Category Archives: myth

“The Pity War Distilled”

Posted on November 20, 2014 by readingmater

Euripides’ Trojan Women was written the year after Athens sacked and andropodised Melos. (That means killing all the men and enslaving all the women and children.) Conquering armies do not usually write plays from the point of view of the … Continue reading →

Posted in history, myth, poetry | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

When is a pond an Ocean? Ask Neil Gaiman.

Posted on November 22, 2013 by readingmater

When you are Lettie who has been eleven for a long time. The story is the story of a seven year old boy, now middle aged, who let a “flea” from outside the world into him, and even with the … Continue reading →

Posted in myth, Novels | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Arthur’s legend: Tolkien

Posted on November 16, 2013 by readingmater

The new Tolkien: Christopher, J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, has edited and published his father’s unfinished poem about King Arthur. His ambition was to give the English their own mythology- which he did in the end with Middle Earth and hobbits, elves … Continue reading →

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He who walks in pain

Posted on September 18, 2013 by readingmater

Sophocles told the story of Oedipus nearly twenty five hundred years ago, and it was an old story then. Freud famously used it in exploring his ideas about infantile sexuality and the mysterious workings of the human unconscious. Where Three … Continue reading →

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Stargate: a Sci Fi myth for our times.

Posted on September 13, 2013 by readingmater

Some of my favourite books are in our storage locker in California, since we sold our house and became nomads. Will I ever have a place to have them available again? One favourite, T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is at youngest … Continue reading →

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