Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.I read The Odyssey in college. I’d been aware of it before then, in that way any bright teen reader is: one runs into its figures here and there or else the whole thing gets boiled down into a chapter in a book on Greek mythology. (I believe I’d also seen it referenced in Ray Harryhausen movies.)
I read it for a class, one of the brief ones squeezed in between semesters, a one-credit class called On the Road, which focused on (naturally enough) stories of the road, including Kerouac’s book.
What: The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus as he makes his way back through a series of dangerous encounters to his wife Penelope, who is facing off dangers of her own at home.
Who: Anyone who wants to be familiar with one of the fountains so many stories, in so many art forms, are drawn from should read this.
Why: Because it’s a classic. It’s good for you AND it’s a really good story.
When: Read it when you want to return to the bones of writing. Read it in conjunction with Robert Grave’s Homer’s Daughter, which posits a different author for it.
Where and how: Read it aloud, the way it’s meant to be heard. Read it in one of the many good translations that treat it like the poetry it is, such as Robert Fitzgerald’s. Or if you’re privileged enough to know ancient Greek, let it sing to you in that form.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Media Consumed in August
I had plenty of travel time in August, so yay for reading. My primary focus this month was to read as many of the Dragon Award nominees as I could before voting, but there were a number I just didn’t get to or did not finish. I had read some before, luckily, and am particularly pulling for D.B. Butler’s Witchy Eye, which I loved.
Works that are bolded are ones I found particularly outstanding or otherwise remarkable and would recommend.
Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine
Peter S. Beagle: Summerlong
Betsy Cornwall: Mechanica. I wanted to like steampunk Cinderella, but it didn’t feel very new.
Nathan Crowder: Ride Like the Devil (lots of fun for fellow Seattleites)
Pippa DaCosta, The Heartstone Thief
Robert Dugoni: The Trapped Girl (could have done without the complaints about the various restrictions the legal system places on police officers) Patrick Edwards: Space Tripping A.W. Exley: Ella the Slayer (I really did not expect to like Cinderella + zombies).
Kate Elliott: Court of Fives, The Poisoned Blade Ruthanna Emrys: Winter Tide. If you like Lovecraft novels, you need this one.
Carrie Fisher: The Princess Diarist
Eric Flint: 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught
Amy S. Foster: The Rift Uprising Theodora Goss: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter FABULOUS and is the 19th century equivalent of Cat Valente’s The Refrigerator Monologues)
Brian Guthrie: Rise
Renee Carter Hall: Huntress (loved this, but book is structured in a frustrating way) Elizabeth Hand: Aestival Tide, Icarus Ascending
Faith Hunter: Blood of the Earth Shirley Jackson: Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings. Not enough writing on craft, but what there is, is solid.
Dennis Lehane: Prayers for Rain Alison Littlewood, The Hidden People
Gabrielle Matheiu: The Falcon Flies Alone. Modern melodrama that pulls from all over the place in a way that is unexpected. Robert McCammon: Gone South. McCammon is the frickin’ BEST at this sort of novel. Delicious.
Brian Niemeier, The Secret Kings
Richard Paonelli: Escaping Infinity
Lucian Randolph: The God in the Clear Rock (has my vote for most attention paid to a point of view character’s breasts in a book)
Delia Sherman: The Porcelain Dove (very pretty, but the structure makes it feel as though the book evaporates away just as you hit the end)
Shayne Silvers: Beast Masters Dale Ivan Smith: Empowered: Agent
Safari Spell: Long Live Dead Reckless Arkadi and Boris Strugatski: The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn
Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread
R.R. Virdi: Dangerous Ways Martha Wells: The Edge of the World
Stuff I’m Watching: Big Brother (yes that’s my guilty pleasure and I don’t know which I loathe more, Josh or Paul), The Defenders, Orphan Black Season 5, Rick and Morty. Watched BRILLO BOX (3¢ OFF), which was an intriguing documentary if you have any interest in Warhol. Also Extraordinary: The Stan Romanek Story, which I thought was pretty silly.
You Should Read This: An Appreciation of Maya Angelou
This picture makes me happy. What a well-deserved honor. I first read Maya Angelou at twelve or thirteen, with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I was a white Midwestern girl with an academic and a journalist as parents and the world Angelou described was so different from my own experience that it helped me learn early that there were outlooks beyond my own.
Later I’d come to her poetry at a time when my ears were ready to drink it in. Her voice was sharp and observant, outspoken and nuanced all at once. Here’s one of my favorites among her poems, “I Rise.”
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Learning of her death this morning was a blow. She was bold and wonderful and eloquent, all that a poet should be. She spoke about our times and testified to her experience so others could learn from it. I have a special family in her heart, made up of the writers that have shaped me. Chaucer’s there, and Joanna Russ, and so many others. I wish I’d had the chance to meet her in person.
Here’s a recent quote from her I came across this morning and love: The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
I’m glad you’re home, Maya. But oh, those of us still aching for it will miss you.
