Children of Dune, Frank Herbert

5 stars

First Sentence: A spot of light appeared on the deep red rug which covered the raw rock of the cave floor.

Thoughts: Nine years have passed since Paul Atreides was blinded and went into the desert. His twins, Leto and Ghanima, have grown up to very weird pre-teens. Like Alia, they were both “pre-born” due to their mother’s spice overdose while pregnant so they’re only children in size. Unlike Alia, they have not yet become Abomination. Instead they’re trying to figure out how not to fall into that trap.

How did Alia fall into it? She had a mental crisis some time back, getting lost in all the voices in her head. She was trapped in the clamor of her past lives until one voice offered to help keep the others back. For a price: she had to let that ancestor have access to her consciousness occasionally. Desperate, Alia agreed without considering who was making that deal. It was her grandfather, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who has found a way to get revenge on her for killing him.

Side note: Alia is my second favorite character in the Dune universe* and I hate how she always gets a raw deal. Nothing ever goes right for her. Even in Dune Part Two she gets the shaft by not even being there! Seriously Villenueve? You couldn’t follow the book’s four year time jump? Maybe if you had split the movies in the same place as the book you wouldn’t have this problem! At least David Lynch followed the time line. And, since he only made a movie of the first book, he figured out how to give Alia a happy(ish) ending.

And that’s why I love David Lynch.

Anyway, as with all the Dune novels, there are plots within plots. Jessica returns to Arrakis, ostensibly to visit her grandchildren but actually to test them to find out if they’ve become Abomination. She doesn’t realize Alia already has until a fateful Judgement Day when the Baron let his mask slip. Jessica, like a proper Bene Gesserit, set another wheel within wheels in motion. She goes along with the plot to kidnap her and Duncan Idaho so she can get to Salusa Secundus, the home of the remnants of House Corrino. There she trains the Corrino heir in the ways of the Bene Gesserit. Duncan, meanwhile, has a crisis from which he will not recover.

Duncan is also put through the wringer but {SPOILER DELETED}.

There was also an element of revenge in Jessica’s training. House Corrino had recently set a pair of Laza tigers loose on Arrakis and Leto was killed. Except he wasn’t. He and Ghani had faked his death so he can set his own plans in motion. He goes into the deep desert to Jacurutu, the cursed sietch of legend, while Ghani erased her memories of Leto’s escape and hid them under a layer of false memories of his death.

While all this is going on, The Preacher is stirring up unrest on Dune. The Preacher is a blind man who knows more than he should. This leads people to wonder if he’s actually Paul come back from the desert. No spoilers because it’s obvious: it is Paul. His plan, however, is still a mystery.

*Norma Cenva will always be my number one.

The Pink Fairy Book, Andrew Lang

5 stars

First Sentence: All the people in the world tell nursery tales to their children.

Thoughts: Another colorful collection of tales from around the world, this time mainly from Japan, Serbia, Denmark, Sweden, and Catalonia.

We begin with the Japanese stories. There are two tales of tanuki here! How cu…

What in the name of Super Mario is that? That is not a raccoon dog! Mr. H.J. Ford, I suggest you consult a live model for your illustrations because that…thing…is nothing close to Japan’s most adorable creature.

Fortunately there are also tales of Japanese cats, which are something that Ford can draw.

What a good kitty Gon is. Who’s an adorable little murderer? You are!

There are a couple of stories where witches get so angry they burst into flints. Not flames, flints. One story features an illustration of the witch throwing a tantrum at the hero and heroine while her pets watch.

She may be a horrible witch to the humans in the story, but her pets seem to like her.

One of these heroes who faces a witch is a young prince looking for a wife, as most of them are. He visits Princess Diaphana, but quickly realizes she’s not The One. Mainly because she’s so light the slightest breeze will throw her around. She forgot to tie herself down before a thunderstorm and ended up blown against a haystack.

Perhaps the iron shoes from the original version of “Snow White” would be of use here?

Finally, we get a story about a striga, although she’s not called that. She’s pretty much the same thing, though. A princess dies but comes back as a monster haunting the local church. A soldier stays in the church three nights to break the spell and win the resurrected princess as his bride. It’s not quite as exciting as the intro to the first Witcher game, but it has a happier ending.

The Outcast, Louise Cooper

5 stars

First Sentence: “I’m telling you, you won’t find better foodstuffs anywhere in Shu, or Prospect or Han for that matter!”

Thoughts: Cyllan the drover girl from the previous book is in Shu province for the Quarter-Day Festival. When she stops in a tavern for lunch, she sees a young man getting ripped off by a fake fortuneteller. (She knows what real fortunetelling looks like because she can do it.) Cyllan catches the man as he’s leaving and lets him know the person he just paid all that money to was a fraud. The man asks her to read his fortune instead. She refuses, but he chases her down and persuades her. Before she can use her talents, though, a warp storm hits. Cyllan and the young man are caught up in it.

When they come to, they find themselves floating in the ocean. That’s bad. What’s worse is that the young man is Drachea, heir to the Margrave of Shu, which means if he drowns that’s all kinds of trouble for Cyllan. She carries him to shore with the help of the fanaani, telepathic seals that also made a brief appearance in The Initiate. The shore is at the foot of a tall cliff. Well that’s no help! Wait, there’s a path leading up the cliff. A narrow, steep path, but it’s a way up at least. Cyllan starts up the narrow path while Drachea whines behind her.

At the top of the cliff is the Castle of the Star Peninsula. Civilization at last! Except, no. The Star Peninsula had been incommunicado for several months. There’s an odd light in the sky, and the sun never rose even though they climbed up the path long enough for it to. Inside things are even stranger. There’s no one around. Well, there’s one person: Tarod. He explains to them that they’re stuck outside time, but won’t tell them how it happened. We know, though, because we read the previous book and know what lengths Tarod’s desperation drove him to when the Circle tried to execute him.

Since Drachea and Cyllan managed to breach the time-barrier, they might be of some use to Tarod. Maybe they can get into the Marble Hall and retrieve his soul-stone so he can restart time. Neither of them are too keen to help Tarod, though, especially after Drachea goes into the High Initiate’s office and finds the notes revealing Tarod to be an incarnation of Chaos.

Cyllan doesn’t quite believe the notes, though. She met Tarod before and he didn’t seem that bad. Then, after a bout of questionable sexytimes in Tarod’s tower, she’s more inclined to Drachea’s side. However, when she tells Drachea what happened up there, the spoiled rich boy turns on her and calls her all sorts of names. That decided Cyllan. She went back up the tower for more sexytimes and plotting how to get the soul-stone back.

The plotting works and Cyllan recovers the stone. Time restarts at the point in stopped but now there are two extra people in the Marble Hall. Keridil is very confused. He locks up Tarod, finds rooms for his sudden guests, and sits down to figure all this out. Cyllan begins planning how to retrieve Tarod and the soul-stone while Drachea tries to convince Keridil that he deserves to become an Initiate because he’s been a Very Good Boy bringing back the Incarnation of Chaos and all.

Meanwhile Sashka, Tarod’s treacherous ex-girlfriend, sinks her claws deeper into Keridil. They’re engaged now, which should make her happy but it doesn’t. She’s quite unhappy, in fact, because Tarod found a new love in Cyllan who isn’t even pretty or rich like Sashka. She begins her own schemes against Tarod and Cyllan because she’s a manipulative skank and I don’t like her.

Then, thanks to a telepathic cat, all hell breaks loose.

You and Your Family

Today’s Saturday Short is “You and Your Family,” part of the Art of Living Series. It’s a multiple choice quiz about You and Your Family.

Your Family is gathered in the living room. The phone rings. Mary answers. It’s her boyfriend and he wants to know if she can come to a dance at the lake tomorrow night? Mary runs back into the other room to ask her parents for permission. Mom says no and Dad goes along with her.

The narrator pipes up. Has anything like this happened in your home? How would you react? What do you think Mary should do next? Mary acts out some vignettes of different reactions.

A) She goes back to the phone. Her parents said no, she says. I guess our date’s off. She hangs up and goes into a powerful sulk.

B) After Dad tells Mary no, she has an idea. Why doesn’t she have her own party at the house tomorrow night? They could play music and make sandwiches and dance! Dad thinks this is a great idea. Mary rushes back to the phone to tell her boyfriend of the new plan.

C) Mary starts whining when Dad says no. She goes into a full-blown tantrum and storms out of the room. Mom follows her out to give her a good talking-to.

D) Mary goes back to the phone. She quietly tells her boyfriend that her parents said no, but she’ll sneak out of the house tomorrow night and meet him anyway.

Did Mary do right in Scene 1, 2, 3, or 4? Why?

No and because. Next question!

Your Family is gathered around the table finishing supper. Mom asks who’s going to help her do the dishes tonight.

MARY would like to but she has so much homework she has to run very fast to get it all done.

What about you FATHER? “I should say not,” he says in the tone of a man who’s going to find himself sleeping on the couch tonight. Er, that is, he has to read the paper. Lots of stuff going on in the world. Yes siree bobbaroonie. Gotta keep up with those current events and all. Let Bill do it.

BILL pops up from his chair like he has a spring in his butt. Some of the fellas are waiting for him, he says as he disappears in a cloud of dust.

GEORGE will help. And, in his opinion, if CERTAIN OTHER people would help out once in a while the work would get done that much quicker!

Whose answer was best, MARY, BILL, FATHER, or GEORGE? Or maybe an entirely different answer, perhaps one that isn’t filled without so much whining?

It’s 12:45. Bill is sneaking back into the house because he was supposed to be home at 11:00. He walks to the stairs, deliberately not looking where he’s going so he’ll crash into the phone table and knock it over. A light comes on upstairs. Uh-oh, Father is up. What should Bill do now?

A) Father asks, “What kept ya, Son?” “It was like this,” Bill says making up an excuse on the spot. He’s terrible at lying and can’t keep his own story straight from one end of a sentence to another. “Are you sure you’re telling the truth,” Father asks. Of course Bill is! The trouble with this family is that no one believes his obvious lies!

B) Father asks, “Where were ya, Bill?” Nunya business, Bill snaps. He’s not a kid anymore. He can take care of himself! And from now on that’s just what he’s going to do. He storms out of the house. The next morning the milkman finds him curled up on the front stoop.

C) Father asks, “What kept ya, Bill?” “Sorry Dad,” Bill says. He was hanging out with The Guys and lost track of time. Dad asks if Bill knows the punishment coming to him. He can’t go out again for a week, Bill replies. It’s okay, it was my fault. He goes upstairs with Dad.

It seems to me the answer to this question depends on how Dad asks Bill why he was late.

Time for a review! What should happen when an invitation is received by telephone or otherwise? What is a good course of action when it’s time to do housework? What procedure do you recommend when someone comes home late?

Back in the living room, George turns to the camera to speak directly to us. What do you have to say about these family problems, he asks. I have to say they’re overly simplistic and geared towards an ideal version of white middle-class life in the late 1940s created by advertisers and educators trying to get people to forget the brief freedoms non-white non-men enjoyed during WWII. But that’s just me.

Sir Gawain & the Green Knight/Pearl/Sir Orfeo, J.R.R. Tolkien

6 stars

First Sentence: When the siege and the assault had ceased at Troy,
and the fortress fell in flame to firebrands and ashes,
the traitor who the contrivance of treason there fashioned
was tried for his treachery, the most true upon earth—
it was Aeneas the noble and his renowned kindred
who then laid under them lands, and lords became
of well-nigh all the wealth in the Western Isles.

Thoughts: Tolkien gave the world two gifts. The first was as the father of modern fantasy, and the second was in translating and sharing the medieval literature that inspired him to create his own world. Of course, these poems were published after his death by his son Christopher,* but he intended to publish them when he finished fiddling with them.

Sir Orfeo is a medieval English retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Euryidice. In this version, Queen Heurodis is kidnapped by the King of Faerie right under Orfeo’s nose. He goes on a quest to find her, and this time remembers not to turn around before they return to the real world. I love a happy ending.

Pearl is an allegorical poem. The narrator is distraught after the death of his two-year-old daughter Margery (Pearl). He’s crying over her grave when he sees a heavenly light. His daughter appears before him decked in pearls. They have a dialogue over purity and Heaven and all that good stuff. The narrator doesn’t want Pearl to leave him again, so she lets him follow her to the outskirts of Heaven. He gets a glimpse of the life to come, but when he tries to go in he’s thrown back to Earth.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the most famous of the poems. It’s been fully accepted into the Canon and is taught in school, which makes me wonder if the version I read in high school was Tolkien’s. Sneaky way to get into the curriculum, Professor. I’ve always loved this story and its version of Gawain which is much better than the Gawain in Malory-based Arthurian legend.

We all know the story of how the Green Knight showed up at Arthur’s Christmas feast and asked someone to chop his head off and Gawain did it and the knight picked up his head and told Gawain to meet him next Christmas and he would exchange a blow for a blow. Then Gawain goes on his journey and ends up at a castle with a very hospitable host and hostess. The host goes hunting for three days while the hostess flirts with Gawain, and at the end of the day Gawain and the host exchange what they gained. Except Gawain doesn’t give him the green girdle the hostess gives him so when he meets the Green Knight he gets a cut on his neck for being dishonest.

That’s all well and good, but the thing about literature, real Literature, is that it’s a living being that can be interpreted and re-interpreted. Which is a roundabout way of saying that this poem inspired what is probably my favorite movie of this century, The Green Knight. It is everything I ever wanted in a movie. If you haven’t seen it, you absolutely must.

*I appreciate Christopher Tolkien’s work sharing his father’s unpublished works but I think he was taking it too far near the end. I half-expected him to publish The Annotated To-Do Lists of J.R.R. Tolkien before he died.

Second Place, Rachel Cusk

0 stars

First Sentence: I once told you, Jeffers, about the time I met the devil on a train leaving Paris, and about how after that meeting the evil that usually lies undisturbed beneath the surface of things rose up and disgorged itself over every part of life.

Thoughts: This was overwritten pretentious crap. The end.

Oh, you want more? You do know you’re asking me to go on a full-on rant here. That’s what you want? Okay, you asked for it.

See that first sentence up there? Forget it because the whole meeting the devil on a train in Paris goes absolutely nowhere. In fact, the first five or so pages could be neatly cut away from the book and no one would notice the difference because the only thing that happens that does have anything to do with the rest of the story is where the narrator gets off the train and goes to an art gallery where she first encounters L’s paintings. She likes his work and strikes up a correspondence with him.

Who is the narrator? M. Not the Peter Lorre M from the vastly superior movie, alas. In fact, why don’t you go watch that movie instead of reading this book. It’s a better way to spend your time.

Why are these people referred to only by their initial letter? The other characters have names. They’re Justine, Kurt, Tony, and Brett. (I don’t count Jeffers because he’s only a name in M’s endless monologues.) Apparently M and L are references to the work this book was based on, Mabel Dodge Luhan’s book about the time T.H. Lawrence spent at her place in Taos, New Mexico.

This goes a long way towards explaining the pretentiousness. I hate hate HATE T.H. Lawrence with the fire of a thousand imploding supernovas. I only managed to get through all of Lady Chatterley’s Lover because a) I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and b) I was much younger then and had more patience for crap because it was considered Literary. I still don’t know what all the fuss was about because it was a boring paean to the penis. I’ve tried reading some of his other books but I gave up on all of them because of the overbearing pomposity. I really don’t know who I hate more, Lawrence or Henry Miller. That is a difficult question that will require much thought and meditation. Not any of their books, though because NIE WIEDER. I have much better things to waste my time on, like finishing this rant.

All the things I hate most about Lawrence’s works are on full display here: the pointless pontificating; everything, even the most minor detail, being a Big Deal of Great Import; the nasty unlikable characters; the misogyny. Oh, the misogyny. The description wants you to think this is some sort of feminist novel but believe me it is not. In fact, the description itself should have warned me of what was to come.

…a study of female fate and male privilege, of the geometries of human relationships, and of the struggle to live morally in the intersecting spaces of our internal and external worlds.

That’s a lot of words wasted to say absolutely nothing. These are the kinds of things you say when you’re high. Or if you’re a pseudo-intellectual trying to make people think you’re smarter than everyone else in the room. I know English has the largest vocabulary of any language, but let’s not waste words like this. Plain language is best for easy communication.

And in plain language I tell you: this book suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

The Initiate, Louise Cooper

5 stars

First Sentence: Throughout history, the twin powers of Light and Darkness have appeared in many guises.

Thoughts: In a small town in Wishet province lived a thirteen-year-old boy with no name. His mother had given him one, but he didn’t like it and she never called him by his name anyway. She was too busy resenting him for existing. She had had a fling with a stranger at a festival thirteen years and nine months previously and he was the result. Her clan had cast her out for bearing an illegitimate son and she blamed him for it.

He did have a friend, though, in his cousin Coram. Their parents didn’t like them playing together but they did anyway. They snuck away from the Spring Quarter-Day festivities to play by the river. The game was “Initiates” where they pretended to be wizards of the Circle on the Star Peninsula. The game was interrupted when the festival procession stumbled upon them “casting spells” on one another. There was a flash and Tarod did cast a spell that killed Coram in front of everyone. He was immediately denounced as a murderer and dragged off to the town hall to face his punishment. The boy managed to escape the town, stumbling into a passing Warp storm.

The storm dropped him far away in the western mountains near a small road. The boy came to in time to see some bandits attacking a caravan of women. He killed the bandits the same way he killed Coram. This time, since he saved the women, he wasn’t condemned. In fact, the women he helped saved him because of his power. They were part of the Sisterhood of Aeoris, the chief god of this world, and they recognized magical ability when they saw it. They had to take him to the Star Peninsula, especially since he was badly wounded from the storm and needed more medical attention than the novitiates could give him.

That was how Tarod (the name he always called himself) came to the Castle on the Star Peninsula, home of the Circle and training ground for Initiates. The High Initiate was reluctant to take Tarod on but he recognized that power that strong had to be trained. Besides, his son Keridil had already made friends with Tarod.

Ten years pass. Keridil and Tarod are both Initiates now. Keridil is in line to be the next High Initiate while Tarod is a seventh-level master, the highest of all the levels. Unfortunately his magical skills can’t protect him from the strange nightmares that have been troubling him. He asks one of the Sisters of Aeoris to help interpreting the dream, but she refuses. In fact, she ran away muttering something about evil.

Tarod is on his own against his dreams. He tries lucid dreaming, but when that doesn’t work he decides to try the Spindrift root, the most powerful narcotic known to man. Prepared correctly it’s an aid to magical abilities. Prepared incorrectly it’s a deadly poison. Also, the plant only grows on the rocky cliffs of the west coast. Tarod saddles up and heads west.

He meets a young drover woman named Cyllan who guides him to the plant. He takes it back to the Castle, prepares the potion, and drinks it. Never prepare potions when you’re sleep-deprived, people. Tarod did and he made a poison instead of a drug. As he’s dying he sees a being calling itself Yandros. It offers to help Tarod understand and defeat his dreams, but it will cost a life for a life. Except Yandros doesn’t tell him this until after Tarod’s agreed to accept his help. In another part of the Castle, the High Initiate dies of a heart attack.

Tarod’s connection to Yandros takes him to darker and darker places. He tries to resist but the power is just so darn alluring. Then he goes too far. Now the new High Initiate, Keridil, has the unenviable task of deciding what to do with his best friend.

Winter’s Gifts, Ben Aaronovitch

4 stars

First Sentence: On the afternoon of September 11th, 2001, my mama called me up at my dorm and begged me not to join the Marines.

Thoughts: I was so excited to find a new Rivers of London book at the library there was an audible “yoink” as I pulled it off the shelf. Sure it’s only a novella about one of the side characters but I’ll take whatever I can get from this series. Even if it is about my least favorite side character, Kimberley Reynolds the overly religious FBI agent. Although she isn’t as annoyingly Christian as she was in Whispers Underground.

Despite the first sentence, the adventure begins well after 9/11. That was just the beginning of Kimberley’s journey to the FBI.* Our story begins twenty years later when Patrick Henderson, a retired FBI agent, calls the Bureau to report an “x-ray sierra indigo” incident in the town of Eloise in northern Wisconsin. No one knew what the heck an “x-ray sierra indigo” incident was, so the message was passed around until it reached the “basement” aka department relating to supernatural affairs aka where Kimberley works.

Off she hops to Wisconsin in winter. Her first stop is the police station. Her second stop is the tent where the police relocated after their building was destroyed in a tornado. Tornadoes do not happen in winter, but this cyclone didn’t get the message. From there Kim goes to Henderson’s house. He’s disappeared but there are some intriguing tracks leading away from the house. There are also some notes and voicemails pointing her towards the local library.

To the book depository! There Kim throws her weight around until she gets access to the old journal Henderson had been studying before he disappeared. The journal was from a member of a lost expedition the Virgins (the Virginia Gentlemen’s Society or southern sorcerers) had sent to Wisconsin territory in the 1840s. No one from that expedition survived, so artifacts are extremely rare. The journal indicated that the expedition was about to tangle with some sort of native supernatural entity but ends the day before that battle was to take place. Hmmmm.

With the help of a friendly Osage meteorologist and a seems friendly enough ethnographer, Kim follows the tracks to a hotel built on the campsite of the Virgin’s expedition. And that’s where the ice monsters found them. Kim finds herself on the run while simultaneously searching for whatever spirit has reawakened before the next ice tornado hits.

Side note that has no bearing on anything: I like the German translation of the title.

*And in case you’re wondering (you probably aren’t), her descriptions of what her fellow college students did that day is spot-on. I, too, was a college student in 01 so I speak from experience.

The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry

2 stars

First Sentence: A young man walks down by the banks of the Blackwater under the full cold moon.

Thoughts: Hey kids, guess what time it is? It’s time for another edition of “I Didn’t Read the Same Book as Everyone Else!” Today’s example is The Essex Serpent, a book that was universally loved by everyone I know who read it. Even the guy who sold it to me at Malaprops said he loved it. What did I think? I did not love it. I was hoping for another supernatural romp like Melmoth and that did not happen. My disappointment, it is palpable.

So what is it about? Cora Seaborne and the people she knows. We first meet Cora after her husband’s death. She’s not mourning too much because he was an abusive bastard, but she does have to keep up appearances so she puts on the widow’s weeds and goes through the motions. Not for long, though. Shortly after the funeral she packs up her stuff, her companion Martha, and her son Francis and moves to Essex. There she indulges her love of archaeology by wandering around looking for fossils, dreaming of becoming the next Mary Anning. Meanwhile Martha tries to keep her out of trouble while also keeping up with the dire state of housing in the London slums while Francis (who has a touch of the autism) counts everything he can get his hands on.

Cora hears rumors that the Essex Serpent, last seen in the 1600s, has returned to the coast. She wonders if it might be a living fossil, possibly an ichthyosaur, and hies off to the town of Aldwinter where most of the sightings have been. There she meets and befriends Rev. William Ransome who spends his days wandering the countryside, his wife Stella who spends her days trying not to die of tuberculosis, and his children, especially the oldest daughter Joanna who is inspired by Cora to study non-feminine subjects like science and math.

Cora also has admirers back in London. Dr. Luke Garrett fell for her when he was tending her husband during his last illness. Even the fact that she calls him “The Imp” doesn’t detract him from mooning over her, although he can be distracted by the latest findings on the human heart. He dreams of performing a successful heart surgery one day. His friend George Spencer is also a doctor, but comes from a rich family so he’s not in danger of starving like Luke is. He accompanies Luke on his Essex holiday and meets Martha who recruits George and his money into her Better Housing for the Poor campaign.

Meanwhile the specter of the Essex Serpent looms over them all. Strange things begin to happen. Cora gives a lecture on fossils at the local girl’s school and a laughing epidemic breaks out. Naomi, one of Joanna’s friends, disappears. William gets frustrated by the superstitions in his congregation and chisels off the carving of the Essex Serpent from one of his pews.

All of this goes absolutely nowhere. The story meanders around and around, never really going anywhere except down the drain. There’s hope at the end that something might happen, but it falls flat, leaving me annoyed.

I think what really bothered me about this book was Cora herself. Why on earth did every man she meet fall for her? She was not a good person at all. She was completely selfish, although she did her best to hide it. The more I think about it, the more I dislike Cora.

The Iliad, Homer

4 stars

First Sentence: Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Thoughts: I have been remiss in my Classical Nerdity. I’ve read The Odyssey (many times) and The Aeneid (a couple of times) but never The Iliad. Oh, I knew about it through cultural osmosis

but I’ve never actually read it to see what else happened.

What else happened is a whole lotta fightin’ and dyin’. It’s not a glorious picture of war. Sure, everyone claims their fighting for honor and all that but a lot of men die extremely brutal deaths described in graphic details. Lots of entrails falling into the dust and brains splattered on the inside of helmets and suchlike. I guess that’s what the ancient Greeks were into before they got into the philosophy business.

Despite all the blood and other things best kept inside a human body, it’s actually quite a thrilling tale. We know the Greeks are going to win in the end, but the advantage switches between them and the Trojans several times which keeps things interesting. This is mainly due to the gods interfering with human affairs.

The gods are a big presence in the war, which is understandable because it started when Paris ticked off two goddesses. They get personally involved with the battles: Aphrodite’s pulling Trojans off the field whenever they’re in danger of getting killed, Apollo’s shooting whoever he can find for the sheer love of archery, Athena’s pulling Achilles’ hair to keep him from fighting his own people. At one point Hera seduces Zeus to distract him from the battlefield until the Greeks can gain an advantage. They don’t stop their antics until Achilles finally finds a ladder long enough to get over himself and rejoin the battle.

And speaking of Achilles, he’s kind of a brat. Yeah, he’s a great warrior and all but as a person he kind of sucks. He goes into a powerful sulk because Agamemnon takes the woman he won in battle because Agamemnon’s war-prize woman had to go back to her father, then he stays there for pretty much the whole book. He only comes out in the last few chapters after his friend Patroclus dressed up in his armor and got killed. Not only that, Hector took the armor off Patroclus so now Achilles has to get his goddess mother to ask Hephaestus to make him some new armor before he can fight. But once he gets a sword in his hand, he’s unstoppable. For now.

As you can see, the only thing Achilles liked more than Patroclus was holding a grudge. I don’t think he ever really forgave Agamemnon, but at least he was willing to put his feelings aside for five minutes to work together for the common cause. And the whole thing with dragging Hector’s body around Patroclus’ grave was nothing more than a temper tantrum. You’d think he’d catch on the gods wanted him to give the body back to the Trojans what with the no damage or decay after two weeks, but no. Achilles is kind of dumb.

But I can put up with him because he’s going to die anyway. It was foretold early in the book that Achilles’ death will follow soon after Hector’s so we know it’s coming even though the book ends before it happens. We’ll have to wait for The Odyssey for that bit of satisfaction.