I Read Books: Tales From Ovid
Ted Hughes' translation of some of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In other words, Ovid took some myths that interested him, focusing on transformation, and used them to write whatever he thought was cool about them. 2000 years later Hughes came along and did the same thing.
There’s a lot of good stuff here, though when I say that, far too many of the transformations come about because somebody has been raped, or been a victim, or are being punished for being raped or otherwise a victim of cruelty; and of the crimes that people commit the worst punished is hubris, rivalling the gods.
Read This: For an idiosyncratic selection of Roman Myths, put into powerful verse form.
Don’t Read This: If the weird doings of mythical characters, loosely and incoherently linked, will just aggravate you
Comments