Lies my Greek mythology book told me

I have this idea that at some point I'll start blogging some of the excellent sci-fi novels I've been reading for my summer (OK, now well into fall) self-assignment, but first, I want to talk about a book I recently took time out to reread. It's a book I adored as a child.

(Have you ever done that? It's kind of amazing, isn't it - how much books can change between your decades-old remembrance and your adult rereading. I can't wait until one of these tiny late-Gen Y-ers goes back and reads the Harry Potter series a decade later.)

Anyway, the book I just finished reading is D'Aualaires' Book of Greek Myths, and it basically forms the foundation for everything I know about Greek mythology. It contains a huge variety of myths, all gorgeously illustrated.


(I remember trying to sketch the illustrations from the book myself and producing a fair imitation of Artemis. The book, incidentally, was passed to me and my sister by our mother; we later came across an old sketch pad of hers that included an excellent rendition of Helen of Troy.)

It is hard to overstate how much this lovely book shaped my young mind. Years ago, the original book was flung across a room by my sister, which tore it apart; recently, hearing how much I had loved it, she bought me another copy - so I got to read it again.

And since it's a book intended for children, there are parts that are really, really funny now. The story of the Minotaur is probably my favorite example:

But Queen Pasiphaë was so taken by the beauty of the bull that she persuaded the king to let it live. She admired the bull so much that she ordered Daedalus to construct a hollow wooden cow, so she could hide inside it and enjoy the beauty of the bull at close range.

And the illustration is of Pasiphaë sitting inside the wooden cow, peeking over the top of it and just looking at the nice bull. Hello, nice bull! How are you? And then, it's so weird how Poseidon is all mad and makes her miraculously pregnant with the half-man-half-bull monster somehow!

Also, this hand-waving of Zeus and his many affairs is pretty funny:

Zeus loved Hera dearly, but he was also fond of rocky Greece. He often sneaked down to earth in disguise to marry mortal girls. The more wives he had, the more children he would have, and all the better for Greece! All his children would inherit some of his greatness and become great heroes and rulers.

AWESOME. Fellas, definitely try this line (do not try this line) the next time your lady catches you stepping out on her. "I love you, sweetie, I do - but if we ever want this nation to prosper, it simply must be populated with my offspring!"

But the book is still a fantastic read. Here are a few more observations from this time around:

- My favorite story is still that of Melampus, the hero who could talk to animals. He gets his power in repayment for a good deed, and unlike so many Greek heroes, he never experiences that whole hubris/fall from grace thing. (He totally overcharges a king for saving his daughters from madness, though. Wikipedia suggests the women were dangerous, but the D'Aualaires describe them as more embarrassing than anything else; all they do in the book is run around mooing and shouting, "We are cows! We are cows!" So I guess we could chalk that up to Melampus taking advantage of the king's pride.)

- My other favorite story as a kid, the tale of Selene and Endymion, is just creepy now. If it happened today, Endymion would write a tell-all book, Roofied by the Moon.

- People remember Heracles' immense strength, but I had forgotten how clever he is. Over the course of his 12 labors, he had to figure out how to kill any number of strange beasts that revived in unusual ways, he figured out how to use water power to do one of his tasks for him, he understood the implications of capturing one of Artemis' sacred hinds and never loses patience while pursuing the creature, and he tricks a Titan. He basically never screws up - all the trouble in his life comes from jealous interlopers.

- The story of Jason and the Argonauts is like the Real World/Road Rules All-Star Reunion Challenge of Greek myths. Everyone is there. Sure, Heracles is there! Two winged children of the wind, why not? Oh, and Orpheus is there too! ... I know I said he was torn apart by Menaeds, but that was later on!


Anyway, if you would like a beautifully illustrated, squeaky-clean retelling of a ton of Greek myths, this is your book. I'm so happy I have a copy again - thank you, Katie!

(All images come from this site.)

2009: The Summer of Sci-Fi

John Hodgman, look what you started.

Hodgman gave a very nice speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner ...



... and it made me want to increase my nerd cred. Which I am sorely lacking.

The thing is, I identify with nerds, but I have trouble with the major shibboleths. I don't know much about computers. I like science but didn't go into a scientific field, and while I did OK in math, it was still my worst subject. I never read comic books as a kid, and now I fear I will never catch up on the mythology. While I claim to be a Star Trek fan, I've seen precisely one TOS episode. (In my family, we watched the movies and TNG - was TOS even in syndication in the '90s? OK, it almost certainly was.)

And I've never read many of the classics of science fiction. When some nerd references Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke, I have no choice but to respond with a blank stare.

God, I'm such a poser. (Am I actually a geek instead of a nerd? I hear varying accounts of what the terms mean ...)

But no more! Because Hodgman's speech reminded me I need to read Dune, and because I'm in the middle of Neuromancer, I decided to declare 2009 the Summer of Sci-Fi! Over the next 10 weeks, I will catch up on the books I should have read in ninth grade when all the other kids were befriending seniors so they'd use their fake IDs to buy them Zima (note to my parents: this is not what all the other kids were doing).

(What was I reading back then? I want to say ... Stephen King? Cynthia Heimel? Jane Austen, maybe, but I think that was more of a college thing for me.)

Anyway, I started with this list I found of top sci-fi novels, thinking I could round out the top 10, and then I asked Mr. W (a consummate nerd) for suggestions and substitutions based on what we could find in his prodigous bookshelves. (Dude needs a card catalog and a little ladder on wheels like now.)

Here's the list:

• Neuromancer by William Gibson (in progress)
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlen
• Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling
• The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
• Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
• Codgerspace by Alan Dean Foster (this is not a book or author I've ever heard of, so I don't know whether it's a classic, but Mr. W said it's good, and it has a robot/dinosaur/toaster on the cover, so I'm game)

Dear me, when am I going to find the time to read all those books by September? Perhaps someone would like to pay me? Like, enough so that blogging about reading novels can be my full-time job? Thanks - I appreciate it!

Book review: In Defense of Food

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

These are the seven words that began Michael Pollan's New York Times Magazine piece "Unhappy Meals," printed in the beginning of last year. They are also the seven words featured on the cover of his new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. (You'll notice it printed on the cord that binds that delicious-looking lettuce - an odd choice of imagery, if you ask me. Even if you don't ask me, actually.)

The ironic thing about this book is that my main criticism of it was summed up by Pollan himself, in his Times article:

I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words.

Which is basically what he's done in In Defense of Food.

The book is divided into three parts: the first two (which are rather ill-defined and therefore run together in my head) describe how the "Western diet" values nutrients over actual foods (and to a lesser extent the ways in which this attitude has been shaped by capitalism); how lifestyle-related ailments (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) are so prevalent in the U.S. compared to cultures with traditional diets, for a time they were known as the "Western diseases"; how the science of nutrition is not a good thing to be basing your diet upon. You get the picture.

And frankly, it's a dull, stretched-out sort of picture, taking the premises laid out in his magazine piece and spinning them out to a hundred or so book pages.

The premise of these sections is, "Look, two hundred years ago we thought we knew everything there was to know about food. Then we discovered vitamins and thought that was the key. Now everyone's talking about omega-3s and antioxidants, and again we think we know it all. Well, we probably don't - so why not look at the diets and lifestyles of cultures that are healthier than us and try to emulate them?"

Which you kind of get the point of after just one reading, right? But Pollan just keeps hitting us over the head with studies and history and details, striving for that magical page count where he can justify selling the book as a hardback for $21.95. The only way he could've been more obvious is if the book were typed in double-spaced 13.5-point Courier New with 1.25-inch margins.

After these rambling pages, the third section is a big improvement - a fleshing-out of those seven words Pollan keeps repeating. He lays out five or so guidelines under the heading of each sentence in his "manifesto": under "Eat Food" you'll see things like, "If your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, you probably shouldn't eat it" and "Shorten the chain between you and the farmer." This, he says in the book's introduction, is in response to people asking him in the wake of his immensely popular The Omnivore's Dilemma - at its best, a polemic against the industrialization of the American diet - "Well, then, what should we be eating?"

Mr. W won't like to hear this, since he's anti-Pollan for reasons far too numerous to mention here - but one of the guidelines actually reminded me of him. Mr. W prefers to choose his bread based on what has the fewest ingredients, explaining that good bread has no need for things like high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Pollan is right there with him - only he expands this rule to include all foodstuffs. "Don't buy foods with more than five ingredients," he says.

Hmm - no foods at all with more than five ingredients? That's a bit impractical, isn't it? Which is kind of the point of this Slate review of In Defense of Food:

Buy a hog? An entire hog? Cut it up and put the pieces in a freezer? I'm a fan of Michael Pollan's work, but he does have a tendency to hurtle himself into the stratosphere like an errant missile, then plummet back to earth and casually pick up where he left off. This time it's on Page 168 of his latest book, In Defense of Food: One minute he's carefully explaining the difference between "free-range" and "pastured" eggs, the next minute he's perched on his own private planet brandishing a grocery list that might as well be headed "carrots, magic."

It's a nice review, worth reading especially for the "gotcha" moment in the final paragraph, when the Slate reviewer points out that even Pollan cannot always live up to his own lofty foodie standards.

So, the first two sections of In Defense of Food are clearly stretched out to fulfill a page count, and the last section suggests I forage for wild field greens and buy a freezer for storing entire pigs.

And yet ... I enjoyed this book. (Not enough to pay list price, though - I bought it at the Enquirer book sale for $3, and it was worth every penny.) I liked the idealistic picture it paints of people coming together and sharing fresh food they've prepared (perhaps even grown) themselves. I like the idea of passing up processed and pre-prepared foods in favor of whole foods. Not all of it is practical, but it is inspiring. Pollan's "manifesto," in more words than he himself used, is really, "Think more, and more critically, about the stuff you put into your body." That's a philosophy I can get behind.

So, gentle readers, my recommendation to you w/r/t In Defense of Food: If you crave inspiration and a few nice tips on how to eat more thoughtfully, pick up this book from the library or bargain bin. (I wouldn't pay more than $5 for it, though - that's how much it would cost if it were the slim paperback treatise it really ought to be.) If you find your eyes glazing over at some point during the first hundred pages, feel free to skip ahead to that third section; you won't be missing much.