The World's Literature in Europe discussion

Michelle of Spring recommends Ismail Kadare's "The File on H.: A Novel". Keith and Lazarus reply that this book sounds good and it gets their votes. The book's basis, according to Wikipedia, reflects the literary investigation of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who sought to recover the Serbian-Croatian epic. The weekly reading units are:

June 14-20 pages 1-107
June 21-27 pages 108-202
June 28-30 final comments (optional)

After the "The File on H.", the next group reading begins July 1. Four suggestions have so far been voiced:

Patrick: Odysseus's "Odyssey" as a metaphor for one's own spiritual journey.
Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls
ITunes Podcast with Author, 2/18/09, http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lo...

Penelope in Hades tells her version of the "Odyssey" from a twenty-first-century perspective.
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus

Minoans of Crete, c. 1628 BCE, the volcanic eruption on Santorini (Thera). The Keftians' worshipped the Great Goddess of the title.
Voice of the Goddess

Homer's original epic {read July/August 2010}
The Odyssey

Gary Corby, author of the Hellene Mysteries as well as member of TWL, is looking forward to the first of the series The Pericles Commission to be available on October 12. The second and third installment is also on the way.

Asmah, I'd go for The Odyssey - for the reason that it's available at the library where I work, and also because I never read it before, and I'd rather read the epic itself before attempting to read the derivative works.

Najibah, thank you. I'm comparing some of Odysseus's adventures, which Elizabeth Vandiver describes in The Teaching Company's "Odyssey" lectures, to Homer's characters and events that Mason and Kadare's 'derivative' stories, "The Lost Books..." and "The File on H.", imagine anew. I find that these literary offshoots are encouraging me to read the original epic! My feeling is different when I read Jane Austen's novels. I enjoy her writing just like it is.

Najibah wrote: "Asmah, I'd go for The Odyssey - for the reason that it's available at the library where I work, and also because I never read it before, and I'd rather read the epic itself before attempting to rea..."

While each of the four selections merit a group reading, your point about accessibility is a good one. If a person already has a book in their home library or elsewhere, their inclination will be to take it from the shelf, sit down, and read it. Another point is that a book with many recommendations can create enough interest so that a person will want to discover why it has so many readers or to rediscover it anew.

Asmah wrote: "Gary Corby, author of the Hellene Mysteries as well as member of TWL, is looking forward to the first of the series The Pericles Commission to be available on Octobe..."

Thank you Asmah for the very kind mention. Yes indeed, things are getting very busy in preparation!

Gary wrote: "Asmah wrote: "Gary Corby, author of the Hellene Mysteries as well as member of TWL, is looking forward to the first of the series The Pericles Commission to be avail..."

Another reason, in addition to its accessibility and its literary significance, in favor of the "Odyssey" is that TWL might finish the epic in September! These last days leading up to publication of "The Pericles Commission" must be hectic.

I've no problems with Homer's Odyssey
I'll wait the discussion...

Hello Asmah - thanks for the invite into this group. Since I joined I have tried to keep up with the threads but I feel my knowledge of the classics is woefully inadequate for me to be a useful contributor at this stage.

Can you suggest any easy to grasp books for beginners in the subject? - I'm thinking about 'very short introductions' type books - I want to be able to contribute usefully in the future!

I have decided to sign up for a classics course with the Open University: http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergra... - it starts in October 2010 and I'm about to book a weekend break to Rome for next May. In the meantime my reading seriously needs to improve!!!

Ally

Ally wrote: "Hello Asmah - thanks for the invite into this group. Since I joined I have tried to keep up with the threads but I feel my knowledge of the classics is woefully inadequate for me to be a useful con..."

Congratulations, Ally. The prep reading for the Greek and Roman myths course http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/a330/prepa... might help and also cites Omeros and 'The Story of the Siren' http://www.archive.org/stream/storyof... , literature related to The Odyssey and to Atwood's 'Siren Song'.

The following comment and invitation is from Gary Corby, author of The Pericles Commission --

"Could I suggest all the Greek novels of Mary Renault for any reading list?

Also, the plays of Aristophanes would be brilliant and they're highly accessible to modern readers.

If by chance anyone reading this is in California in October, do please let me know. There'll be a launch party and a reading of Pericles Commission on 12th October at the bookstore M is For Mystery. (Which I'm announcing for the first time here. It's not even on my web site yet.) There'll be other store events in the following weeks and I'd love to meet you."

Gary wrote: "Could I suggest all the Greek novels of Mary Renault for any reading list?

Also, the plays of Aristophanes would be brilliant and they're highly accessible to modern readers.
..."

Here are Renault's 'historical novels', followed by some of Aristophanes' plays recommended by Harold Bloom:


Mary Renault

The Last of the Wine
The King Must Die: A Novel
The Bull from the Sea
The Mask of Apollo
Fire from Heaven
The Persian Boy
The Praise Singer
Funeral Games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ren...

Aristophanes

The Complete Plays of Aristophanes
The Birds
The Clouds
The Frogs
Lysistrata
The Knights
The Wasps
The Assemblywomen (Ecclesiazusae)

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/g...

Some more suggestions for post-Odyssey reads --

A best-selling Greek graphic novel by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou takes the reader along on the "spiritual odyssey of the philosopher Bertrand Russell" Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
http://www.amazon.com/Logicomix-Searc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logicomix

Penelope narrates Margaret Atwood's modern novella The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus
http://www.amazon.com/Penelopiad-Myth...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pene...

Seamus Heaney's drama The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buri...
http://www.amazon.com/Burial-Thebes-V...

Derek Walcott's epic poem sets Homer's odyssey in the Caribbean. Omeros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omeros
http://www.amazon.com/Omeros-Derek-Wa...

Liz Lochhead adapts Euripides' play Medea
http://www.amazon.com/Medea-Liz-Lochh...

Apollonius Rhodius The Argonautica

I am currently reading the book "The marriage of Cadmus and Armonia" by Roberto Calasso. Check it out if you are interested.
(Sorry for not writting much!)

Alkyoni ~ an artie!! wrote: "I am currently reading the book "The marriage of Cadmus and Armonia" by Roberto Calasso. Check it out if you are interested.
(Sorry for not writting much!)"

A wonderful selection The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. In myth Cadmus founded Thebes and introduced the Phoenician alphabet to Greeks. Zeus wedded him to Harmonia, known for concord and for a necklace said to bring youth and beauty as well as misfortune. The reviews at Goodreads and Amazon praise this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Cadmus...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonia...

The Marriage Of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso gathered the most votes in the post-Odyssey poll. This literary fiction forms part of a multi-book project to bring past civilizations and cultures to today's readers. Its author

started with The Ruin of Kasch in 1983, a book welcome by Italo Calvino, dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand and to a reflection on the culture of modernity. This was followed in 1988 by The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, a book where the tale of Cadmus and his wife Harmonia becomes a pretext for re-writing the great tales of Greek mythology and reflect on the reception of Greek culture for a contemporary readership. The trend for portraying whole civilizations continues with Ka (where the subject of the re-writing is Hindu mythology). K instead restricts the focus to one single author, Franz Kafka; this trend continues with Il rosa Tiepolo, inspired by an adjective used by Proust to describe a shade of pink used by Tiepolo in his paintings. With his latest book, La folie Baudelaire, Calasso goes back to the fresco of whole civilisations, this time re-writing the lives and works of the artists that revolutionised our artistic taste, the symbolist poets and impressionist painters. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_...

I'd like to recommend written by Ioanna Karystiani to be the ultimate book on our journey through Greece and its literature, a theme truly enlightening to be followed on Jan 1, 2011 by another one from, say, South America.

Another choice for the last Greek-themed read is Athenian Sun in an African Sky: Modern African Adaptations of Classical Greek Tragedy by Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., an anthology inspired by Greek dramas, which includes The Gods Are Not to Blame by Ola Rotimi, a play set in Africa and based on Sophocles's Oedipus.

Another well-reviewed novel on Amazon by Ioanna Karystiani .