When I was a child my favourite movie was Clash of the Titans - the 1981 film with Maggie Smith as Athena and Laurence Olivier as Zeus. Medusa was, and is, the scariest monster I have ever seen on TV and I regularly had to leave my light on when I went to sleep because I thought she was going to come and slither up the stairs and turn me to stone.
Anyway, from a young age I’ve had a healthy obsession with Greek Mythology and I’ve read many, many books on the subject. My favourite story still to this day has always been Perseus and his hunt for Medusa, so I was overjoyed to see that Fry was continuing his jaunt into the Greek myths after Mythos with an account of the golden age of the Heroes. They’re all here - the labours of Heracles, Theseus and the Minotaur and Oedipus among others (including my beloved Perseus), and they’re retold in the easy accessible way Fry has with words. I’ve read these stories so many times, but Fry genuinely manages to make them less convoluted and confusing (which is so easy to do with these tales when there is no single original source and the family trees are a little large and rather incestuous), while still managing to entertain and make me laugh.
None of the richness to the stories is lost, and you can tell that Fry has a genuine passion and knowledge of the subject (the footnotes alone denote a higher level of understanding than most), while giving sources to further reading if one wishes. The conversational tone really lends itself well to these stories, and you can almost image Fry standing in front of you (or sat round a hearth) reciting them. Its been wonderful to dip back into this vast history and I sincerely hope that Fry continues to cover the rise and fall of Troy in another edition to the series (it’s hinted at) to complete this ‘set’ of Greek myths and tales.
Anyway, from a young age I’ve had a healthy obsession with Greek Mythology and I’ve read many, many books on the subject. My favourite story still to this day has always been Perseus and his hunt for Medusa, so I was overjoyed to see that Fry was continuing his jaunt into the Greek myths after Mythos with an account of the golden age of the Heroes. They’re all here - the labours of Heracles, Theseus and the Minotaur and Oedipus among others (including my beloved Perseus), and they’re retold in the easy accessible way Fry has with words. I’ve read these stories so many times, but Fry genuinely manages to make them less convoluted and confusing (which is so easy to do with these tales when there is no single original source and the family trees are a little large and rather incestuous), while still managing to entertain and make me laugh.
None of the richness to the stories is lost, and you can tell that Fry has a genuine passion and knowledge of the subject (the footnotes alone denote a higher level of understanding than most), while giving sources to further reading if one wishes. The conversational tone really lends itself well to these stories, and you can almost image Fry standing in front of you (or sat round a hearth) reciting them. Its been wonderful to dip back into this vast history and I sincerely hope that Fry continues to cover the rise and fall of Troy in another edition to the series (it’s hinted at) to complete this ‘set’ of Greek myths and tales.
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