Mythos

Cool book, although reading it all at once I found difficult - both times I did it. The thing is, I'm usually looking for the why in something. Why am I listening to this? Why are they telling this story? Is there a message, a learning, some wisdom I can draw from the ancients, that's still applicable today. The answer is, sometimes, yes, ish, a little. But very often no. And I don't know if this is because I lack context. Or if I haven't read enough in this style to intuit the subtext.

I loved hearing about the stories of creation, the characters (the gods, the titans, the mythical creatures), but I often found myself a little unable to map it to anything and remember what I'd listened to. In fact, the stories that led to words like arachnid stuck with me more than Zeus flippantly turning from hero to heel. I liked stories like Icarus flying too close to the sun, and I understood the learnings. But sometimes it just sounded like Zeus wanted to be a dictator, and drink a load of honey - with zero repercussions. Perhaps that is the lesson lol, life's a complex mess.

The context is, just because they're gods, it doesn't mean religion then has exact parallels with religion now. From what I understand, many of the older religions are more closely linked with nature, and using humanised metaphor as a way of feeling some grip on why nature is the way it is. Through this lens, many of the stories start to feel more at home.

So if you're looking to understand how the Greeks organised their feelings towards nature, Stephen Fry is excellent and I'd recommend it, but it's not for everyone, and it's rather long.