Evander

by Eden Phillpotts

A ridiculous parody of Greek mythology.

199 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

See also: Harrington Hext

Eden Philpotts was an English novelist, short-story writer, and playwright with a particular interest in the county of Devon. His works include a cycle of 18 novels set in Dartmoor.

Reviews

[Wreade1872 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A forgotten classic I’d say. In fact I’m going to round up to 5-stars, that's a little bit of a stretch but whatever. This is a satire set in ancient greece with the gods and other mythological entities making occasional appearances.

Marriage has been given to the common people, he’s a worshipper of Bacchus, aka he likes a drink and to relax and she becomes a worshipper of Apollo who is clearly being used to represent organized religions.
There is some domestic abuse which is played for laughs but its a minor issue. The whole marriage element has something of a 1950’s sitcom about it. Although since this was written in the ‘20’s, still ahead of the curve.

The author is also a poet so there are some jammed in here.. they’re fine. There is also some really nice descriptive writing here and there.
Also the book might feel a little slight, it skips through the 'plot' rather quickly but its more about the satirical and philosophical points anyway.

The satire just to be clear.. does extend beyond the sitcom marriage element, mostly about the nature of religion.
Definitely worth checking out and it really shows the importance of that brief fantasy boom of the 60’s. I actually have this marked as Ballantine Fantasy but it never was. It would have been (according to wiki) if they had published more books but they just never got around to this one and it was never republished since.
There isn’t even an original cover image extant that i can find.

Made available by the Merril Collection.

FYI: I am having to do some serious mental gymnastic to read this book separated from its author, on the bright side like M.P.Shiel, he has been dead awhile. Unlike Shiel there is no elements of his predilections apparent in his work, or at least this work.
https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/...

Edit: I tried to make a pseudo-ballantine appropriate cover with chatgpt this is the closest i've gotten yet.

[Petronela Fredrickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far an interesting read seems a tongue in cheek commentary on Greek mythology.