right" one.
Which is precisely my point. The people who dislike the Iliad are not uneducated boors, and the people who love the Iliad are not smarter or better or whatever. To be fair, you technically have a point that it would be more accurate for this blogger to have said "I THINK THAT the writing quality of the Iliad is bad" instead of just saying "the writing quality is bad". But the same could be said of the countless professors and scholars and such who have all been teaching us the Iliad on the basis that the writing quality "is good". "Good" and "Bad" are subjective, and no matter how flawlessly a writer may execute their craft, and no matter how well-received a given work might be, there is always going to be someone who might just plain not like it. They understand it, they understand the context behind it and the impact coming from it and appreciate that, but emotionally, they just don't like it. And that's fine.
Bearing that in mind when we're talking about classic works is especially important, I think, because the longer a given work has been held up as A Classic Important Thing, the more likely it is for the average person to assume that if they don't like it, it's somehow their own fault - and that's not fair. Even worse, others may say things like "If you don't get the Iliad, it's not the Iliad's fault". The implication there is that it's somehow the reader's "fault". But there is no "fault" to be had - the person who didn't like the Iliad just didn't like the Iliad.
And I think that's the ultimate point here - that we get hung up on these classic works that our society has collectively agreed upon as being Foundational, but time to time it pays to read them with a fresh eye and see what you think, because a thing being Foundational doesn't mean it's also Fun. (And that's not even getting into the point that there are other works that were equally Foundational in other cultures - but the West seems to ignore those.) The point is that it's okay to be critical of the things society has told us are sacrosanct sometimes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:12 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
I bolded the part above because - that "to me" is carrying a lot of weight there. This is "forming the foundation of what quality in writing means" to you. Which is precisely my point. "Quality in writing" is a highly subjective thing - and for every person like you who thinks it is the bedrock of Quality Writing, there is a person who finds it turgid, florid, meandering, overhyped, or [insert negative adjective here]. And that is absolutely fine - neither opinion is the "right" one.
Which is precisely my point. The people who dislike the Iliad are not uneducated boors, and the people who love the Iliad are not smarter or better or whatever. To be fair, you technically have a point that it would be more accurate for this blogger to have said "I THINK THAT the writing quality of the Iliad is bad" instead of just saying "the writing quality is bad". But the same could be said of the countless professors and scholars and such who have all been teaching us the Iliad on the basis that the writing quality "is good". "Good" and "Bad" are subjective, and no matter how flawlessly a writer may execute their craft, and no matter how well-received a given work might be, there is always going to be someone who might just plain not like it. They understand it, they understand the context behind it and the impact coming from it and appreciate that, but emotionally, they just don't like it. And that's fine.
Bearing that in mind when we're talking about classic works is especially important, I think, because the longer a given work has been held up as A Classic Important Thing, the more likely it is for the average person to assume that if they don't like it, it's somehow their own fault - and that's not fair. Even worse, others may say things like "If you don't get the Iliad, it's not the Iliad's fault". The implication there is that it's somehow the reader's "fault". But there is no "fault" to be had - the person who didn't like the Iliad just didn't like the Iliad.
And I think that's the ultimate point here - that we get hung up on these classic works that our society has collectively agreed upon as being Foundational, but time to time it pays to read them with a fresh eye and see what you think, because a thing being Foundational doesn't mean it's also Fun. (And that's not even getting into the point that there are other works that were equally Foundational in other cultures - but the West seems to ignore those.) The point is that it's okay to be critical of the things society has told us are sacrosanct sometimes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:12 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
How many comments now and nobody has stood up for Austen? And the sideswipe about "the niche genre of Regency-era romance. The few hundred committed fans of that genre"?? Talk about being both condescending and plain wrong.
posted by of strange foe at 8:17 AM on June 28 [16 favorites]
posted by of strange foe at 8:17 AM on June 28 [16 favorites]
I mean, when it comes to naïve "enjoyment" (as opposed to erudite "appreciation", which can be pleasurable but has to, at some level, acknowledge that the work is undergoing a nontrivial process of interpretation), a difference of even a few years, much less centuries or millennia, can make it difficult, even for things which good by any reasonable standard of their form and by comparison to contemporary works. There are issues of cultural context, or technical features, and, in works presented in their original language, of language (I would argue that any problems in the language of a translated Iliad would be a translation issue, rather than an incompatibility of the language with modern enjoyment, whereas Shakespeare, which is typically presented in it's original language, has language-comprehensibility issues for modern audiences).
To go deeper into the three issues: cultural context is big. Modern America, Elizabethan England, and Bronze-Age Greece are very different cultures. The sorts of things which have strong emotional resonance in one culture may fall completely flat in another. Most of the conflicts in the Iliad below the level of "the actual war" are pretty easily misunderstood by modern audiences, because what is meant by "honor" or "courtesy" or " "respect" have changed a lot, and the nuances of, say, why Akhilles and Agamemnon are being such raging dicks to each other has more to it than "they both wanted a slave girl and Akhilles got pissy 'cause Agamemnon pulled rank". If you don't understand all of this stuff, then the motivations and characterizations seem worse.
Technical aspects are perhaps the least compelling of the three issues in a written text; it can be big in music or performing arts, though. Techniques are developed, either purely methodological (like the unreliable narrator) or technological (like special effects for film or even stage performance), and works which predate these or employ them clunkily can sometimes seem outmoded to an audience comfortable with them. Again, less of a big deal with text, but a big source of friction with the clunky special effects (or lack of spoken audio!) on older films.
Language I'd say is not an issue for Homer unless the translator does a bad job, since nobody natively reads Ancient Greek; I get the impression its comprehensibility even to modern Greek speakers is considerably lower than, say, Middle English is to Modern English speakers (higher than Old English, perhaps; but nobody reads Old English natively either). But looking at, say, Shakespeare, there's a significant source of friction on the level of unfamiliar words, grammatical forms, and idioms, which reduces enjoyment of the work.
Now, I'm not saying that experiencing a work with these sources of friction can't be a pleasant experience. It often is! But it's ultimately an experience improved by having some familiarity with a "foreign" context. You can get and laugh at all of Shakespeare's dick jokes. You can be swept along by the emotional arc of Akhilles's torments. You can watch a silent film and be impressed by the emotive miming or cinematic technique. But in each of those cases, you have to make an effort to do so, to step out of your own culture, to interpret the work instead of simply experiencing it.
And not everybody needs to appreciate everything. I love Shakespeare, but have a bit of a hard time with most silent movies. I tried to read the Mahabharata and didn't really get into it. I like the structure and rhythm of Homer but usually need an auxiliary source to bring the characters to life. I'm not sure my ability to appreciate these works says anything about their objective quality.
posted by jackbishop at 8:33 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
To go deeper into the three issues: cultural context is big. Modern America, Elizabethan England, and Bronze-Age Greece are very different cultures. The sorts of things which have strong emotional resonance in one culture may fall completely flat in another. Most of the conflicts in the Iliad below the level of "the actual war" are pretty easily misunderstood by modern audiences, because what is meant by "honor" or "courtesy" or " "respect" have changed a lot, and the nuances of, say, why Akhilles and Agamemnon are being such raging dicks to each other has more to it than "they both wanted a slave girl and Akhilles got pissy 'cause Agamemnon pulled rank". If you don't understand all of this stuff, then the motivations and characterizations seem worse.
Technical aspects are perhaps the least compelling of the three issues in a written text; it can be big in music or performing arts, though. Techniques are developed, either purely methodological (like the unreliable narrator) or technological (like special effects for film or even stage performance), and works which predate these or employ them clunkily can sometimes seem outmoded to an audience comfortable with them. Again, less of a big deal with text, but a big source of friction with the clunky special effects (or lack of spoken audio!) on older films.
Language I'd say is not an issue for Homer unless the translator does a bad job, since nobody natively reads Ancient Greek; I get the impression its comprehensibility even to modern Greek speakers is considerably lower than, say, Middle English is to Modern English speakers (higher than Old English, perhaps; but nobody reads Old English natively either). But looking at, say, Shakespeare, there's a significant source of friction on the level of unfamiliar words, grammatical forms, and idioms, which reduces enjoyment of the work.
Now, I'm not saying that experiencing a work with these sources of friction can't be a pleasant experience. It often is! But it's ultimately an experience improved by having some familiarity with a "foreign" context. You can get and laugh at all of Shakespeare's dick jokes. You can be swept along by the emotional arc of Akhilles's torments. You can watch a silent film and be impressed by the emotive miming or cinematic technique. But in each of those cases, you have to make an effort to do so, to step out of your own culture, to interpret the work instead of simply experiencing it.
And not everybody needs to appreciate everything. I love Shakespeare, but have a bit of a hard time with most silent movies. I tried to read the Mahabharata and didn't really get into it. I like the structure and rhythm of Homer but usually need an auxiliary source to bring the characters to life. I'm not sure my ability to appreciate these works says anything about their objective quality.
posted by jackbishop at 8:33 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
the niche genre of Regency-era romance. The few hundred committed fans of that genre"
Yeah, totally. Like tell me that you've somehow missed the "Bridgerton" juggernaut without telling me you've somehow missed the "Bridgertown" juggernaut.
posted by thivaia at 8:42 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
Yeah, totally. Like tell me that you've somehow missed the "Bridgerton" juggernaut without telling me you've somehow missed the "Bridgertown" juggernaut.
posted by thivaia at 8:42 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
This reads exactly like a high school book report written by a sullen teenager who finished the book the night before the paper was due (and I speak from experience).
posted by Larry Duke at 8:45 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
posted by Larry Duke at 8:45 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]
Hearthere, I am a bit confused why you are linking to a comment someone made to me about pareidolia. Can you elaborate a BIT more, please?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:51 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:51 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
In that setting, repetition works completely differently from when you read or listen to a text alone, and also differently from a "normal" theater performance. Repetition and lists work like choruses, you sort of sing along in your mind, enjoying the recognition.
A reciter can also put interpretative spin on the repetitions for comic or ironic effect. I just finished an excellent audiobook version of the Iliad, with Dan Stevens individuating dozens of characters through subtle twists of the voice. When his Agamemnon dictates a list of placatory gifts to offer Achilles, it comes across as a boasting catalog of wealth from a man who hasn't really learned anything about humility. When Odysseus conveys that list to Achilles, nearly word for word, the tone is now plain, rational, conciliating; he's a diplomat doing his best to soften an autocrat's message. (But even his tact can't suppress the original spirit of the words entirely, and Achilles doesn't fail to pick up on the condescension.)
Another benefit of an aural rendition is that you can't easily skip over the little capsule biographies of fallen warriors. Most every time someone dies (and there are ~240 deaths in the Iliad), you get their name, and their country, and some little glimpse of who they were: the circumstances of their birth, their pastimes and occupations, the road they took to Troy, their parents anxious at home.
When I'm reading silently, I do catch myself hurrying past these moments. The names kind of blend together, I get tired of flipping over to the map in the flyleaf, I'm impatient to get back to the plot. So I understand the reviewer's complaint:
posted by Iridic at 9:00 AM on June 28 [11 favorites]
A reciter can also put interpretative spin on the repetitions for comic or ironic effect. I just finished an excellent audiobook version of the Iliad, with Dan Stevens individuating dozens of characters through subtle twists of the voice. When his Agamemnon dictates a list of placatory gifts to offer Achilles, it comes across as a boasting catalog of wealth from a man who hasn't really learned anything about humility. When Odysseus conveys that list to Achilles, nearly word for word, the tone is now plain, rational, conciliating; he's a diplomat doing his best to soften an autocrat's message. (But even his tact can't suppress the original spirit of the words entirely, and Achilles doesn't fail to pick up on the condescension.)
Another benefit of an aural rendition is that you can't easily skip over the little capsule biographies of fallen warriors. Most every time someone dies (and there are ~240 deaths in the Iliad), you get their name, and their country, and some little glimpse of who they were: the circumstances of their birth, their pastimes and occupations, the road they took to Troy, their parents anxious at home.
When I'm reading silently, I do catch myself hurrying past these moments. The names kind of blend together, I get tired of flipping over to the map in the flyleaf, I'm impatient to get back to the plot. So I understand the reviewer's complaint:
A lot of the fighting was of the form: Diomedes stabbed (name) in the chest. He was from (town) and had once (random piece of backstory), and he died. (Name) was killed by Diomedes, who stabbed him in the throat; his wife and children would never see him again. Then Diomedes stabbed (name) in the thigh...But when I listen to the poem, and those little episodes take place within the flow of the verse, and the names and places ring out with their proper music...it hits different. I don't find the lives repetitious then, except in the sense that all lives have a common form and end. The reviewer wants a sense of the war's scale? Well, there it is: bodies ruined, hopes canceled, parents destroyed, worlds ended, again and again and again, times two hundred and forty.
posted by Iridic at 9:00 AM on June 28 [11 favorites]
Indo-European Phrase of the Week: “Undying Fame”
the perpetuation of the fame of a warrior or king was of critical importance to early Indo-European society. The preservation of their fame was in the hands of poets, highly skilled and highly paid professionals, who acted both as the repositors and the transmitters of the society’s oral culture.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:35 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
the perpetuation of the fame of a warrior or king was of critical importance to early Indo-European society. The preservation of their fame was in the hands of poets, highly skilled and highly paid professionals, who acted both as the repositors and the transmitters of the society’s oral culture.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:35 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos There are plenty of things I "get" just fine, but I just don't like them.
This this this this this! Yes! Thank you becaue that's a perfect encapsulation of what I've been thinking for years about many things.
Like, I GET what Cormac McCarthy was doing with the writing style in The Road. But I just could not deal with it for more than three pages.
It is not a sign that a person doesn't comprehend the Iliad if they don't like it.
I think for a lot of the more "intellectual" things people have this idea that since it's difficult if you don't enjoy it then you've just failed to understand it. "Well, if you REALLY understood then...." is just plain wrong.
posted by sotonohito at 9:41 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
This this this this this! Yes! Thank you becaue that's a perfect encapsulation of what I've been thinking for years about many things.
Like, I GET what Cormac McCarthy was doing with the writing style in The Road. But I just could not deal with it for more than three pages.
It is not a sign that a person doesn't comprehend the Iliad if they don't like it.
I think for a lot of the more "intellectual" things people have this idea that since it's difficult if you don't enjoy it then you've just failed to understand it. "Well, if you REALLY understood then...." is just plain wrong.
posted by sotonohito at 9:41 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
But, looking through his blog... Ok, he's a LessWrong guy, he mostly posts about code, and occasionally superhero movies. He is probably reading way way out of his comfort zone. Which is probably good for him and should be encouraged.
We already got the final word on this from Sam Bankman-Fried:
We already got the final word on this from Sam Bankman-Fried:
… the Bayesian priors are pretty damning. About half of the people born since 1600 have been born in the past 100 years, but it gets much worse than that. When Shakespeare wrote almost all of Europeans were busy farming, and very few people attended university; few people were even literate–probably as low as about ten million people. By contrast there are now upwards of a billion literate people in the Western sphere. What are the odds that the greatest writer would have been born in 1564? The Bayesian priors aren’t very favorable.posted by grobstein at 10:02 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
Like tell me that you've somehow missed the "Bridgerton" juggernaut without telling me you've somehow missed the "Bridgertown" juggernaut.
An interesting thing about Bridgerton is that it's pretty knowingly a period piece. Like, it may evoke the manners and language and dress* of the Regency period, but the cultural context is unmistakably 21st-century. Compared to, say, Jane Austen, there's a lot more overt directness in the gossip (not that Regency society didn't gossip, but they'd do so in a manner which would look much more oblique to us), more normalized public physical intimacy (I'm not talking about sex here, although, yes, that too), and less presumption of deference to rank (except the queen, who is omnipresent in Bridgerton's London society to an extent she never was in the real world). The story of Bridgerton, if it had been shown to an actual person living during the Regency, would probably seem like a fantastical story about people living in a completely alien society which is inexplicably called "London" and possesses a ruler with the same name as their actual queen. It would actually probably be less comprehensible to them than Jane Austen is to us, because we can wrap our heads around a different society with different rules and relieve a lot of cultural friction by that way, while they would see a story whose surface trappings resemble their own society but in which nothing that is happening makes a damn bit of sense in their cultural script.
*I have no idea if the dress is actually remotely Regency-accurate. There are roughly 2000 hours worth of Youtube videos I haven't watched on the subject by people with authentic expertise in period costuming or Regency couture which I'd venture say that it isn't, but it certainly makes an effort to at least evoke the styles of the time.
posted by jackbishop at 10:04 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
An interesting thing about Bridgerton is that it's pretty knowingly a period piece. Like, it may evoke the manners and language and dress* of the Regency period, but the cultural context is unmistakably 21st-century. Compared to, say, Jane Austen, there's a lot more overt directness in the gossip (not that Regency society didn't gossip, but they'd do so in a manner which would look much more oblique to us), more normalized public physical intimacy (I'm not talking about sex here, although, yes, that too), and less presumption of deference to rank (except the queen, who is omnipresent in Bridgerton's London society to an extent she never was in the real world). The story of Bridgerton, if it had been shown to an actual person living during the Regency, would probably seem like a fantastical story about people living in a completely alien society which is inexplicably called "London" and possesses a ruler with the same name as their actual queen. It would actually probably be less comprehensible to them than Jane Austen is to us, because we can wrap our heads around a different society with different rules and relieve a lot of cultural friction by that way, while they would see a story whose surface trappings resemble their own society but in which nothing that is happening makes a damn bit of sense in their cultural script.
*I have no idea if the dress is actually remotely Regency-accurate. There are roughly 2000 hours worth of Youtube videos I haven't watched on the subject by people with authentic expertise in period costuming or Regency couture which I'd venture say that it isn't, but it certainly makes an effort to at least evoke the styles of the time.
posted by jackbishop at 10:04 AM on June 28 [6 favorites]
grobstein Thing is, while Sam Bankman-Jailed is a massive criminal and a douche canoe of the highest order, once you strip out all his faux intellectual stuff about Besian weighting, he's not actually wrong.
Except in his core assumption that literary experts actually claim Shakespeare is the greatest English speaking writer to ever exist.
Shakespeare was a damn fine playwright. But we keep circling back to him not because we think he's a better writer than Mamet or Miller, but because he was foundational to so much of the English language, and because he was so popular for a time that his influence looms large over a great deal of subsiquent literature.
It's related to why anyone who's into literature would strongly recommend people read the Bible. Not because the Bible is great literature, it's shit when considered from an artistic standpoint, but because it was the document linking all of Christandom together and as a result an enormous amount of Western literature references the Bible so knowing it helps.
To an extent it's circular. We keep watching/reading Shakespeare because he's such an influence on literaature and he's such an influence on literature because we keep referencing him.
Not because he's the single greatest writer ever.
posted by sotonohito at 10:30 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
Except in his core assumption that literary experts actually claim Shakespeare is the greatest English speaking writer to ever exist.
Shakespeare was a damn fine playwright. But we keep circling back to him not because we think he's a better writer than Mamet or Miller, but because he was foundational to so much of the English language, and because he was so popular for a time that his influence looms large over a great deal of subsiquent literature.
It's related to why anyone who's into literature would strongly recommend people read the Bible. Not because the Bible is great literature, it's shit when considered from an artistic standpoint, but because it was the document linking all of Christandom together and as a result an enormous amount of Western literature references the Bible so knowing it helps.
To an extent it's circular. We keep watching/reading Shakespeare because he's such an influence on literaature and he's such an influence on literature because we keep referencing him.
Not because he's the single greatest writer ever.
posted by sotonohito at 10:30 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]
Not because the Bible is great literature, it's shit when considered from an artistic standpoint
On the contrary, there is plenty in the Bible that can be read, understood, and felt without a lot of apparatus around it, enough to say that it's really effective (in parts) from an artistic standpoint. Psalm 22 is my favorite example of this. But then, that's evocative poetry rather than narrative. The begats are another story!
I really liked the review, because it points to the fact that most of us read for narrative, most of us are primed to be carried away by narrative, to have our emotions jostled by what happens to characters we care about--and so when we come up against a book that is trying to do something else, it's like taking a step and realizing the stair you were expecting isn't there anymore, your foot is just hanging in air, you're about to fall. It's why so much literary fiction receives a raised eyebrow from so many readers--you forgot to say what happened! (An editor I follow, the other day posted about how never made it through Wolf Hall because of Mantel's weird use of pronouns, and while I loved the book and the trilogy, I will say it made a lot more work, but the work was enjoyable because the book provides the apparatus for understanding itself--you are deep within the mind and history of a character, a character who knows the antecedent of the pronoun.)
I'd say even in narrative-forward commercial fiction, we sometimes need a little apparatus to help. One thing I miss about reading physical books is, I can't flip back to the dust-jacket where it summarizes the plot a little bit--sometimes I need that anchor or pointer so I can contextualize what I'm reading better. Yesterday I was reading a story where a phone was on a party-line, and had to do that little bit of extra labor to remind myself what a party-line was, and what the implications were for eavesdropping.
My point is just, the need for help isn't a bad thing! Some books need help, some readers need help. And if your goal is to read a book--and judge it--based on turning aside that book, then I think you will definitely have a reaction much like the reviewer. And the answer there isn't to blame the reviewer, it's just to say, you've demonstrated why we have introductions and footnotes and novelizations and movie adaptations!
posted by mittens at 10:53 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
On the contrary, there is plenty in the Bible that can be read, understood, and felt without a lot of apparatus around it, enough to say that it's really effective (in parts) from an artistic standpoint. Psalm 22 is my favorite example of this. But then, that's evocative poetry rather than narrative. The begats are another story!
I really liked the review, because it points to the fact that most of us read for narrative, most of us are primed to be carried away by narrative, to have our emotions jostled by what happens to characters we care about--and so when we come up against a book that is trying to do something else, it's like taking a step and realizing the stair you were expecting isn't there anymore, your foot is just hanging in air, you're about to fall. It's why so much literary fiction receives a raised eyebrow from so many readers--you forgot to say what happened! (An editor I follow, the other day posted about how never made it through Wolf Hall because of Mantel's weird use of pronouns, and while I loved the book and the trilogy, I will say it made a lot more work, but the work was enjoyable because the book provides the apparatus for understanding itself--you are deep within the mind and history of a character, a character who knows the antecedent of the pronoun.)
I'd say even in narrative-forward commercial fiction, we sometimes need a little apparatus to help. One thing I miss about reading physical books is, I can't flip back to the dust-jacket where it summarizes the plot a little bit--sometimes I need that anchor or pointer so I can contextualize what I'm reading better. Yesterday I was reading a story where a phone was on a party-line, and had to do that little bit of extra labor to remind myself what a party-line was, and what the implications were for eavesdropping.
My point is just, the need for help isn't a bad thing! Some books need help, some readers need help. And if your goal is to read a book--and judge it--based on turning aside that book, then I think you will definitely have a reaction much like the reviewer. And the answer there isn't to blame the reviewer, it's just to say, you've demonstrated why we have introductions and footnotes and novelizations and movie adaptations!
posted by mittens at 10:53 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
The interesting thing here is that the initial recap of the book, which seems to be intended to show how nonsensical the book and plot is, actually makes it sound pretty interesting indeed - and at minimum, as sensible and interesting as a similar plot summary of about any modern TV series or action-adventure type movie would be.
Just take for example some nice plot summaries of Games of Thrones episodes:
posted by flug at 10:55 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
Just take for example some nice plot summaries of Games of Thrones episodes:
Following Ned’s first Small Council meeting as Hand of the King, he learns that Catelyn has snuck into King’s Landing to show him the dagger that the catspaw assassin tried to use on Bran — a reveal that leads Master of Coin Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aidan Gillen) to claim he recognizes the blade as one he lost to Tyrion in a bet.Alrighty then - that surely is promising as the basis of a literary masterpiece. Hands and fingers and daggers and assassinations and nonsensical nicknames and people sneaking around for no particular discernable reason and everyone being mad at everyone else. Why heavens, nothing like any of those things has ever happened in real life - or any decent literary or dramatic work of any kind!
posted by flug at 10:55 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
About half of the people born since 1600 have been born in the past 100 years, but it gets much worse than that
there’s an elaboration of this (& other things) in my current reading, about nitrogen [Guardian]
Can you elaborate a BIT more, please?
a bit [wiki] :-) an elaborate bit…qubit or cubit? [wiki*2]
posted by HearHere at 10:58 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
there’s an elaboration of this (& other things) in my current reading, about nitrogen [Guardian]
Can you elaborate a BIT more, please?
a bit [wiki] :-) an elaborate bit…qubit or cubit? [wiki*2]
posted by HearHere at 10:58 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
Just because something is considered classic doesn't necessarily make it good,
Or, I would say, that "classics" go in and out of fashion. Bach was big in his time, went out of fashion, is currently indispensible. In general, the longer a work hangs on, and, more to the point, the more it extracts fresh understanding, epiphanies, and insights from its audience, the more you have to acknowledge that, yeah, it is good, even great.
It is not a sign that a person doesn't comprehend the Iliad if they don't like it.
Fair enough, but will the person who doesn't like it get as much out of it as someone who does like it? (I'd argue not, but neither would I argue that anyone who happens to hate brussel sprouts should eat them because they're good for you.)
Greatness generally involves the audience doing their share, if they can, or have the inclination, or think it worthwhile. Dislike Homer or Shakespeare and I won't judge. But clearly there are plenty of people who find fresh treasure and enjoyment from repeated exposures, certainly more than can be had from Classic Comics or Cliff Notes. The most beguiled will gird themselves to learn Homer's greek (easier than a lot of greek), Dante's Italian, Cervantes' Spanish.
That's not really a moral question or so much blaming the audience here, rather, suggesting that some art work, the more layered artwork, is harder to grasp, and for some, impossible. Me, try as I might, I don't get Ezra Pound any more than I get the theory of relativity. People I respect say that he's the real deal, and I bow to their passion. Again, not a moral issue. Time will tell, and I expect we all will be dead before that judgement comes down. Fortunately, there's a abundance of classics to pick and choose from.
How many comments now and nobody has stood up for Austen?
Here here! The suggestion seemed to have been (if I read it right) that a modern reader absent Austen Inc. would not recognize or reward her incomparable pacing, delicate ironies, well sketched characters. (Not perfect, of course - Mr Darcy strikes me as more a plot necessity than as a believable character.) But would Austen Inc (or Bronte Inc) have been possible without the fons et origo being as good, even classic, as they are? (BTW, if you want sharp wit, try reading her letters, and weep that the family destroyed ones said to have been even sharper.)
But we keep circling back to [Shakespeare] not because we think he's a better writer than Mamet or Miller,
Disagree. I find new things in Shakespeare on every exposure, which keeps me coming back. (Nevermind his broader range, comedy tragedy, history) Mamet and Miller have their moments, but while a given cast and staging may be novel, I don't get the same sense that the text will bring unexpected new rewards. But then - I kind of don't like them. (Excepting the essays, which can be interesting)
Too much! I have real work to do. Curse you for making an interesting post.
posted by BWA at 11:00 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
Or, I would say, that "classics" go in and out of fashion. Bach was big in his time, went out of fashion, is currently indispensible. In general, the longer a work hangs on, and, more to the point, the more it extracts fresh understanding, epiphanies, and insights from its audience, the more you have to acknowledge that, yeah, it is good, even great.
It is not a sign that a person doesn't comprehend the Iliad if they don't like it.
Fair enough, but will the person who doesn't like it get as much out of it as someone who does like it? (I'd argue not, but neither would I argue that anyone who happens to hate brussel sprouts should eat them because they're good for you.)
Greatness generally involves the audience doing their share, if they can, or have the inclination, or think it worthwhile. Dislike Homer or Shakespeare and I won't judge. But clearly there are plenty of people who find fresh treasure and enjoyment from repeated exposures, certainly more than can be had from Classic Comics or Cliff Notes. The most beguiled will gird themselves to learn Homer's greek (easier than a lot of greek), Dante's Italian, Cervantes' Spanish.
That's not really a moral question or so much blaming the audience here, rather, suggesting that some art work, the more layered artwork, is harder to grasp, and for some, impossible. Me, try as I might, I don't get Ezra Pound any more than I get the theory of relativity. People I respect say that he's the real deal, and I bow to their passion. Again, not a moral issue. Time will tell, and I expect we all will be dead before that judgement comes down. Fortunately, there's a abundance of classics to pick and choose from.
How many comments now and nobody has stood up for Austen?
Here here! The suggestion seemed to have been (if I read it right) that a modern reader absent Austen Inc. would not recognize or reward her incomparable pacing, delicate ironies, well sketched characters. (Not perfect, of course - Mr Darcy strikes me as more a plot necessity than as a believable character.) But would Austen Inc (or Bronte Inc) have been possible without the fons et origo being as good, even classic, as they are? (BTW, if you want sharp wit, try reading her letters, and weep that the family destroyed ones said to have been even sharper.)
But we keep circling back to [Shakespeare] not because we think he's a better writer than Mamet or Miller,
Disagree. I find new things in Shakespeare on every exposure, which keeps me coming back. (Nevermind his broader range, comedy tragedy, history) Mamet and Miller have their moments, but while a given cast and staging may be novel, I don't get the same sense that the text will bring unexpected new rewards. But then - I kind of don't like them. (Excepting the essays, which can be interesting)
Too much! I have real work to do. Curse you for making an interesting post.
posted by BWA at 11:00 AM on June 28 [2 favorites]
What I'm wondering is how this article got written without addressing the issue of tripods. Why does everyone need so many of them. Currying favour? Tripod. Apologising? Tripod. Taking a dump? Worried about something? Tripod, tripod. Making a detailed note of which organs you stabbed that guy in? iTripod. Sneaky night murder? Black woollen tripod. Chatting with personal deity? Ten tripods and a goat. Ran out of fingers counting people on boats? Triquipud. Hagiography plus ten generations of family tree for the dead guy next to you who you met yesterday? 1023 meccano tripods. Hosting the olympics? Put everyone's javelins in a tripod. Mister one-kidney-no-liver generously let you take his chariot and breastplate? Selfie tripod plus wet wipes.
No wonder HG Wells came so close to being lasered by a martian, they're everywhere. Why.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 11:05 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
No wonder HG Wells came so close to being lasered by a martian, they're everywhere. Why.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 11:05 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
It's not an article, it's a blog post. And thus more of an opinion piece.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:12 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:12 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
Reminds me of reading Journey to the West. Never even mentioned power levels once!
posted by lock robster at 11:14 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 11:14 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]
Sorry but the Greek pedant in me can't let this go without comment:
Helen. As in Hellene, as in Hellenic. At stake in the Iliad is the metaphorical avatar for Greece itself.
The names Helen and Hellene are unrelated. The transcription makes them seem more similar than they are -- in Greek the "e" sounds of the first syllables are two different vowels written with different letters, and the L/LL variation isn't a thing that just happens in Greek for no reason.
(Also, "a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia"? When? On what evidence?)
I didn't like the Iliad, for the same kinds of reasons the OP and people in the thread have described, until I had to teach it. Then, if only to keep my students awake, I found myself having to find ways in which it was actually interesting, sophisticated, psychologically profound and subtly crafted, and once I started looking they were everywhere. Which makes me wonder how much I've missed about all the other classics I've read and meh-ed at over the years.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 11:14 AM on June 28 [11 favorites]
Helen. As in Hellene, as in Hellenic. At stake in the Iliad is the metaphorical avatar for Greece itself.
The names Helen and Hellene are unrelated. The transcription makes them seem more similar than they are -- in Greek the "e" sounds of the first syllables are two different vowels written with different letters, and the L/LL variation isn't a thing that just happens in Greek for no reason.
(Also, "a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia"? When? On what evidence?)
I didn't like the Iliad, for the same kinds of reasons the OP and people in the thread have described, until I had to teach it. Then, if only to keep my students awake, I found myself having to find ways in which it was actually interesting, sophisticated, psychologically profound and subtly crafted, and once I started looking they were everywhere. Which makes me wonder how much I've missed about all the other classics I've read and meh-ed at over the years.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 11:14 AM on June 28 [11 favorites]
(Also, "a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia"? When? On what evidence?)
Yeah, that requires an extremely speculative reading of the archeological evidence, to say the least.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:20 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that requires an extremely speculative reading of the archeological evidence, to say the least.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:20 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]
maybe if you published Pride and Prejudice today, it would be received as "ah yes, this is an excellent entry in the niche genre of Regency-era romance. The few hundred committed fans of that genre will be very excited, and people who dabble in it will be well-advised to pick this one out"
Either this is trolling or it displays multiple levels of deep ignorance. Regency Romance is not niche. Jane Austen’s works are not regency romance and the genre was founded on the works of a completely different author who is still extremely readable today. Austen’s work is serious literature and dismissal of it is often based in misogyny which clearly this fellow is right on board with as he apparently thinks romance is a niche genre. In short, fuck this guy.
I strongly recommend Stephen Fry’s recently published Mythos, Heroes, and Troy.
posted by bq at 12:25 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
Either this is trolling or it displays multiple levels of deep ignorance. Regency Romance is not niche. Jane Austen’s works are not regency romance and the genre was founded on the works of a completely different author who is still extremely readable today. Austen’s work is serious literature and dismissal of it is often based in misogyny which clearly this fellow is right on board with as he apparently thinks romance is a niche genre. In short, fuck this guy.
I strongly recommend Stephen Fry’s recently published Mythos, Heroes, and Troy.
posted by bq at 12:25 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
In college, my roommate was pissed that he had to take a general Ed class in music, a class on classical music. I hate that shit! He said. But it was required. So ten weeks later, at the end of the quarter, he was so proud that he got an A in the class, and that he had found something new and something he really loved. All because he had to take the class. There are a lot of things out there that are unfamiliar and complicated and that you have to put in some effort to learn how to appreciate them. But once the learning happens, whole new worlds can open up for you to explore and love. A lot of times, it takes a good teacher to help open up those doors. But it may be true that once the doors are open for you, you find that you really don’t care to go in. That’s ok, too. But to not even try says more about you, then it does about that unfamiliar and complicated thing before you.
posted by njohnson23 at 12:45 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 12:45 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
Ok out of fairness I went to read the original blog post and it’s driving me nuts.
There were long lists that bored me, and sometimes Homer seemed to be getting paid by the word—lots of passages were repeated verbatim, and a few repeated again.
This is not a serious take. This is an ignorant off the cuff performative piss-take.
posted by bq at 12:45 PM on June 28 [10 favorites]
There were long lists that bored me, and sometimes Homer seemed to be getting paid by the word—lots of passages were repeated verbatim, and a few repeated again.
This is not a serious take. This is an ignorant off the cuff performative piss-take.
posted by bq at 12:45 PM on June 28 [10 favorites]
It made me want to try reading the Iliad again, a translation that is more accessible.
Nelson: This guy read the Emily Wilson translation, which I would say is very accessible (and quite good)!
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:48 PM on June 28 [3 favorites]
Nelson: This guy read the Emily Wilson translation, which I would say is very accessible (and quite good)!
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:48 PM on June 28 [3 favorites]
And finally, thirty years ago, one of my friends went to see ‘Bride of Chucky’ and said he enjoyed it. ‘What?!? You thought it was good?’ I asked. ‘I didnt say I thought it was good,’ he said. ‘I said I enjoyed it.’ This joker can’t give the Iliad the amount of critical thought that my friend gave to Bride of Chucky? That’s a him problem.
posted by bq at 12:48 PM on June 28 [8 favorites]
posted by bq at 12:48 PM on June 28 [8 favorites]
Because the internet is the way it is now, I find it a little suspicious that a techdude who doesn't read much just happens to pick up a translation that has been widely publicized as "first one by a woman" only to declare "the writing quality is frequently bad".
I was surprised to see it too so long for Metafilter's Austen Squad to show up. I'll bet even ChatGPT knows that Austen didn't write Regency romance.
My Iliad hot take is that the part with the boats is actually good once you get into it.
Slightly related: I really hated Song of Achilles, but that's not entirely the fault of the book. It was recommended to me with "It's like Mary Renault". Perhaps if I had been told "It's cosplay history" or "It's a really long Yuletide fic", I would have gone in with the right expectations. It is good at what it does--fans of YA and AO3-style should pick up a copy asap.
posted by betweenthebars at 12:51 PM on June 28 [6 favorites]
I was surprised to see it too so long for Metafilter's Austen Squad to show up. I'll bet even ChatGPT knows that Austen didn't write Regency romance.
My Iliad hot take is that the part with the boats is actually good once you get into it.
Slightly related: I really hated Song of Achilles, but that's not entirely the fault of the book. It was recommended to me with "It's like Mary Renault". Perhaps if I had been told "It's cosplay history" or "It's a really long Yuletide fic", I would have gone in with the right expectations. It is good at what it does--fans of YA and AO3-style should pick up a copy asap.
posted by betweenthebars at 12:51 PM on June 28 [6 favorites]
I had never heard of Marseille based rapper SCH until 115 minutes ago but am quite enjoying their gig over the rooftops of Nimes right now. Of course if one of you had told me to delay my holiday by just a week I could have seen Lavigne in a Roman amphitheatre. Swings and roundabouts. Rum and lime.
posted by biffa at 1:23 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]
posted by biffa at 1:23 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]
hoist with his own pet Aardvark, 1970s Antihero:
The generally forgotten civilizations are the Luwites and Phrygians, with the Phrygians ascending in the collapse of the Hittite Empire before eventually being conquered by the Achaemenid Persians.
Generally, there was a connection between the Anatolian languages- there are similarities between Luwite, Hittite, and Lydian (while early Armenian is closer to Phrygian).
Much of the Dardanelles during the early classical period/ late Bronze dark age was between the Aechean Greek city states and the Anatolians- Greek vs. Phrygian, Greek v. Lydian, etc.
To a degree, Phrygians may have been the antecedents of Armenian civilization; Herodotus claims as much, that Armenians were originally Phrygian colonists.
In Greek culture, Phrygians were regarded in ways comparable to Macedonians and Thracians, which is to say 'almost but not quite Greek'. There was enough linguistic similarity to make trade and diplomacy easy, but enough difference for them not be considered Greek.
Anyways, I tend to go with Philip Clapham's interpretation that the Iliad, while not historically accurate, is a reflection of oral histories about Greek and Phrygian conflicts and migrations into Anatolia during the collapse of the Hittite Empire.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 1:23 PM on June 28 [5 favorites]
The generally forgotten civilizations are the Luwites and Phrygians, with the Phrygians ascending in the collapse of the Hittite Empire before eventually being conquered by the Achaemenid Persians.
Generally, there was a connection between the Anatolian languages- there are similarities between Luwite, Hittite, and Lydian (while early Armenian is closer to Phrygian).
Much of the Dardanelles during the early classical period/ late Bronze dark age was between the Aechean Greek city states and the Anatolians- Greek vs. Phrygian, Greek v. Lydian, etc.
To a degree, Phrygians may have been the antecedents of Armenian civilization; Herodotus claims as much, that Armenians were originally Phrygian colonists.
In Greek culture, Phrygians were regarded in ways comparable to Macedonians and Thracians, which is to say 'almost but not quite Greek'. There was enough linguistic similarity to make trade and diplomacy easy, but enough difference for them not be considered Greek.
Anyways, I tend to go with Philip Clapham's interpretation that the Iliad, while not historically accurate, is a reflection of oral histories about Greek and Phrygian conflicts and migrations into Anatolia during the collapse of the Hittite Empire.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 1:23 PM on June 28 [5 favorites]
That's all fair enough (though I think you're overstating the similarity between Greek and Phrygian), but where's the evidence for genocide?
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 1:29 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 1:29 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]
The scorch marks found in Troy VIa, which generally suggest a destruction of the city around 1180 BC.
Troy VII is an (apparently?) non-literate society, albeit with Greek pottery styles;
Now, granted, Schliemann did a lot of damage. But the general evidence is a violent destruction of Troy in the Bronze Dark Age (multiple times), leading to a steady replacement/succession of Luwites by Greeks.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 1:54 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]
Troy VII is an (apparently?) non-literate society, albeit with Greek pottery styles;
Now, granted, Schliemann did a lot of damage. But the general evidence is a violent destruction of Troy in the Bronze Dark Age (multiple times), leading to a steady replacement/succession of Luwites by Greeks.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 1:54 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]
As for the Iliad, I swear if you did a good ob of it, didn't shy away from the gods or the gay, you could make one hell of a TV series out of it.
Just imagine Athena calling on Diomedes and giving him his special "see the gods" glasses then telling him that the gods will totally kick his ass so don't try to fight them. Except for Aphrodite, she tells him that if he sees Aphrodite he should try to run her through. You can just HEAR her thinking "how do you like that golden apple now?" when she says that.
It's a killer story!
posted by sotonohito at 2:10 PM on June 28 [5 favorites]
Just imagine Athena calling on Diomedes and giving him his special "see the gods" glasses then telling him that the gods will totally kick his ass so don't try to fight them. Except for Aphrodite, she tells him that if he sees Aphrodite he should try to run her through. You can just HEAR her thinking "how do you like that golden apple now?" when she says that.
It's a killer story!
posted by sotonohito at 2:10 PM on June 28 [5 favorites]
Addressing a few points from the review:
How long does it take to strip someone of their armor and why isn't it a virtual guarantee that someone else will stab you while you do? The logistics of the war are a mystery to me too: how many Greeks are there and where do they get all their food? We're told how many ships each of the commanders brought, but how many soldiers and how many servants to a ship?
We may not get any Brandon Sanderson-style bits where Odysseus reminds himself of the elements of armor-stripping, but the poem contains at least implicit textual answers to all these questions:
-It probably takes a minute or two to field-strip the armor from a corpse. There'll be a rawhide helmet strap to cut, metal ankle clasps to pry open, and a belt that needs undoing before the breastplate can be wrested from the body.
People constantly get stabbed while trying to steal armor. Given the opportunity, a scavenger will try to drag the corpse away to conduct the business at a remove from the fighting (though that's barely safer; Elephenor, king of the Abantes, take a spear to his flank while stooping to haul a corpse). Why even risk it, then?
-(Where do they get their food?) At the end of Book 7, "ships pull in from Lemnos bringing wine." Some of the cargo is a diplomatic gift from King Euneus to his allies, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and the rest is up for sale to the rank and file, who pay for it out of the plunder they've amassed. (There's another incentive to scramble for armor.) The Greek war effort is also supported by fines that Agamemnon imposed on nobles who elected to stay home, and by regular pillaging excursions to the minor cities within striking distance of Troy; this is probably where most of the food comes from, as well as the enslaved women we see preparing it.
For their part, the Trojans have been relying on gold piled up in happier times to fund the war and attract allies, but Hector mentions in Book 18 that their houses are now "stripped of all their sumptuous treasures, troves sold off and shipped to Phrygia, lovely Maeonia." In Book 13, we very briefly meet a obscure adventurer named Othryoneus, who's fighting for Troy in exchange for a betrothal to the Princess Cassandra. That Priam would agree to such a proposal may indicate the weakness of his city's position, as does Hector's frenzied drive to burn the Greek ships and force an end to the war.
-(How many soldiers and how many servants to a ship?) Those ships of Philoctetes have "fifty oarsmen aboard each / superbly skilled with the bow in lethal combat." No supernumerary servants mentioned, which does not, of course, mean there weren't any riding along in the holds, beneath the poets' notice. Elsewhere in the poem, we occasionally get a mention of serving-men and pages, and there's a hierarchy implied by the distinction made between those who get to ride in the chariots hurling spears and those bound to hold the reins. But based on the text, I would say the Greeks brought a lot more freeborn soldiers than laborers, because they planned to enslave women from every city on the eastern Aegean margin to mix the wine and bake the bread.
posted by Iridic at 2:30 PM on June 28 [18 favorites]
How long does it take to strip someone of their armor and why isn't it a virtual guarantee that someone else will stab you while you do? The logistics of the war are a mystery to me too: how many Greeks are there and where do they get all their food? We're told how many ships each of the commanders brought, but how many soldiers and how many servants to a ship?
We may not get any Brandon Sanderson-style bits where Odysseus reminds himself of the elements of armor-stripping, but the poem contains at least implicit textual answers to all these questions:
-It probably takes a minute or two to field-strip the armor from a corpse. There'll be a rawhide helmet strap to cut, metal ankle clasps to pry open, and a belt that needs undoing before the breastplate can be wrested from the body.
People constantly get stabbed while trying to steal armor. Given the opportunity, a scavenger will try to drag the corpse away to conduct the business at a remove from the fighting (though that's barely safer; Elephenor, king of the Abantes, take a spear to his flank while stooping to haul a corpse). Why even risk it, then?
- There's a vast disparity in armor quality among even the commanders of the army, running from Little Ajax's "skintight linen corslet" on the low end to Achilles' second set of gear, a custom job from the God of Smiths. Homer repeatedly shows that a good metal shield can absorb a direct hit from a spear, and a good breastplate can make the difference between a mortal blow and a survivable flesh wound. If you're wearing shitty armor, you're already running a relatively high risk on the battlefield, so you might as well press your luck a little further when you get a chance to trade up.
- Armor can be ludicrously valuable: Diomedes' bronze set is worth nine oxen, and Glaucus' golden armor is worth one hundred oxen, the equivalent of a nobleman's marriage gift. The armies are motivated and sustained by plunder, so armor-stripping is a more or less mandatory part of doing business.
-(Where do they get their food?) At the end of Book 7, "ships pull in from Lemnos bringing wine." Some of the cargo is a diplomatic gift from King Euneus to his allies, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and the rest is up for sale to the rank and file, who pay for it out of the plunder they've amassed. (There's another incentive to scramble for armor.) The Greek war effort is also supported by fines that Agamemnon imposed on nobles who elected to stay home, and by regular pillaging excursions to the minor cities within striking distance of Troy; this is probably where most of the food comes from, as well as the enslaved women we see preparing it.
For their part, the Trojans have been relying on gold piled up in happier times to fund the war and attract allies, but Hector mentions in Book 18 that their houses are now "stripped of all their sumptuous treasures, troves sold off and shipped to Phrygia, lovely Maeonia." In Book 13, we very briefly meet a obscure adventurer named Othryoneus, who's fighting for Troy in exchange for a betrothal to the Princess Cassandra. That Priam would agree to such a proposal may indicate the weakness of his city's position, as does Hector's frenzied drive to burn the Greek ships and force an end to the war.
-(How many soldiers and how many servants to a ship?) Those ships of Philoctetes have "fifty oarsmen aboard each / superbly skilled with the bow in lethal combat." No supernumerary servants mentioned, which does not, of course, mean there weren't any riding along in the holds, beneath the poets' notice. Elsewhere in the poem, we occasionally get a mention of serving-men and pages, and there's a hierarchy implied by the distinction made between those who get to ride in the chariots hurling spears and those bound to hold the reins. But based on the text, I would say the Greeks brought a lot more freeborn soldiers than laborers, because they planned to enslave women from every city on the eastern Aegean margin to mix the wine and bake the bread.
posted by Iridic at 2:30 PM on June 28 [18 favorites]
The scorch marks found in Troy VIa
I think you mean VIIa. Yes, there's evidence the city was destroyed, but I think it's a leap from that to "a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia", especially as there's evidence of Luwian writing post-destruction. And I don't know of any compelling evidence that it was due to the Greeks.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 2:31 PM on June 28 [6 favorites]
I think you mean VIIa. Yes, there's evidence the city was destroyed, but I think it's a leap from that to "a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Western Anatolia", especially as there's evidence of Luwian writing post-destruction. And I don't know of any compelling evidence that it was due to the Greeks.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 2:31 PM on June 28 [6 favorites]
Just in case you want to follow up the details of who killed who how, there is a list.
ExecSumm: there is a huge variety of parts through which the passing of a spear ensures death. I used the Excel sort function to make sure I didn't miss any: arm - back - buttock - cheek - chest - collar-bone - ear - eye - groin - gut - head - hip - jaw - liver - mouth - neck - nipple - nose - ribs - shoulder - side - stomach - testicles - thigh - throat. (that's just the spear-deaths; swords, arrows and rocks also used for fatal blows)
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:04 PM on June 28 [4 favorites]
ExecSumm: there is a huge variety of parts through which the passing of a spear ensures death. I used the Excel sort function to make sure I didn't miss any: arm - back - buttock - cheek - chest - collar-bone - ear - eye - groin - gut - head - hip - jaw - liver - mouth - neck - nipple - nose - ribs - shoulder - side - stomach - testicles - thigh - throat. (that's just the spear-deaths; swords, arrows and rocks also used for fatal blows)
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:04 PM on June 28 [4 favorites]
This joker can’t give the Iliad the amount of critical thought that my friend gave to Bride of Chucky?
If the paragraphs long blog post "this joker" wrote wasn't ritical thought, then what the hell do you think it was?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:15 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]
If the paragraphs long blog post "this joker" wrote wasn't ritical thought, then what the hell do you think it was?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:15 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]
What I'm wondering is how this article got written without addressing the issue of tripods.
I do love that Hephaestus, who has built fully sentient golden robots to help him around the forge, is introduced working on autonomous wheeled tripods, intended to save him the apparently constant trouble of lugging 'em back and forth from his dad's barbecues
posted by Iridic at 3:48 PM on June 28 [8 favorites]
I do love that Hephaestus, who has built fully sentient golden robots to help him around the forge, is introduced working on autonomous wheeled tripods, intended to save him the apparently constant trouble of lugging 'em back and forth from his dad's barbecues
posted by Iridic at 3:48 PM on June 28 [8 favorites]
but the poem contains at least implicit textual answers to all these questions:
iridic, & MetaFilter, I love you.
posted by chavenet at 4:30 PM on June 28 [5 favorites]
iridic, & MetaFilter, I love you.
posted by chavenet at 4:30 PM on June 28 [5 favorites]
chavenet, the feeling's mutual
tripods. Why does everyone need so many of them
"The physical presence and position of these symbols must have radiated a wealth of emotions no less intense than those generated today by the sign of the cross for Christians or the menorah for Jews. Moreover, each tripod fulfilled its role as a monument in concert with, or in opposition to, other monuments, buildings, or landmarks - elements of both its immediate context and of more distant locations." [Nassos Papalexandrou, 32 page pdf]
posted by HearHere at 5:07 PM on June 28 [3 favorites]
tripods. Why does everyone need so many of them
"The physical presence and position of these symbols must have radiated a wealth of emotions no less intense than those generated today by the sign of the cross for Christians or the menorah for Jews. Moreover, each tripod fulfilled its role as a monument in concert with, or in opposition to, other monuments, buildings, or landmarks - elements of both its immediate context and of more distant locations." [Nassos Papalexandrou, 32 page pdf]
posted by HearHere at 5:07 PM on June 28 [3 favorites]
If the paragraphs long blog post "this joker" wrote wasn't ritical thought, then what the hell do you think it was?
Baffled frustration?
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:11 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
Baffled frustration?
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:11 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
One of my favorite moments is where Helen unloads on Aphrodite about all the shit she’s had to endure and that the goddesses’ latest scheme will bring her more infamy, and Aphrodite is all “do you think you’ve had my worst?” It’s chilling. The gods are monsters.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:14 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:14 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
How many comments now and nobody has stood up for Austen? And the sideswipe about "the niche genre of Regency-era romance. The few hundred committed fans of that genre"?? Talk about being both condescending and plain wrong.
it's a joke, and a reasonably funny one.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:33 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]
it's a joke, and a reasonably funny one.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:33 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]
Because the internet is the way it is now, I find it a little suspicious that a techdude who doesn't read much just happens to pick up a translation that has been widely publicized as "first one by a woman" only to declare "the writing quality is frequently bad".
oh, for gods sake this is completely unjustified, there are plenty of things to quibble with why invent ones whole cloth?
posted by Sebmojo at 5:35 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]
oh, for gods sake this is completely unjustified, there are plenty of things to quibble with why invent ones whole cloth?
posted by Sebmojo at 5:35 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]
mumimor: You can't learn much about the everyday life of Scandinavians during the early Middle Ages from the Sagas, but the language and stories are present all over contemporary Scandinavian literature, even among those authors who haven't read the Sagas.
The sagas are a very good record of everyday life for the Norse in the Middle Ages. Individual sagas vary in the reliability, e.g. some were written by people who had traveled from Iceland to Scandinavia, and others weren’t. But on basic household activities, farming practices, social structures, and just general life in Iceland specifically, and the wider Norse community more generally, the sagas say a lot. This goes especially for the main period of saga writing (generally the 12th through 15th centuries) but you can generally use sagas as a helpful guide for the couple of preceding centuries, especially if you have archaeological remains for triangulation. A sub-genre of the sagas, called the contemporary sagas, even describe events that the authors have first hand experience of.
posted by Kattullus at 5:55 PM on June 28 [6 favorites]
The sagas are a very good record of everyday life for the Norse in the Middle Ages. Individual sagas vary in the reliability, e.g. some were written by people who had traveled from Iceland to Scandinavia, and others weren’t. But on basic household activities, farming practices, social structures, and just general life in Iceland specifically, and the wider Norse community more generally, the sagas say a lot. This goes especially for the main period of saga writing (generally the 12th through 15th centuries) but you can generally use sagas as a helpful guide for the couple of preceding centuries, especially if you have archaeological remains for triangulation. A sub-genre of the sagas, called the contemporary sagas, even describe events that the authors have first hand experience of.
posted by Kattullus at 5:55 PM on June 28 [6 favorites]
oh, for gods sake this is completely unjustified, there are plenty of things to quibble with why invent ones whole cloth?
he minimizes an entire genre, one which is traditionally viewed as enjoyed only by women, and in the same breath minimizes a very famous and influential woman author.
why wouldn't i then note that he is reviewing a well-regarded translation by a very accomplished woman, and decides "the writing is frequently bad"?
posted by emmling at 7:19 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
he minimizes an entire genre, one which is traditionally viewed as enjoyed only by women, and in the same breath minimizes a very famous and influential woman author.
why wouldn't i then note that he is reviewing a well-regarded translation by a very accomplished woman, and decides "the writing is frequently bad"?
posted by emmling at 7:19 PM on June 28 [7 favorites]
This blog post amused me in the same way as one of my first-year students did when dismissing Romeo and Juliet as "just a bunch of cliches."
As others have pointed out, literature from another time and culture can be challenging to read, but it's worth trying to see if you do find something you like, and to understand how things like the Iliad have been so influential in western culture.
If anybody's looking for a modern retelling, my personal recent-ish favours it is Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls.
posted by rpfields at 8:49 PM on June 28 [4 favorites]
As others have pointed out, literature from another time and culture can be challenging to read, but it's worth trying to see if you do find something you like, and to understand how things like the Iliad have been so influential in western culture.
If anybody's looking for a modern retelling, my personal recent-ish favours it is Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls.
posted by rpfields at 8:49 PM on June 28 [4 favorites]
rpfields: I remember seeing Casablanca in high school and feeling underwhelmed. I liked it all right, but I wasn't feeling it as "the best movie ever made," which I had been assured it was. The problem was -- as I realized even then -- I'd basically seen the whole thing chopped up in cartoon form. Not even Carrotblanca -- just all the jokes that animators and cartoonists had stolen directly from it for decades.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:40 AM on June 29 [5 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 6:40 AM on June 29 [5 favorites]
Countess Elena I agree, I've watched Casablanca probably fifty times; it explores a lot of themes and ideas (inc. about film-making itself - like how shadow is used as if it was a colour, or actors backgrounds as a drive to filmic authenticity) but also social and criminal ideas, and the nature and effects of Fascism .. and the risks of Vichyism/appeasement.
I did enjoy Casablanca the first time though,but that's the thing; each single piece art resonates differently to each one of us, at a particular point in time - unless it's so generic and anodyne that it works for nearly all (and then has no effect on us, apart from the shallowest of emotions).
The first time I read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance it left me cold, but I was young, so I tried again twice more, on the third I left thirty Post-Its in the book and had a page of notes - it was enthralling - and personally useful.
Likewise I didn't grasp (or enjoy) Joseph Beuys at first either, yet he became a way in to installation art - that helps me in my work and life on a daily basis. But at first Beuys is very challenging.
posted by unearthed at 11:40 AM on June 29 [3 favorites]
I did enjoy Casablanca the first time though,but that's the thing; each single piece art resonates differently to each one of us, at a particular point in time - unless it's so generic and anodyne that it works for nearly all (and then has no effect on us, apart from the shallowest of emotions).
The first time I read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance it left me cold, but I was young, so I tried again twice more, on the third I left thirty Post-Its in the book and had a page of notes - it was enthralling - and personally useful.
Likewise I didn't grasp (or enjoy) Joseph Beuys at first either, yet he became a way in to installation art - that helps me in my work and life on a daily basis. But at first Beuys is very challenging.
posted by unearthed at 11:40 AM on June 29 [3 favorites]
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posted by HearHere at 1:58 AM on June 28 [3 favorites]