Since it took me over a year of reading in fits and starts to get through The Iliad, I was somewhat apprehensive about The Odyssey. The Iliad is a good book, but epic poetry, I’ve discovered, is not for the faint of heart; it’s vast in scope, heavy in subject matter, and often, especially in the case of The Iliad, weirdly repetitive — intended for oral recitation, in sections, epic poems were enjoyed by their original audiences in a far different manner than how we take them in today.

That said, The Odyssey was a much more enjoyable read for me than The Iliad. First of all, the characters go somewhere, and there is much less bickering, and no pouting Achilleus. The translation I read, by Richmond Lattimore, was easy to follow, but the language was suited to the epic subject matter (I was even able to scribble down some new words to look up.) That’s not to say that The Iliad was a worse book; I just found it a lot more difficult.

The premise of The Odyssey is known to most people, even those who haven’t read the book, since most everybody has skivved off reading it in favor of the SparkNotes version, at school. Odysseus, on his journey back from the Trojan War, suffers many troubles and obstacles, only to to find his house in Ithaca taken over by suitors seeking his own wife’s hand in marriage.

That’s the simple version. In reality, the structure of the book is well-built and complex. I was surprised to find that the better part of Odysseus’s journey is told in flashback, and that his story is surrounded by a framing device: before we are introduced to Odysseus, we meet his son, Telemachos, who grows more frustrated by the day at the suitors who waste his father’s property in feasting and entertainment, who dally with the serving girls, and try to force his mother, Penelope, to choose one of them against her will. With the assistance of Pallas Athene, goddess of war, wisdom and etc., Telemachos goes on a journey to learn whether anyone knows whether his father is dead or alive. Seeing an advantageous opportunity, the suitors send out a ship to lie in wait for him, and we leave Telemachos in a cliffhanger — could this be the first cliffhanger ever written?

I was surprised at the sophistication of the storytelling in The Odyssey; it employs numerous narrative devices that add to the excitement for the reader, and the pacing is just right for each part of the story. Homer knows when to linger over a matter, and when to skip another. Whereas in The Iliad, the battle scenes dragged on and on, the events in The Odyssey flow briskly along (in spite of a propensity on everybody’s part for speeches in response to just about everything).

Maybe it was because there was a greater feminine presence in the story, but I liked all the characters, both male and female, better than when I read The Iliad, though as in The Iliad, I found the often prideful and sometimes downright dumb behavior of Odysseus and his companions perplexing — for instance, when Odysseus, angry over the murder of some of his friends, shouts at the Cyclops, who throws a huge rock at their boat, sending it back to shore to where the Cyclops is, they get away once more… and then Odysseus does it again. The pre-Christian tendency to lack mercy also bothered me, but paganism was a tough path, after all. So many interesting themes and questions emerge through the course of the story — the treatment of the female characters in the ancient world and their varying responses to it, the contrasting potrayals of hospitality (or lack thereof, in the case of the Cyclops) — but I think the theme that stands out the most and which seems to be the main theme of the story is the question of suffering. In other words, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Homer’s answer seems to be, “Because the gods hate you.” Like I said, paganism was a tough path. The interesting thing, however, was Athene’s protection and provision all through the journey of Odysseus, perhaps as a representative of grace.

Really, I’m still processing it. I don’t think it’s the sort of book that you could fully grasp in one reading, or even multiple readings. Though it was fairly difficult to get through, I’m glad I read it, and happy to have it on my bookshelf, and I’m sure I’ll return to it for further exploration.

This post is a stop on The Classics Circuit: Ancient Greeks Tour.

The Byzantine city of Constantinople was the heart of Christendom during late antiquity and the medieval period, yet it’s usually only studied in upper-level history courses. A city of legend and power, Constantinople was the center of the world. The Christians in the East had a different culture from those in the West, a different style of dress, a different church, and a more mystical way of thinking.

The Sheen on the Silk is the story of Anna Lascaris, who disguises herself as a eunuch called Anastasius Zarides, in order to work as a physician in Constantinople, where she hopes to discover how her fraternal twin brother Justinian was involved in the murder of Bessarion Comnenus, a leading figure in the fight for the Orthodox Church to maintain its sovereignty. The city of Constantinople was destroyed by Crusaders 70 years before the story begins, and the people are growing anxious as another Crusade is rumored to be on the horizon. As Anastasius, Anna must discover what happened to her brother, hiding her true identity and the secrets in her own past, while the web of political intrigue grows tighter around her.

The story is fast-paced, the mystery is pretty interesting as it develops, and the characters keep you guessing. They are all likeable, even the “villains”—many of the characters have understandable motivations or sympathetic reasons for the heinous things they sometimes do, and it’s difficult not to at least grudgingly admire them (though I’ll admit I found all the regret expressed over the death of one particular character confusing). Fortunately, the most likeable and admirable character in the story is Anna herself; she’s a woman of intelligence and skill, who is consistently honest and noble, refusing to lie to or flatter even those who have power over her.

The “woman-posing-as-a-man” plot device works better here than usual, because of Anna’s choice to pose as a eunuch; it’s convincing, since eunuchs are a separate class, physically different from either men or women. Because the reader has most likely never met a eunuch there’s a helpful lack of a point of comparison. This status allows Anna to have an advanced profession and be viewed by other characters as an adult, which would be impossible if she posed as a teenage boy.

The romance in The Sheen on the Silk is also handled well; it grows naturally out of the circumstances, and has an effect on the events of the story and their outcome. It’s not angsty or ridiculously dragged out; Giuliano and Anna get flickers of awareness of their feelings, but are not prone to examine them too closely. Giuliano’s attraction to a supposed eunuch is not played for laughs or even made much of beyond his bewilderment.

The only real disappointment in this book is that the setting is somewhat under-described. The historical place and time are used to create a unique political atmosphere, but the writing felt light on sensory detail. I can picture Venice easily, but Constantinople is new to me; I want to smell the spices in the air, see the Byzantine architecture crumbling and burnt before me, taste the olives, wine and cheese. There are points where the author touches on these details, but somehow Byzantium is not described with the richness I expected. Also, apart from Anna and Zoe Chrysaphes, a character meant to represent the soul of Byzantium, few of the characters are described in any detail that helped me to visualize them.

As for the religious aspects of the story, I didn’t feel the sense of mystery and the acceptance of the inscrutability of God that are characteristic of Orthodoxy. The person who best represents that openness in the book is Anna Lascaris herself, but the religious caste is portrayed as power-hungry and lacking faith in God (instead trusting in themselves to “help” God). Just one priest that represented the spirit of the Orthodox faith would have made the conflict between the Roman and Orthodox churches seem so much more meaningful. Only the characters who doubt that the church matters at all ask the important spiritual questions.

And important spiritual questions are asked, in a way that’s mostly satisfying and not preachy. The characters frequently revisit the question of God’s apparent silence, and in the case of Roman Bishop Palombara, this spiritual search rings especially true. Anna wonders how much the rituals and ordinances of a church matter to God himself, and whether such things are really worth dying for. Often she responds to spiritual questions with statements that I think are meant to be profound, but I usually found them confusing and modern-sounding. But ultimately, for Anna the matter comes down to an issue of freedom and sovereignty: Whether the beliefs of the church are true or not, it’s wrong for others to force the Byzantines to give up their convictions. I can agree completely.

Overall, the book’s strong points outweigh its flaws, and I found the story engrossing and the characters fascinating. If you’re looking for a historical novel with a realistic heroine and a tender, understated romance in an unusual setting, The Sheen on the Silk is a very good choice.

Purchase The Sheen on the Silk by Anne Perry.

This book is an ARC given to me by Marcia at The Printed Page.

The Twelve Kingdoms (Juuni Kokuki) takes place in a fantasy setting with a Chinese mythological feel. Impatient with the lawlessness of the people, the gods once remade the world, dividing it into twelve kingdoms, each one ruled by a king or queen, chosen and then served by a holy creature called a Kirin (in the anime, something like a unicorn), who is given special care over that kingdom. In the Twelve Kingdoms, babies are grown on a tree in an egg-like cocoon called a ranka, and sometimes, when a typhoon-like wind called a shoku rises up from the sea, people from Japan can be blown into the Twelve Kingdoms, or a ranka may be carried into Japan.

If you’ve guessed that our Japanese school-girl heroine, Yoko, ends up in the Twelve Kingdoms at some point in the story, you’re right. However, unlike many people who are carried accidentally into the Twelve Kingdoms by a chance shoku, Yoko is struggling through a day at school when a handsome man with a mane of long white hair (Keiki, one of the holy Kirin) appears before her and kneels, swearing he will never desert her throne. At the same moment, supernatural beasts attack and Yoko is forced to flee into the Twelve Kingdoms. Maybe that’s not such a surprise, but everything in this anime is handled a bit differently than in your typical girl-transported-to-another-world series.

First of all, Yoko brings with her two “friends”: a girl, Sugimoto, who can’t stand Yoko and thinks there’s been a mistake—she is the magical princess who Keiki meant to bring to the Twelve Kingdoms; and a boy, Asano, who is cheerfully oblivious to the dangerous situation they’re in, and is enamoured of Sugimoto and clearly turned off by the obsequious Yoko who likes him.

These displaced Japanese aren’t welcomed into this new world with fanfare and a mission; instead, Keiki becomes separated from them, and they are regarded by the people they meet as the despised and cursed kaikyaku, hunted as criminals by a king bent on executing them as well as by monsters who have targeted them for an unknown reason. This is not a world in which everyone is rich, and some kingdoms are at subsistence-level, so those who are willing to take advantage of these outsiders are many. The main characters are starving, on the run, and betrayed at every turn.

Yoko herself is a different sort of heroine, and though she’s sympathetic, at first she’s hard to like. She’s not your typical high-school-aged main character, full of cheerful persistence (and the truth comes out much later that the Kirin don’t have a choice in the ruler they select—it’s a bit like falling in love, it seems—and don’t always know that the ruler will be a good one); instead she’s a self-conscious, timid middling-achiever who only says and does what will please others. Her schoolmates dislike her and her parents don’t trust her. She’s mealy-mouthed, self-pitying, and weak-willed. However, she has within her an ability to change and a desire to do good, and that’s what ultimately makes Yoko work as a main character. In her, many problems of the modern Japanese mindset about the individual versus society are explored, critiqued and in some ways resolved.

Apart from a fascinating setting and a unique take on old tropes, the anime is remarkable in its structure. While the first section focuses on Yoko’s journey from a self-pitying people-pleaser to a self-aware young woman with the potential to be Queen, the narrative eventually turns to explore the history of King En, a brash samurai-king who has ruled his kingdom of En for 500 years beside his Kirin, Enki, an eternal grouchy pre-teen. Then it follows the story of Taiki, a Kirin whose ranka was blown by a shoku into Japan. Not knowing his true identity, he lived there in an emotionally distant family until he was seven, was returned to the Twelve Kingdoms, chose a king, and now both Kirin and king are missing. The story changes focus like this frequently; it’s frustrating yet gives a sense of depth and history to The Twelve Kingdoms. Unfortunately, the anime series was never finished, and ends on a “review” episode, clearly with the intent that the story should continue in future episodes. It never did.

Still, in spite of the aggravating lack of an ending, the anime is well-worth watching (and the novels the series is based on are completed, I believe). The social issues explored, the questions asked about the relationship between gods, destiny and free will, and a refreshingly even-handed representation of monarchy all make The Twelve Kingdoms a stand-out series. I highly recommend it for those with a taste for the epic and a love of fantasy heavy on political drama.

Please read my disclosure policy for reviews. Most images in this post are from Hourai: The Twelve Kingdoms Fanlisting.

]]> http://fairyrevel.com/2010/02/26/anime-review-the-twelve-kingdoms/feed/ 0 http://fairyrevel.com/2010/02/01/a-study-in-sherlock-a-study-in-scarlet/ http://fairyrevel.com/2010/02/01/a-study-in-sherlock-a-study-in-scarlet/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:00:11 +0000 Charise http://badgerish.net/?p=158 I’m reading through the Sherlock Holmes stories for the first time, and posting my thoughts on each story as I read it.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25796513@N08/ / CC BY 2.0

Title: A Study in Scarlet, from The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study in Scarlet is the first Sherlock Holmes novel ever written, and the first Holmes story I’ve ever read (apart from a distracted scan of The Red-Headed League in elementary school). I was warned by multiple websites not to read it first, as it’s the earliest and not supposed to be the best, but I ignored the warnings; I like reading things in order. Though it isn’t perfect, it’s a fun read, and if it’s considered one of the worst Holmes stories, I’m definitely looking forward to the rest.

The story begins when Dr. John H. Watson, recovering from his stint in Afghanistan, is looking for a flatmate to share the burden of rent, and is introduced to a peculiar fellow by the name of Sherlock Holmes.

His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

Watson spends the first couple chapters of the book trying to figure out just what it is Holmes does for a living, since his habits are so odd and his fields of study so disparate. Before long, he learns that Sherlock Holmes is the world’s only consulting detective, and that his odd assortment of visitors are actually clients seeking his assistance. For the first time, Holmes invites Watson to visit the scene of a crime with him, where they examine the body of a wild-looking man, bloody but somehow uninjured, and nearby, the word RACHE written on the wall.

This novel is a short one, more like a novelette. Holmes and Watson are fairly undeveloped as characters in Doyle’s mind at this point, and he made some obvious changes when he returned to them in The Sign of the Four (in just one example, in A Study in Scarlet, Watson makes a list of Holmes’ limitations, and describes his knowledge of literature and philosophy as “Nil”.) But the familiar characters are essentially there, and there’s a thrill in seeing Holmes come alive on the page for the very first time. I was surprised to find that a good portion of the story takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah, in a long flashback; I’ve heard that Doyle often made his stories a sort of history lesson, in which an historical event is described through the eyes of one of the characters.

Holmes is more cold and calculating than I expected in this story, and while I realize that’s one of his signature traits, I’m hoping his characterization will be rounder in future stories. Watson is a likeable narrator, who isn’t afraid to stand up to someone even as masterly as Holmes when he feels he should. I wasn’t disappointed in A Study in Scarlet, and I’m glad I read it first, since the stories can only get better from here.

***

Purchase The Complete Sherlock Holmes at Amazon.

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