Відео

I really like Madeline Miller's 'Circe', which, although published in 2018, is as far as I know the last substantial work she has published, although her excellent short story 'Galatea', about Pygmalion's statue that came to life, published as an ebook in 2013, was re-released in hardback more recently. I hope she made enough $$$€£ from those works and her 2011 Song of Achilles to be financially secure, as I understand she has as yet been unable to complete any new works since Circe in 2018 due to a bad case of Long Covid, which I also have, but not as severely, from the way she described her symptoms in an article. In Circe, Ms Miller follows the story of a minor goddess exiled to an island on Earth called Aeaea. I imagine the Olympian gods playing a gigantic game of Scrabble over the surface of the Earth as they name its places, and finding they are left with nothing but vowels by the time they get to name Aeaea, as it is usually rendered in English. I think it is spelled Aiaia in the original Greek, as 'Circe' is really 'Kirke', the Greek alphabet not having a 'C'.

Thanks for this. I also found Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry's complaints about Homer and Penelope's increasingly exasperated letters to her absent husband Odysseus, both of which are scattered throughout the book, amusing. At 31 mins in this Podcast, I liked the Chapter about Chryseis and Briseis more than Megan does. Natalie Haynes gives a voice and personality to a character, Chryseis from Iliad Book 1, who in the original is argued over by the men but never gets to say anything herself. I found Chryseis's wilful but naive adolescent character in 'A Thousand Ships' interesting and charming. However, I found it a logical problem that the authoress changes the story from the original so that Chryseis and her priest father live in Troy itself, when in the Iliad they come from a distant place reached by sea, to which they are able to return after Chryseis is ransomed, where they can presumably live out the rest of the War in safety, a relatively happy ending for them. The problem with making them residents of Troy itself is that Chryseis will presumably be enslaved again, along with all the other Trojan women, with no one left alive to ransom her this time, a few months later when Troy falls. As for Briseis, she features in the Iliad, again because important men are arguing over her, and is mentioned in Quintus Smyrnaeus's The Fall of Troy at Achilles' funeral, but then just fades out of the Ancient stories. We don't know what becomes of her after her master Achilles dies. In the Odyssey, Achilles' ghost in the Underworld asks for news from the land of the living, he asks what has happened to his father and his son, but does not care enough about Briseis to ask what has become of her. Natalie Haynes reflects this in the book, by, rather than inventing a story about Briseis's later life, presumably as someone else's slave, unless she is somehow freed, letting Briseis just seem to fade out. The last mention of her is when Polyxena looks out for Briseis in the Greek camp at the end of the War, but is unable to see her. In this and some other respects e.g. how Aeneas's wife dies, while Natalie Haynes is willing to imagine things not in the Ancient literature, she often chooses not to speculate too far beyond it.

Interesting interview, thanks to all three.

28 mins 12 secs Nestor is somewhat less likeable, if you think about the implications, when in Iliad Book 2 he promises the Greek army to motivate them that they will all get to lie beside a Trojan's wife, and 'pay the Trojans back' (most likely translation) for Helen. No mention, of course, that the Trojans' wives, or rather widows as they will be by then, as the Greeks will first kill their husbands, will have any choice about the matter. Spoils of war in those days I suppose. 33 mins 10 secs I am sure Penthesilea the Amazon Queen is not mentioned in the Iliad. She was in another, now lost, epic, of which quotations and summaries are preserved by other writers. I think she is in Quintus Smyrnaeus's (in Greek, written in Roman times, usually less interesting) The Fall of Troy. Personally I could not take the film Troy seriously. However, I really liked Natalie Haynes novel A Thousand Ships and Madeline Miller's Circe about a character from the Odyssey.

Had listened to one or two The Reading Party Podcasts before, but have only just realised that the British sounding lady Megan Lewis is the same Megan Lewis, Assyriologist, of the controversial, ever changing pink/mauve/blue or orange hair who is assistant presenter with Bart Ehrman of his sceptical and accessible, but scholarly, Biblical Podcast Misquoting Jesus, and who has also appeared with her husband Josh(ua) on their Digital Hammurabi Channel about Ancient Mesopotamia. I always like to hear Megan, but it may be wise of this podcast to be sound only, to keep Megan's hair out of sight, at least until such time as it becomes normal. As for The Silence of the Girls, it contains some memorable phrases, and British theatre actress Kristin Atherton, who reads the majority of the Audiobook version, is a good and appropriate reader for the book. However, I am a little surprised to hear Megan say that she 'enjoyed' it. The horribly cruel things that Pat Barker imagines happening to those on the losing side in the Trojan War I found so distressing to think about that while I am, on balance, glad that I listened to the whole of it on Audiobook, I would not say I really enjoyed it, and would prefer not to read another book like it. Hence I have not read the first sequel, The Women of Troy, which I get the impression is 'more of the same', also narrated mostly by Briseis. More recently, Pat Barker has published a third novel in the series, The Voyage Home, centred on different people, about Clytemnestra, Cassandra and an invented junior slave character called Ritza.

Sent here by Misquoting Jesus with Megan Lewis

1:33

Thank you for saving me from this. Your commentary also highlights the pitfalls to avoid when fictionalizing ancient settings

Came from Bart. Great stuff

I wonder if it's a carry over from the leather strip/skirt armor. Fighting legions are often depicted wearing knee high strapped sandals and a leather "skirt" made up of long overlapping leather strips that fall just above the knee, and bronze or steel greaves from knee to ankle. I suspect they didn't wear that when not on campaign.

Your podcast remains a total delight!

First couple of minutes discussing herbal tea. Then a couple of minutes on Scandinavian food, in which the only slight curiosity aroused is when Lexi mentions eating reindeer meat but then fails to tell us what it is like. By the time of the first mention of the book this is supposed to be about, around 4 minutes in, I suspect half the audience have left. Fine to include some chatty personal details, but I would include some pointers as to what this will be about earlier on.

"promosm"

It seemed to me that the film producers were trying to reinterpret the Iliad and Posthomerica by demythologizing them. I was wondering if you thought there might have been a better way for them to demythologize the story, and if so what improvements/changes should they have made?

I've enjoyed a lot listening to you! I'm sorry you had to suffer through this movie but thank you for telling us NOT to watch it. Hope the next one isn't as terrible!

Helen, Castor, Pollux and Clytemnestra were hatched from eggs. Zeus was the father of Helen and Pollux. I hadn’t studied the Iliad in a very long time, but your podcast triggered a lot of memories. There is lot of backstory in the myths, including Peleus helping Priam to build the walls of Troy.

Theseus did kidnap Helen in "real" mythology. He and his friend, whose name I don't remember, decide to kidnap themselves some wives. T wants Helen, so they go get her. The friend wants Persephone, so then they go to Hades, but there they get super glued to a couple of stone chairs. Some time later Heracles comes by, and pulls T out of his chair, leaving his behind behind, still stuck to the chair. H is unable to rescue the friend, however. Then T gets home, he finds that Helen is gone. Yes, the timing doesn't make any sense, but that's the way it is with Greek myth.

You talk as though talkies had just been invented in 2003.

I think it would be interesting to do a version strictly from Penelope's point of view. Particularly since she has no idea if and when Odysseus will return. I don't know how you would do that in a way that the audience doesn't know, either, since they will know what they are watching. I don't know how to do it so the audience doesn't know, but it might be able to do that.

If I'm not mistaken, the movie Troy more or less streamlines all your woes about the characters and the gods ! I think it was a marvelous adaptation, where even Achilles manages to not be such a bratty child-warrior.

Same here

Heard of this on Bart Ehrmans podcast so I paused and came over here to sign up.

I can't wait for this episode! And that was a great live stream today, Megan!

Paris in Troy is one of the top undeserving heroes in modern cinema. 😂 Enjoyed this so much! Thank you!

💖 p̷r̷o̷m̷o̷s̷m̷

Hehe Troy is going to be a whole different tone from Wrath Goddess :-)

Notes on "who Helen is". One note is that Helen at least has moods (if not "feelings"). I'm more with the Sarah Palin than the Melania Trump comparison for that. She is on the coat tails, but she definitely has a personal stake and she definitely goes out on her own to goad Achilles and abuse people she loves. Her power maybe borrowed (?) but its' very real. Or I missed lots of stuff? (which I did with my 2:00am CANT PUT IT DOWN hours) Thank you!

I did love the representation that the Gods were real to people living then. Achilles denies the existence of the gods at first but most people seem less dismissive of her than they are "ummm ok, good luck with that". Everyone else accepts the unknowable and uncontrollable. The fights to seem abrupt but from all I understand of real combat, it tends to be that way. Star Wars duels are.... Cinematic. Real duels tend to end fast.

This reminds me a lot of some post Vietnam psycho-symbolic novels, I remember one I read in a college course on fantasy lit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_After_Cacciato That had a very internal/external barrier blur

More Dang, I still have 60 pages left. I'm not surprised by trippy childbirth though.

Dang, all my comments disappeared with the re-upload 🙂 That will teach me to be first (which NEVER do)

Well this is exciting. Thanks for the tea! Hear you next week.

I also am entirely crushed in my aspiration to write murder mysteries and RPG campaigns set in Ur3-MB Mesopotamia. There's *so* much going on that Maya gets and that I don't have a lifetime to understand. Never going to happen. (not that I'm not going to keep learning)

Starting right off: Yes, this was TOTALLY unexpected and the gradual discovering that the gods are real and *how* they are real.