(no subject)

[thanate]

re-approaching normal; maybe it'll stick this time. After the startling realization that I was the one who needed sleep, rather than any number of figments of my imagination who apparently wanted me to sleep for them, I did in fact sleep a nice solid 6 hours straight last night, plus a couple nice solid blocks of time before and after, and have eaten more than once and stayed more or less awake most of today. My mother handed me a book this morning (Garth Nix, Mister Monday) which was pretty good... a little weird linguistically (part of the premise is that one of the characters is part of the Will of the creator of All, and there is a great deal of writing as power/making real) but an interesting slightly different take on the various western mythologies that tend to get mixed up together. Two things about it, though; first off, the "real world" from which the main character comes is succeptible to pretty serious (millions die in a few days sort of thing) infulenza epidemics, which isn't entirely the sort of thing one wants to read about while sick (well, ok, except for one of my ex-boyfriends who said he read The Stand every time he was sick...(which I haven't actually read, hence why I didn't catch your reference earlier, grauwulf, before I just looked up the wikipedia entry to make sure I had the title right)) despite that I don't feel the least bit inclined to die off at present.

But the other thing, that's sort of minorly annoying me: Why is it that people in children's fantasy books never recongize Prometheus? I mean, I've known who the chained counter-authority figure was for as long as I can remember (so definitely elementary school, probably 4th or 5th grade?) but kids much older than that totally fail to recognize him in fiction. Is this an authors underestimating their characters thing, or are most people really that clueless about basic mythology?

Comments

[gorbe-beryl.livejournal.com]

I had a college roommate who didn't know any of the greek/roman gods, which made me stop and think about where I had learned them. I couldn't remember being taught them in school.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I know I had a mythology unit in 6th grade. But I think I read the entire Edith Hamilton's Mythology before that for some reason (kind of a lot for a grade school kid, really) And I own a "new" copy of it because it was one of the required summer reading books for AP English in high school.

And there are all sorts of greek mythology picture books, lots of which have Prometheus in them (usually in conjunction with Pandora) but-- I just remembered this-- when I tried to do a folklore project in college of getting people to tell me their versions of the story of Prometheus and of Beauty & the Beast, I had to drop back to just doing B&B, because only about 3 of my sample actually knew Prometheus to tell at all, and one of those was a fellow classics major, and so was retelling straight out of Prometheus Bound...

I hate it when the things that are *obviously* common knowledge turn out to be stuff no one else has ever heard of.

[gorbe-beryl.livejournal.com]

Promethus and Pandora? [a quick internet search later] Huh. I knew the basic stories for both of them, but I never knew they were connected.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Greek Myths for Young Children by Marcia Williams (here (http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Myths-Children-Marcia-Williams/dp/1564024407)) is a fabulous, fabulous childrens book. With Prometheus and Epimetheus, and Pandora, and small nameless people being eaten by carnivorous horses. And other excellent things. You should look it up. It will make you happy.

[astormorray.livejournal.com]

we had a unit in 9th grade English. But, honestly, I can't think that was anything more than cursory. I read Hamilton earlier because my older sister had it when she was in 9th grade, too.

[gorbe-beryl.livejournal.com]

I remember doing the Odyssey in 9th grade English - each group had to illustrate a section of the story and then present it, so of course people only learned the section they did. I got to draw people drowning.

[skittblink.livejournal.com]

>>small nameless people being eaten by carnivorous horses>>

Yay!

Have you read Garth Nix's other books? I feel like I've asked you this before. I'm really fond of the whole Abhorsen trilogy.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I think I read Sabriel before the last one was out, and never got around to the others. It was pretty good, I think, but a long time ago...