Kendra’s Comments (group member since Aug 26, 2016)

Kendra’s comments from the Reading Classics, Chronologically Through the Ages group.

Something that strikes me whenever I read ancient works like this is the utter cruelty that is stated so plainly and seems to be so accepted and commonplace. It shouldn't surprise me - the same kind of horrors still occur today, and quite frequently in some places of the world. But I think I live in such a sanitized environment where things are generally safe and I don't have to face these sort of cruel acts directly - the most I do a gawk at them from afar.

I'm reading in book 4 about the Taurians who made it a practice to cut off the heads of their enemies, put them on a wooden stake, and set it up over their house. That reminded me of an episode of Game of Thrones (I didn't get far into the series for many reasons). But this isn't fiction and I can't write it off as such.

The more I read, the more pessimistic I get about the goodness of human nature.

I'm glad we're going full steam ahead! Which reminds me that I need to keep going on Herodotus so I can catch up!

I'm glad to hear you're still at it, Kenia! I know this one has been a bit of a drag for you. I just finished book 2 and seem to be moving pretty swiftly, so hopefully I'll catch up to you soon and we can keep discussing it.

I know most of you have either finished The Histories by now or have stalled, but I'm actively reading it right now so I'm just going to share my thoughts.

I just read Herodotus' theory and agreement with the Egyptians that during the real events of The Iliad, Helen was actually in Egypt. And when the Acheans came to attack Troy, the Trojans would have given her up if she was there, "For neither Priam or his kin could have been so demented that they would have willingly endangered their own persons, their children, and their city just so that Alexandros could have Helen." I think that is a really interesting opinion and moral judgement on the events. It's also interesting to look at these events as real history because while reading The Iliad, I took it to be fiction and somewhat forgot that there were real, historical components.

I'm also so happy to so clearly see these books building on one another.

2017 Recap

I had a pretty good year of reading and completed almost everything I set out to read - there are a few Around the World books that I wasn't able to complete in time, but they are at the top of my list in 2018.

My biggest accomplishment of the year was finishing Our Oriental Heritage - that book took a lot of effort but it was absolutely worth it. Sophocles was definitely my favorite read of the year, though.

I also learned that I need a balance between the structure of a detailed plan and the spontaneity of following my curiosities when it comes to reading, so that I stay interested.

Books Completed in 2017

TWEM:
Don Quixote by Cervantes - Completed 2/24/17
Gilgamesh - Completed 1/07/17
The Iliad - Completed 7/09/17
The Odyssey - Completed 7/17/17
Greek Lyrics - Completed 8/01/17
Agamemnon - Completed 8/09/17
Oedipus the King - Completed 8/27/17

The Story of Civilization:
Our Oriental Heritage - Completed 11/14/17

Around the World in Books:
Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare (Albania) - Completed 8/21/17
A Cowrie of Hope by Binwell Sinyangwe (Zambia) - Completed 11/13/17

Miscelaneous:
Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 by J.H. Elliott - Completed 1/18/17
Code of Hammurabi - Completed 1/27/17
Night by Elie Wiesel - Completed 2/27/17
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold - Completed 3/30/17

Looks like a wonderful and stimulating list! Enjoy!

As my work will never let me forget, we are into 4th quarter (gotta love retail) so it's time to assess the status of my reading project!

The biggest challenge for me is going to be finishing Our Oriental Heritage. I've discovered that it's easier for me to read this simultaneously while listening to the audiobook - it helps me to focus and take in more information. I still have 20 hours of listening but I think if I'm able to stay consistent, I should be able to finish it by the end of this year.

Then I have my 4 around the world books. I don't expect I'll have any problems finishing these - I can usually zip through novels pretty quickly.

Lastly, I'd like to try and finish the Icelandic Sagas. I made it about 1/4 of the way through during my trip and if I have some time at the end of the year, I want to try and complete them.

I'll put a vote in for Sappho too!

As much as I am trying to focus on TWEM books personally (I mean, I'd like to complete the list at some point) I think broadening the scope of this group is going to be good. I'ts crazy that we're already looking ahead to 2018. Man does time fly!

Here's a funny tidbit:
I recently re-took the Strengths Finder test and my top 3 strengths were Learner, Input, and Intellection. Haha, yep, that about sums it up.

Interestingly enough, when I first took the test 6 years ago, none of those were in my top 5. In fact, there was only one that was the same (Positivity).

That sounds like a great plan to me!

Kenia wrote: "If you're not being directly affected by death and still seeking out discussion or literature, most people would think of you as morbid"

Hmm, that's interesting to think about. I guess it would vary depending on who you surround yourself with. I'm a Christian and so it is a topic that comes up frequently in my community when we discuss different aspects of our faith. And I imagine that's similar to other faith communities.

However, outside of that, I would agree that it can be something of a taboo topic. But, I would also say that many people I come in contact with on a day to day basis would recoil from any sort of "deep" conversation. So maybe it's not so much the topic of death itself but venturing into areas of weakness and vulnerability that take people aback.

I caught some motivation and I'm moving along pretty swiftly. In the past month I've finished The Odyssey (listening to the audiobook helped so much!), Greek Lyrics, and I should finish the last play in the Oresteia trilogy within a few days.

I don't expect I'll be able to finish Medea by the end of this month but I think I should be able to participate in the next group read. I'm so happy to finally be catching up! (Note: I will be reading other things alongside The Histories because it seems like that was a troublesome read for many)

I will probably slow down in September, though, because I will be traveling for almost a month. First to visit family for a week and then to Iceland for 2.5 weeks! I bought a book of Icelandic Sagas to accompany my trip so that will likely be my primary read.

All in all, though, I seem to be on track in most areas of my reading plan for the year, so I am happy.

I really enjoyed this play - probably more than Agamemnon.

One thing I've really enjoyed as I make my way through these early stories is finding thoughts that are universal - or at least were passed down to us from the Greeks. I found quite a few of these in The Libation-Bearers.

"the day of death and doom
Awaits alike the freeman and the slave" No one can escape death - pretty much the most universal thing there could ever be.

"Children are memory's voices, and preserve
the dead from wholly dying: as a net
Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,
Which save the flex-mesh, in the depth submerged."
I feel like this is an idea or concern that still exists but is somewhat dying. I don't find many young people who are very concerned with passing down their name or having kids in order to be remembered. The thought still lingers but it's not the sort of motivation it used to be.

I found it very interesting how Orestes responded to committing murder. He had very mixed emotions.
"I now stand here,
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing--"
I think he's in a panic, trying to grasp what he's just done, and it is obvious by the end that he is starting to lose his mind.

I also found what the chorus says in response to the previous line very interesting/poetic.

"Alas, that none of mortal men
Can pass his life untouched by pain!
Behold, one woe is here --
Another loometh near."

I'm excited to finish up this trilogy and find out more about the Furies and who they actually are, and to see how everything wraps up.

I watched the recording of Agamemnon that I listed above and it was very compelling. I believe I remember learning that they used masks and that women characters would be played by men in ancient Greece, so this version seemed similar to what the original audience would have seen (although the translation seems odd so there might have been some artistic liberties taken here).

I have to admit, though, that I found some parts really unintentionally funny. When they would play dramatic music and zoom in on each face/mask, it made me laugh. And Clytemnestra's intensity and body language was sometimes humorous, especially knowing it was a man.

And this one:
"Hold my jacket, somebody, while I hit Boupalos in the eye.
I can hit with both hands, and I never miss punches" Hipponax #4

This just feels so modern (although, if it was written today, I wonder how many people would consider it poetry?). People don't really change, do they?

Edit: Oh how perfectly my history reading is lining up with TWEM books! Just after posting this, I read in The Life of Greece by Will Duarnt:
"Hipponax, who towards 550, composed poems so coarse in subject, obscure in language, pointed in wit, and refined in metric style, that all Greece began to talk about him, and all Ephesus to hate him. He was short and thin, lame and deformed, and completely disagreeable... He was a ruthless satirist, and lampooned every notable in Ephesus from the lowest criminal to the highest priest of the temple. When two sculptors, Bupslus and Athenis, exhibited an elegant caricature of him he attached them with such corrosive verse that some of it has proved more durable than their stone, and sharper than the teeth of time. 'Hold my coat,' says a typically polished morsel; 'I shall hit Bupalus in the eye. I am ambidextrous, and I never miss my aim.' Tradition said that Hipponax died by suicide; but perhaps this was only a universal wish." (p. 143-144)

THIS is why I'm reading Durant alongside all these other books. The historical background makes it so much more interesting (and in this case, hilarious).

I'm just starting this book and this quote stuck out to me:
"And who seduced the common sense
in which you once were so secure?" (Archilochus #29)

I love to see sass and snark have existed through the ages.

Hopefully soon I will be reading some of the plays from the list. My intention is to read each play in one go and then hopefully watch a performance of the play (or maybe vice versa - I haven't quite decided). I haven't searched too heavily but I was wondering if anyone knows of any good resources where I might find recordings of performances.

Would anyone be interested if I compiled a list here as I found them?

Edit: Here we go then!

Agamemnon by Aeschylus: Part 1 Part 2

I finally finished The Iliad and now I am excited to tackle more of my list! I'll probably wrap up my analysis of The Iliad tomorrow and then I'm jumping straight into The Odyssey. I'm hopeful I can get through it in less time because The Iliad took me about 3 months and at that pace I'll be dead before I get through even a small portion of my list.

I'm also probably going to take a trip to the quirky used book store nearby. The place has books piled from floor to ceiling with weird trinkets all over. It's run by an older woman named Fluffy who recently had a stroke but didn't let that stop her. The only compromise she made was to cut a day and only be open 50 hours a week, compared to her previous 60. The woman is a beast and I want to support her.

A couple days ago I (finally!) finished Don Quixote. So I decided to even out the bulk of that book with a short one: Night by Elie Wiesel. I just finished that one and the juxtaposition of the two is interesting.

Don Quixote was about disenchantment with life - choosing a fairy tale world over reality. I can sympathize with that. I pondered that if reality is so terrible, can't it be better to live in a delusion? Sure, none of it is real, but does truth really matter so long as you're happy? But then I was slapped in the face with Night. That reality was horrifying - probably the worst any of us could imagine. And we have a duty to not ignore the truth, as terrible as it might be.

I still have a lot to process with both books but I have the next few days off work to do that. I have one more chapter in the first part of Our Oriental Heritage and then I'll jump over to The Life of Greece. I'm hoping to make a lot of headway in that over the next few days so that I can start The Iliad within a week or two.

Alright, well then here I go.

This book didn't really hit me hard until the end.
(view spoiler)[I learned pretty early on that Don Quixote was going to die at the end but it turned out to be a profoundly sad scene to me. At the end, he realized that everything he had been living for was meaningless and he seemed full of regret. I found it especially interesting how his friends and family tried to comfort him with his delusions even though he came to his senses and realized what was true and what was false.

Another thing that hit me was how, as I watched the Duke and Duchess use Don Quixote and Sancho as toys for their entertainment, I (as the reader) became kind of protective. I thought the actions of the Duke and Duchess were cruel and mocking. But doesn't that point the finger back at me? Aren't I gaining amusement and pleasure by watching these two characters make fools of themselves too? (hide spoiler)]