Stephen Fry's Mythos
2018-01-27 11:18
recommended

I loved Stephen Fry's Mythos. The myths of Ancient Greece were one of my favorite stories when I was a child even if they were available only in rather bland and partially censored Soviet form. I still remember the book called The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece by N. Koon, and I owe much of my love for literature to the stories of Kronos eating his children and Athena coming up with a brilliant reward-slash-punishment for Arachne's blasphemy.

Fry's retelling contains the myths of Titans and Gods: there is no Heracles, no Illiad, no Trojan War, because the stories of the Gods alone take up four hundred pages, and with all the heroes we would have had eight hundred—a size that would have stretched the the book's ability to be entertaining. From what I can tell, the text stays close to the sources while Fry does his best to inject a little levity into the story and make his unique voice shine through.

If I have one semi-complaint, it's that this is very much Stephen Fry's work: with the same wit and flourish that he speaks with, and in the beginning that was distracting for me. I usually prefer authors that do It didn't bother me one bit by the time I finished the book.

If you want to brush up on your Greek myths or plunge into them for the first time, then Mythos is an excellent choice.


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(c) Alex Kirko, 2023
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