Theogony & Work and Days - Hesiod / M. L. West

The same course Greek and Roman Mythology course got me to order "Theogony & Work and Days". Before long, I am sure I will be writing about a few more books that I read during this course. But it is these epic poems by Hesiod that are the subject of this post.

Hesiod was an unknown name to me when I picked up this book. In case I had heard of him somewhere, I certainly did not remember. Despite his lack of fame in the world of laymen, he is a prominent figure in Greek epic poetry, as prominent as Homer. But you soon find out why he is such an obscure figure in the world of leisure readers. His works are of academic interest and hold little charm for light readers. There are long lists of gods and didactic verses on virtues. There are interesting bits of information but they are well hidden under piles of jargon. Enough to make anyone lose interest. It is a good thing that the poems are short (despite their epic status).

Theogony is the story of the birth of Gods. It is a fanciful tale that involves a lot of deceit, lust and power struggle. There are sons castrating their fathers, the gory details of which are necessary in order to know of the birth of the Aphrodite (Love). It is apparently borrowed from Sumerian and other Eastern cultures in parts and serves to establish Zeus as the ultimate father of Gods and men. It lays out a genealogical connection between Gods and utterly confounds the reader.

Work and Days, on the other hand, is a preaching of values to be followed and practiced in everyday life. It is much more pragmatic than Theogony and has fewer names. But it does not altogether do away with mythical stories. It talks about Pandora and the breed of women as an ailment sent by the heavens. It talks of the various generations of man. But mostly, it talks about the virtues of labour, how to manage an agrarian household and how to trade for profit. It tells of what to do on what day of the month, what practices are favoured by the gods and which are frowned upon.

Hesiod might be a big name but he certainly draws interest only from the academia. I think I have had enough of him, for a lifetime perhaps. So long poet.

Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol

Ever since I started reading Dostoyevsky, Gogol has been a constant presence in the background. He is much referred to in Dostoyevsky's stories. It was upon reading one such reference that I decided to get "Dead Souls" whenever I could lay my hands on it. I did so in a clearance sale but was a long time before I could get myself to start reading this book.

"Dead Souls" is an amusing caricature of human beings and their systems. Despite a pressing urgency to read the Greek classics alongside, the book held me strongly enough to see me finish it. Gogol shows all of human folly in a comic light. The style of writing is very digressing though. There are pages at stretch about things that are irrelevant to the story. One can see something similar in Dostoyevsky as well but to a lesser extent. However, there is a story that goes on steadily and which keeps you transfixed to discover where it will lead to. That in itself is genius. The second part is rather incomplete (though there is a feeble attempt by another to complete it) and leaves you a tad bit dissatisfied. But it prods your imagination all the more. Where does Chichikov go on from here? What happens to him?  You can come up with a story of your own in case you crave closure.

We follow our protagonist, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, in a journey across the Russian provinces. He is a gentleman with refined skills at charming both the sexes. He is knowledgeable of ever subject. He is easy to befriend. And he needs dead souls. Chichikov states various reasons for wanting to take or purchase the dead souls that are still counted on census list from all the landed proprietors he comes in contact with. It is not till the end of the first part that one comes to know why he needs them. In his hunt he comes across various kind of people who treat him in various fashions, some hesitate, some bargain while some beat him up. Chichikov adapts and perseveres.

Gogol excels in oration. His stories are funnier if read aloud. No wonder his is the play (The Government Inspector) considered as Russia's greatest. He can make a story out of a plot. Apparently, the plot for "Dead Souls" was provided by Pushkin. I surely will read another Gogol (The Overcoat) before long.

The Odyssey - Homer / Robert Fagles

Of course, no one remains a stranger to the names of the great epics for long. I had heard of Iliad and Odyssey as a boy and had stumbled across their translated prints a few years ago when I was flitting through the stalls at a World Book Fair. Following a series of unfortunate events, I lost my copy of "The Odyssey" and I decided not to start the Iliad till I had another copy of Odyssey with me, and so it has stayed ignored in my shelves for more than three years now. A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a course on Greek and Roman mythology on coursera.com, enrolled and ordered Fagles's translation of the epic. Coincidentally, his translation was the one I had bought earlier as well.

The Odyssey needs no laudation from me. It is an epic not only in its construct but also in its entirety. Fagles's translation, however, I can comment on. It is extremely poetic, brings out the music in the epic that I have found lacking in so many other Greek tragedies I have read thus far. The construct of the prose are excellent. I wonder how close a literal translation this is, but evidently it is held in high regard by people who know what they are talking about. I can only comment on what a pleasure it was to read this rendition.

Odysseus is a man of suffering, endurance and everlasting tact. His journey home from Troy is rigged by the Gods. He brings it upon himself in parts, his crew bring it upon him in parts. He however is the only one to survive and return home years later, a broken man with adventures and sufferings borne all his journey. That is primarily what the epic is all about : the journey home and the winning back of one's life of peace. We are taken through fantastic tales of brutality, wit and magic through Odysseus's eyes. Immortal goddesses bed him; giants slay his crew; he peeks into the world of the dead; strangers help him homeward and Gods hold him back. Fantastic and thrilling!

Fagles has renewed the zest for Greek epics and tragedies in me. Despite the redundancy, I will once again praise the poetic feel to Fagles's translation. He keeps the reader bound. It hardly seems like a translation from an alien language, so fluent do his lines flow. I might look into Fagles's other translations later, but for now, I have another one of his lying in my shelves. Time to pick up the Iliad and read about the brave and swift Achilles!

Batman : The Killing Joke - Alan Moore

The covers of Alan Moore's 'From Hell' enumerated a few of his more popular works : 'V for Vendetta', 'The Watchmen', etc. I looked them all up on flipkart.com and came across a few more. One of them, 'The Killing Joke'. The reviews seemed pretty good and since it was Batman and Joker, I decided to make it my second Moore book. It arrived in a few days, all glossy and colourful, and I finished it the same night.

'The Killing Joke' was not as huge as the earlier Moore work I had read, 'From Hell'. It was more of a comic book and less of a graphic novel. Particularly scintillating was the art work in this book provided by Brian Bolland. The book traces the roots of Joker and tries to show a more humane side that the unnamed villain once had. There is not much that I can review here other than saying that the book indeed was brilliant and gripping. It probably ended too soon, or maybe I am being plain greedy.

Moore continues at the top of my list for the time being. Have a couple other graphic novels of his to complete before I give him a rest for good.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

I had heard about this book from too many people to recount here. This book had been on my list for a long long time before I finally got around to ordering it. I knew close to nothing about the book. So when I searched online and found a "complete and unabridged" edition, I thought it would be the complete and unabridged edition. Even though it was, turned out that H2G2 is a 'trilogy' in six parts (as of this date). But then this book would let me know whether I wanted to continue with the others in the series.

It took me two or three odd sittings to wrap up the book. Not something that happens frequently now a days, given the kind of schedule I have. It was partly because the book had grabbed my interest and partly because it was the most senseless thing I had ever read! The book is indeed meant for children. The immature humour was entertaining for a change but I am sure I would not have managed to endure it in long doses. The book is scrawling with sentences that make no sense either grammatically or logically. But then that is the charm of this book. After a tiring day, what better than occupying oneself with a book that lets the brain snooze for a while?

Despite the mayhem of senselessness, there is in fact an underlying plot to the novel. Arthur Dent, the protagonist, finds himself rescued by his best friend, Ford Prefect, when Earth is vaporised to make way for a new inter galactic highway. Ford is in fact an alien from around Betelgeuse who has been stranded on Earth while researching for the new edition of an extremely handy book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which has information about everything. After they hitch a ride to get off Earth just in time and are thrown out in space, they find themselves on a spaceship with Ford's semi-cousin and the Galactic President, Zeephod Beeblebrox who is on the run. Thus begin's Arthur's first unearhlt adventure.

Although not wholly remarkable, the book was fun to read. It is one of those senseless books that you remember for its whacky concepts and funny dialogues. I do intend to finish the series, but not immediately.

From Hell - Alan Moore

I bought this book in a blind sale, not at all aware that it was a graphic novel. And since I had never tried graphic novels before, I was not particularly inclined to start off with this one as soon as it arrived. Therefore it stayed in my book shelf as I finished one book after the other but could not get myself to pick up this one. Until one fine day, I did.

'From Hell' was known to me as a Depp movie. One that I did not particularly remember, but had a faint recollection of. I knew it was about Jack the Ripper in some sort of way. So I picked up the book thinking that it would replay the movie for me, but it did not. In fact, the book and the movie were far far apart! I had to watch the movie again just to compare. And it was the novel that held me in awe. The motion picture looked almost puerile in wake of the work that Alan Moore had done. The book looks at the historic tragedy through the eyes of Stephen Knight, whose theory propounded that Jack the Ripper was a conspiracy to cover up the traces of a royal baby. The book has Sir William Gull, the alleged Ripper, as the protagonist and traces the course of the events through his chains of thoughts.

The novel starts with the inception of the frivolity that started it all. Prince Eddy marries a shop girl and fathers a child of hers. Sir William Gull, the royal physician, is commissioned with the task of covering up for Prince Eddy to avoid a scandal. Sir Gull, a freemason by heart, disillusioned since a heart stroke, takes up the task with zest. He puts the shop girl, Annie Crook, into a mental facility after making her insane surgically. And when it is later found that four prostitutes know about the secret and are creating a nuisance, he sets out to silent them. In doing so, he performs a ritual that he believes will show him the real truth. He gives birth to the legend of Jack the Ripper.

Alan Moore was astounding in more than one respect. There is apparently a humongous amount of research that he has put into the book. It is evident in the appendix where almost every scene is explained with a bibliographical detail. So much that I gave up reading the details after three odd chapters. Moore also brings his characters very vividly to life. In no way did it feel that he relied on the graphics to make his novel sell (they just made the book fatter I guess). Anyhow, Moore is up top on my list at the moment. In fact, I am expecting another book of his in a couple of days.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg

This was another idle buy resulting from a compulsive browsing through a bookstore's offerings. The name seemed interesting enough to pick the book and look at the teaser on the back cover. That being interesting as well, I bought the book and it lay in my shelf while I tried to finish the ones that were already scheduled.

James Hogg was a surprise for me. In the opening chapters I was quite unsure whether to treat the book as a serious work or a comic one. Hogg has tried to hold in ridicule a few social stigmas that must have plagued his times. A few of them still plague ours. The way the author has gone about it though is very unique. As the title suggests, the book is the memoirs of a "justified sinner". It talks about how one justifies his sins. How one makes a world in which he can live with himself after enacting monstrosities. There are two parts to it. The editor of the notes giving a background and his perspective, and the memoirs themselves.

The book begins with the editor telling us of a Scottish folklore about a certain laird of a certain Dalcastle who married a deeply religious woman. This woman mothered two sons, one to the laird and the other allegedly to her preacher. This bastard son, Robert, is the author of the memoirs. He is brought up in a gravely religious household and develops a fanatic view of Christianity. He reads into the scriptures to further his own interests even as a child. He sins, is aware of his sins and can justify his sins. He then encounters the devil, whom he takes to be a holy prince of another land. Together they commit murders and crimes in the name of religion. Robert is finally driven to despair by his supernatural friend and lives a life of anguish.

The book was extremely entertaining in bits. Especially because of the double meaning puns that are scattered all over the two narratives. But in parts it was a little drag and uninteresting. As of now, I have no intentions of looking at other works of this author.