As a week's worth of time sauntered by, it wore away the brisk and harsh emotions I had regarding this website after last week's colossal mishap, and now I am here, cool-headed and determined to finish this week's post with little problems.
A Week Stuck in the Trojan War
This week I made a revisit schedule to the Trojan plains where war once raged. In Emily Hauser's book I gained clarity on the event once more when I finished reading it this week, after a year and a half leaving it, which sat with the company of other books.
In hope to have a glance on my thoughts about this book, I went back to the post I wrote in the past. Much to my dismay, the me in the past was more concerned about the condition in which this secondhand book was purchased through Amazon from a British library. I spent more time writing about my warring thoughts on whether to remove the library tags on the book or not, indecisive like a kid who still couldn't decide what he wants for Christmas.
So now I am on my own, apparently.
First, I want to praise the enchanting writing style of the author, Emily Hauser.
The fonts were of normal size, much smaller than the font in which you are reading at the moment, ensuring the length of the story that was tucked into this book of almost 400 pages. With the length of the story as well as the detailed writing of the settings of nobles and peasants alike, it was surprising not stuffing at all. With little effort, you can easily follow the flow of the plot at a fast but relaxing pace, and you still have the time to raise your head from the book and smile a knowing smile when a reference to the Greek Gods was passably apt. The "melody" of this style of writing pleases me quite much.
Now, to make up for the deficit of thoughts on the actual book in my first read, I am here to offer my opinion on the story itself.
Among all tales of Greek mythology, I am the most familiar with the Trojan War, whose wrenching tragedy was preserved up until now through Homer's Iliad.
Since Homer was said to be a Greek, it was inferred that the war he recounted would be though the eyes of a Greek. The Trojan Prince, Paris, abducted the beautiful Helen, wife of Menalaus from Sparta, hence the decade-long war broke across the horizon as a thousand ships of Greek warrior brought wreckage upon the Trojans. It would be much easier to use a Greek hero's perspective -Big Ajax, Machaon, for example- if any author wishes to do an adaption from this tale. Emily Hauser, took an adventurous detour into the palace and the village of Troy and showed the war and how if unfolded through the lenses of another side of the battle. More impressively, she utilized the two characters that was not much thought of in the original Iliad: the daughter of a priest and a villager who was later captured to be a slave girl serving Achilles. From what I can think of, this road taken by Hauser brought herself two advantages: By using a perspective not often thought of, the blank parts could be filled up with the author's imagination without making the War into another different one; by doing so, the brand new focus would shine its own lustre, attracting readers, familiar with the original story or not to get to know about this adapted tale.
The story also made it really clear, that in the Greek system of religion, we humans really are noting more than creature that walk upon earth with two legs. People send the Gods prayers that were easily neglected, and the Gods would never grant anyone's wish unless it is a passage to his/her own objectives (that, or the Gods are bored) The war was not lit up because Paris chose the Goddess of beauty as the winner of a beauty contest, but because the Gods and Goddesses are having a hard time seating themselves still on their marble-polished thrones. Achilles didn't rampage the villages out of his own pleasure, but was in fact forced to fight and kill when he had puppet strings attached to his joints the instant he was born as the son of a Goddess. Humans are not the mastermind of anything; we are all just a flesh-made soldier figurines set on chess board. We think that humans are in control of a lot of things, that Gods are attentive to our prayers and our wishes as if they, instead of the other way round, are our humble servant, eager to pull gold out of thin air. We are not. That is the biggest lesson Greek mythology taught me, I realized.
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| In a comfy cafe called Peppermint Night |
Anyway, I now have already figured out my next book, and the theme was almost a heavy as war.
It's a book that made its own account of self-harming.
Pokemon GOing with Mother
I know that this is an old cellphone game of three years whose player's average age in a rising tendency, but the animated Pokemon TV series has always be in my childhood, and I was just tempted again and again by the notion that you can catch more of them by just walking on the streets.
These days, though, I have someone to join me. My mother.
I always know that Mom is someone with a really open mind, even before her very resolute verbal support on my being gay, but it never occurred to me that she would be entertained by this cellphone game. She is next to me when I am on the streets these days, though.
When she doesn't have a shift in her convenience store, she would ask me where we could go for Pokemon hunting, and I would find some place, far or just around our house, and she would mostly gladly follow. I have stopped letting myself wonder why she would play such game with me, but to start enjoy our little excursions just before I have to head for Germany (I'm still waiting for the schools to examine my files)
I know I am dreading the day I leave as much as I look forward to it.
This is the end for this week.
Sincerely,
Hugo
