Name: Greek Mythology
ISBN: 9780500518328

David Stuttard

Lis Watkins

A hands-on traveler's guide to the enthralling tales of Greek mythology, organized around the cities and landscapes where the events are set

A Traveler's Guide

Greek Mythology

Tim Pendry

It has been a long time since I have enjoyed a book as much as this one. The author is a master of clear prose. This is by far the most relaxed and informative one volume popular account of the Greek myths that I have come across - enjoyable in part because he declines to give us a canon. The conceit (much like his sister book on Roman mythology which I have reviewed elsewhere) is to convey the Hellenic mythic heritage (which became our own heritage in the West) through place - the Greek World is both a fantasy and a reality insofar as myths can mostly be tied to locations. Hellenic mythology is not abstract. It is the fantastic located in a particular region and its landscape and in the struggles for power, status and sex amongst human beings not unlike ourselves. It is particular rather than universal which has always been a bit of a problem for the 'West'. Each of the 22 chapters is handled in precisely the same way with delicate unobtrusive illustrations breaking up the prose on the page - there is an apposite quotation from a Greek author, a rather poetic evocation of the location and then Stuttard tells the mythological tale. Stuttard positions gods and heroes in relation to each other and is not afraid to tell us when the sources give different interpretations of a myth. He then tells us the actual history of the place in question and what it has become, closing with a critical advisory section for visitors. I cannot think of a better popular introduction to the myths themselves with all their beauty and cruelty from Mount Olympus to the ancient site of the entrance to Hades by way of Eleusis, Delphi, Thebes and Troy, Heracles, Jason, Theseus and the House of Atreus.

Greek Mythology A Traveler's Guide

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