Top Ten Dogs from Literature

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish is a freebie week, so I decided to pick my top ten dogs I love from different books. 

 

1) Charley from Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley; a road-tripping dog.

2) The brilliant “watchdog” Tock from The Phantom Tollbooth

3) Odysseus’ dog Argos from The Odyssey; never stops hoping to see his master again.

4) Hagrid’s dog Fang from the Harry Potter series

5) Mr. Rochester’s dog Pilot from Jane Eyre

6) Crab from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona

7) Kojak from The Stand; the most loyal pup ever.

8) Nana from Peter Pan, who wouldn’t want a nanny that’s a dog?

9) The Starks’ direwolves from Game of Thrones (I know they aren’t technically dogs)

10) Harold from the Bunnicula series.

Top 10 Contemporary Books Paired With a Classic

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for the top 10 contemporary books that would be great paired with a required reading book. I picked one classic and one recent book for each pair. 

1) Howards End and On Beauty: These two are an obvious match. One is a book about the unlikely meeting of two very different families and the other is a modern re-telling of the same story. The two are just different enough to feel completely unique.

2) Little Women and March (by Geraldine Brooks): Four women grow up with their mother while their father is away fighting the Civil War. Little Women is famous for barely mentioning the patriarch of the clan, March tells his story.

3) Flowers for Algernon and Marcelo in the Real World: Two men with mental limitations try to find their way in the world. Both are characters that get under your skin and stay with you long after the final page.

4) King Lear and A Thousand Acres: Shakespeare and Iowa don’t seem like an obvious pairing, but the tragedy of a king and his daughters works well when retold as a Midwestern farmer and his troubled family.

5) Babbit and The Corrections: I think I’ve made it clear that I do NOT enjoy Franzen, but this pairing shows what works and what doesn’t. Both are books about unhappy Midwestern families, one does it well; the other just comes across as whiny.

6) Gone with the Wind and The March (E.L. Doctorow): A classic about the downfall of the South paired with a book about Sherman’s march through the South, burning it down as he goes. Bonus: Vanity Fair would be another great classic to pair with Gone with the Wind. The two share so much, including a kind and gentle heroine who is best friends with a selfish and ambitious woman.

7) A Moveable Feast and The Paris Wife or French Milk: Hemingway’s memoir about his time in Paris in the 1920s pairs nicely with the fictional version of his wife’s life during that same period. It would also work perfectly with French Milk, a twenty-something’s graphic novel about her trip to Paris.

8) The Sign of Four and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: Sherlock Holmes, the most famous detective of all-time and a 10-year-old with impressive deductive skills. Both have a hard time with normal social interaction, but they always solve the case.

9) The Iliad and The Odyssey and The Song of Achilles: Greek epic poetry can be daunting, but paired with this love story the characters might become more accessible.

10) The Secret Garden and The Forgotten Garden: Two novels about secret gardens, one meant for kids, the other with a gothic mystery twist.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey

by Homer

★★★★☆

After the ten-year Trojan War ends the warriors return to their home lands. Odysseus’ journey is longer than most because he has angered Poseidon. He runs into one obstacle after another as he fights to return to his wife and son. He fights a Cyclops, travels to the land of the dead, narrowly misses the call of the sirens and spends years trapped on Calypso's island. When he finally returns to Ithaca his home is filled with suitors attempting to woo his wife.  

I first read The Odyssey in high school, rereading it a decade later was a very different experience. This time I paid much more attention to Penelope’s story. She is such an incredible character. Her loyalty and patience is remarkable. Even though her husband has been gone for 20 years she still holds out that he is alive and will return to her. It made me wonder how long someone would wait nowadays. Obviously there were fewer communication options back then, but still a couple decades is a long time to hang on to hope.

Penelope is surrounded by suitors and keeps them at bay by telling them she’ll consider them once she finishes what she’s weaving. She weaves all day and then at night she undoes everything she’s woven. Margaret Atwood wrote an interesting novella about her story, The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus.

I enjoyed his son Telemachus’ journey. When his father leaves he is only a baby, but he’s grown to become a man in Odysseus’ absence and he longs to find his father. He isn’t sure if he should search for his father or stay and protect his mother, it’s a difficult decision.

For me, it’s important that Odysseus is not a god. He is just a mortal man. So many of the stories in Greek literature are about the gods or demigods. Odysseus is neither, he occasionally has help from the gods, like Athena, at other times he is persecuted by the gods, especially Poseidon, but he has none of their powers. He must rely on his intelligence and cunning to outsmart his captors.

BOTTOM LINE: An absolute must for classic lovers. It’s also one of the most accessible pieces of Greek literature and a gateway drug into that world.

p.s. This time around I listened to the Robert Fagles translation on audio and it was read by the magnificent Ian McKellen. I would highly recommend it!

I reread this as part of the readalong hosted by Allie at A Literary Odyssey

Also, in the book they climb Mount Parnassus. I’m even more excited to visit the Parnassus bookstore in Nashville next month!

Nikki at Book Pairings posted on this book today too!

Pairing Books with Movies: Greek Week Edition

  

There are dozens of films dealing with Greek gods and history. They range from an actual cartoon (Hercules) to cartoonishly bad movies (Clash of the Titans circa 1981). They tend to be on the epic side, but some embrace quieter stories. Here are a few that came to mind. Each would go well with any of the books I reviewed this week!

Troy (2004) / Hercules (1997) / 300 (2006)

 Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) / 

Clash of the Titans (1981 and 2010)

The Odyssey (1997) miniseries / Helen of Troy (2003) / Alexander (2004)

Are there any big ones I missed?

Greek Week: The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

★★★★★

Greek mythology, character-driven narrative with an epic story, a heartbreaking love story, these are a few of my favorite things all piled into one beautiful book. I couldn’t put it down; I didn’t want it to end. I finally started reading Edith Hamilton’s Mythology to slow my reading of this one.

Between The Odyssey, The Iliad, Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida and a college course on classical mythology, my knowledge of the Trojan War and the Greek heroes has been shaped and reshaped with different versions. Building on that base is this book, telling the story of Achilles and Patroclus. Throughout those other sources the pair has been painted as friends, brothers, lovers, etc. but one thing never changes: they are inseparable. They are dearer to each other than their own lives.

The first half of the book is the story of how they meet and the beginning of their friendship. The second half is the well-known story of the Trojan War. It’s retold through Patroclus’ eyes, which gives the whole tale a very different spin. All the familiar faces are there: Agamemnon, Odyssey, Hector, Paris, Zeus, Athena, etc., but many of them feel slightly different in this version.

Patroclus himself is a thoughtful, sensitive boy. He’s so unlike the other Greek warriors when it comes to brute strength, but his strength comes in a very different form. He’s willing to love against all odds, even when he knows it will end in a broken heart.

The reason this retelling resonated with me in such a powerful way is because of the characters themselves. Miller makes them so relatable. You feel for them in a way that you usually don't when you read books on classical mythology.

Chiron and Briseis particularly stood out for me. Chiron is a centaur who trains both Achilles and Patroclus for years in his rose-colored cave on a mountain-side. He is wise and kind and his home is a peaceful one, a complete change from the battle driven world they had become accustomed to. Briseis on the other hand is brought into Patroclus’ world in the midst of a bloody war. She is a prize from battle, but their friendship blossoms despite the circumstances and we see the best of Patroclus because of her.

BOTTOM LINE: I loved it. Sometimes a book lives up to the hype and this one did for me. I can’t say that you’d feel the same if you don’t already like Greek Mythology, but it was an absolute treat for me.

“Did he know, or only guess at Achilles’ destiny? Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.”

**One quick note about the kindle version. There was one incredibly helpful feature that really enhanced my reading experience. The character’s name were highlighted and when you clicked on them it took you to a screen with a drawing (see above) and a summary of the character’s part in Greek mythology.

Other Thoughts:

Iris on Books

Fizzy Thoughts 

The Sleepless Reader 

What She Read

Booklust
Book Pairing 
Necromancy Never Pays