Eden

I've come to the conclusion that with Le Guin's work, by far the smartest thing to do in a review is to do the linguistic equivalent of smiling, vaguely, mysteriously, and nodding slightly. You look smarter that way.

Probably the best way to read The Compass Rose does not involve a distracting girlfriend or a reading list as long as your leg with a time limit of about a month. As always, though, Ursula Le Guin's writing is beautiful, and her ideas are amazing and clever. "Some Approaches to the Problem of the Shortage of Time", for example. A touch silly, a touch political (or I thought so, anyway: it looks much like commentary on global warming to me!). Some of her little phrases or conversations in this book made me grin. For example, from "The Water is Wide":

"I have to get out, Anna."
"You're not well yet."
"I am not a patient. I am impatient. Help me get out. Please."
"Why, Gid? What for?"
"They won't let me go where I have to go."
"Where do you have to go?"
"Mad."

Some of the stories, though, I just didn't get. I like Le Guin best when she's expanding her ideas out into a novel.

Just finished reading Accelerando, by Charles Stross. It's a sci-fi book, and tosses around words like singularity and wetware and all kinds of words that seem to be required knowledge for reading sci-fi (since I recognise them from Ken MacLeod's books). To be honest, I'm rapidly discovering I'm out of my depth with a lot of sci-fi. I'm alright with Le Guin, Alastair Reynolds, Tad Williams and Asimov, but a lot of the rest is beyond me.

Most of the book basically flew right over my head. The characters weren't that special, either. About half way through the book I got more interested in it all -- perhaps because I finally got into the world and characters a little.

I'm pretty sure that for someone who reads more sci-fi, or maybe does physics and also knows a bit about business/law, it would have been a really, really interesting book. Some of the ideas intrigued me. It felt very, very fast paced -- which makes sense, considering the speed of the world its set in -- and felt to me like a succession of ideas, none of which were fully realised.

Really, I was left with the overwhelming feeling that I am not the target audience for the book. It's not keeping me from picking up one of Charles Stross' other books, Singularity Sky, but that's only because I already have it. I don't think I'd buy it.

In this post, I am going to tl;dr about the epics, by which I mean the ones I've studied: The Iliad and The Odyssey, from Homer, and The Aeneid, Virgil. They are all epic poems, regardless of how the translators lay them out. The two by Homer are oral epics, which means they're meant to be heard and not read, while The Aeneid is intended to be read.

My biggest beef is when people read the oral epics and say that they hate them because there's so much repetition. There's a funny thing about that: it was necessary. Many, many people had to memorise the whole thing. Yes. The whole thing. One person would carry the whole of The Odyssey around in their head. That's that the epithets are there for. There are short epithets, long epithets, medium epithets -- all designed to fit in wherever an epithet is needed, finishing up the meter. That was down to the storyteller themselves. It might change every time they told the story.

I'm looking at the author of one of the "how to write" books with stabby things in my eyes at this point. Homer's use of the phrase "rosy-fingered dawn" was perfectly acceptable, for an oral epic.

Related to this but not the same is when people reading it in translation start going on about how Virgil was a crappy writer. He wrote it in Latin. Latin! The words you are reading are not his! I haven't read it in Latin either, so I'm going to do the smart thing and reserve judgement. If you make a judgement while reading the translation, all you are doing is judging the translator! Also, bear in mind, he hadn't even finished some of the lines. It was not a complete epic.

The other thing that bugs me is when people say they're all too formulaic. And it's true that if you look at Virgil's Aeneid, the first six books mirror the Odyssey and the last six mirror the Iliad. He was trying to write a great epic, according to the forms of his day. I don't quite have the stuff on hand about it, but the fact was that he had to include a romance, a trip to the underworld, heavenly intervention and the rest to make it actually fit the definition of an epic. Also, he was consciously trying to both emulate and rival Homer.

Also note under necessary part of an epic: catalogues. The catalogues of ships in the Iliad, the catalogue of women in the Odyssey, the catalogue of troops in the Aeneid -- all a necessary part of an epic, designed to add interest and historic detail. And also, it is theorised, to show off the superior memory of the person reciting them.

One I also just read was a criticism of how Virgil sold out. No, sorry, what? Many, many writers, even now, promote something with their books. Ursula Le Guin, I love you dearly, but I am looking at you right now. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that in his day it wasn't even an issue! Writing an epic to glorify Augustus and his empire? No problem! Nary an eyeblink.

Also, none of the sources we used ever suggested that Augustus specifically commissioned Virgil to write the Aeneid. They were friends, and discussed the matter, but I've never read that Augustus commissioned Virgil to write it.

Which is basically just my rant about applying modern values to an ancient piece of text. That applies to the treatment of women (patient, much enduring Penelope -- would any real woman put up with all that shit?) and many of the things you could gripe about in all three epics. Incidentally, if you read it properly you find that Dido is forced to fall in love with Aeneas, against her will, and it consumes her. That's where her madness and suicide spring from, not necessarily any time spent with Aeneas. Also, it does make mention of how Aeneas even starts helping out in Carthage, so I'm guessing he stays there a while and he and Dido are getting preeeetty comfy together in the meantime.

Also, yes, he is an asshole. I think that's strongly due to Virgil not writing about a character, which is something that should always be kept in mind when reading The Aeneid. He's writing about an idea, a principle. Aeneas is the embodiment of pietas, which means duty -- to one's gods, to one's home, to one's family. Dido is no responsibility of Aeneas', and commanded by the gods, he has to leave. It should be noted that Virgil is not without pity for Dido -- he is showing that sometimes empire costs.

Another thing that goes under the whole "remember the context this is set in" heading -- the gods. Magic. Goddesses. To you, it sounds daft. But it's not. Virgil -- and Homer -- were talking about things that to Romans (and Greeks) were taken for granted. Of course it was Athena who told Odysseus to do something. Of course Aeneas was the son of a goddess. Although, incidentally, I read some interesting stuff about the Aeneid where one possible interpretation is that all the gods are metaphors, symbolic of the problems Aeneas faces rather than actual characters.

But say what you like: complaining about the intervention of gods in an epic of that period is like complaining that the Bible uses a deus ex machina. Of course it does.

I'm not saying that anyone has to enjoy the epics -- I loathed great swathes of all three, when studying them -- but for god's sake, stop applying your modern values to Virgil and Homer as reasons why they suck and expecting me not to laugh in your face. You might not like them for those reasons, but back with their intended audience they were considered master-works. Even considering that Virgil never even finished The Aeneid.

Disclaimer: do note that from a university level Classicist's point of view, I might be wrong on some of these points, but they're right to the best of my (A Level) knowledge and independent research.

...And, heh, please don't feel personally insulted by this. It's not aimed at you, whoever you are! It's aimed at anyone I've ever discussed these books with, except maybe my Classics teacher who shared my frustration at people not understanding the fact that oh hay look we're reading these books in translation over two thousand years from when they were written.

Also, dorky moment! While reading the Iliad, I just found the place where Aeneas gets mentioned! 8D "The Dardanians were led by brave Aeneas, whom Venus bore to Anchises, when she, goddess though she was, had laid with him upon the mountain slopes of Ida."

Lately I've been reading books about writing -- partly out of curiosity, partly to see if there was anything they could teach me. The ones I've read so far are Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction (Lisa Tuttle), The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them) (Jack M. Bickham), 10 Steps To Making Memorable Characters and Steering the Craft (Ursula Le Guin).

( My thoughts, let me show you them )