An American Education (was Beauty vs Beasts)

From: Mike Dawson <mdawson_at_...>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 14:44:38 -0000

Well, aside from the approximate story, I seem to have gotten almost everything wrong.

Thanks for the corrections, all. I won't be embarrassed next time.

I confess to not having read too much Euripides. My familiarity with the story comes from an extraordinary book by Robert Calasso, "The Wedding of Cadmus and Harmony."

This book grabs greek myth and squeezes, then lays it out on a table and dissects it so that you can see every connection. Greek myth is revealed as a monolith where every story has grown out of another, and every character is related to every other character somehow.

He spends quite a bit of time on Helen, who he identifies as the daughter of Power (Zeus) and Necessity (Nanki? I forget.)

One of a very few books I've ever read twice, and one I ought to read again soon. To keep this post on-topic, I'll point out that it's a tremendous resource for the design and understanding of Gloranthan myth.

If you can get this URL to work, it'll take you to a page for the book:

shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2K3GU2SALK&mscssid=R4VEVTP6B91P8LMDSXT5F1CGQQFV1VU0&sourceid=0000272202&salesurl=Rshop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp&isbn=0679733485

Mike