{"id":232641,"date":"2025-05-09T11:53:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T11:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/update-and-book-group-report-annabookbel\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T11:53:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T11:53:48","slug":"update-and-book-group-report-annabookbel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=232641","title":{"rendered":"Update and Book Group report \u2013 AnnaBookBel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Firstly a quick update on the knee situation:  I had a guided steroid injection last week, but first the doctor took nearly 100ml of murky liquid out of the joint which relieved all the pressure on the tendons at the back of my knee.  Now the steroids are kicking in, my knee is back to normal \u2013 ie slightly arthriticky and stiff in the mornings but not yet too painful for a replacement op. I was so relieved that I could ditch my stick! <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018N\u2019 is for Narcissus \u2013 from Mythos by Stephen Fry<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019re working our way through our flora and fauna alphabet!  It\u2019s been more fauna than flora, so we snuck a flower in this month via the back door. The plan was to read the bit about the Narcissus myth, then as much of Fry\u2019s epic history of the Ancient Greek gods and goddesses as we had time for. Most of us managed at least half the book; I read about 220 pages, but will dip into the rest whenever I need to . Some listened on audio, read by Fry, and loved having him narrate to them, however, his voice leaps off the page too as his writing style in this book is like one big conversational aside.  <\/p>\n<p>Once we got beyond the more boring part of the world\u2019s creation according to the Ancient Greeks, featuring Chaos, Gaia and Ouranos etc and the second order of gods and godesses including Kronos and the Titans are introduced, Fry really hits his stride and the reader, although you may at first need to get your head around the sheer volume of names that get introduced, quickly gets absorbed into the eternal stories of the squabbling dieties!  <\/p>\n<p>Fry is good on etymology, explaining where many of our modern words come from, like \u2018echolalia\u2019 in the Narcissus and Echo story. He is also very good at building in references to modern culture to describe the deities\u2019 personalities \u2013 although I think he got a little too listy in this portrait of Kronos\u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>He was darkly handsome, certainly; and yes, he was moody. Had Kronos had examples to go by, he would perhaps have identified with Hamlet at his most introspective, or Jaques at his most self-indulgently morbid. Konstantin from <\/em>The Seagull<em> with a suggestion of Morrissey. Yet there was something of a Macbeth in him too and more than a little Hannibal Lecter \u2013 as we shall see.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As to favourite gods or goddesses, most of our group favoured Hera \u2013 who was treated appallingly by Zeus, but meted out terrible punishments herself. Persephone\u2019s story is another favourite, and Hestia, who gives up her throne to  Hermes to be with the people whose hearths she is goddess of, is the opposite of the selfish others. I very much enjoyed getting reacquainted with Athena, who springs, fully formed and armored, from Zeus\u2019s head!  I learned many details that had previously passed me by too \u2013 like the embryo Dionysus being born from Zeus\u2019 thigh, where he\u2019d been implanted from his mortal mother to prevent Hera\u2019s wrath reaching him. <\/p>\n<p>At the end of the book, Fry comments on sources, ancient and modern, and saying and writing all these names, concluding on pronunciation, \u2018Anyone who tells you that there is a definitive right or wrong can be doubted, in my opinion.\u2019  Two sections of colour plates featuring art and sculpture, ancient and modern round things off nicely too.  If you need to dip into the book to find a particular bit of myth, the index is a good one.  I very much enjoyed the half I read, even the Morissey inclusion above! I will keep it and his companion volume, <em>Heroes<\/em>, on my shelves for further dipping into.<\/p>\n<p>Next month: \u2018O\u2019 is for \u2013 Oleander Jacaranda by Penelope Lively.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: Own copy.<\/strong>  Penguin paperback, 442 pages incl index, plus plates.  <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blackwells.co.uk\/bookshop\/product\/Mythos-by-Stephen-Fry\/9781405934138\/?a_aid=annabookbel\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/blackwells.co.uk\/bookshop\/product\/Mythos-by-Stephen-Fry\/9781405934138\/?a_aid=annabookbel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a> <\/strong>via my affiliate link (free UK P&amp;P)<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-block sd-like jetpack-likes-widget-wrapper jetpack-likes-widget-unloaded\" id=\"like-post-wrapper-96339042-30273-681deccab8e30\" data-src=\"https:\/\/widgets.wp.com\/likes\/?ver=14.0#blog_id=96339042&amp;post_id=30273&amp;origin=annabookbel.net&amp;obj_id=96339042-30273-681deccab8e30&amp;n=1\" data-name=\"like-post-frame-96339042-30273-681deccab8e30\" data-title=\"Like or Reblog\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Like this:<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"button\"><span>Like<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"loading\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sd-text-color\"\/><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Firstly a quick update on the knee situation: I had a guided steroid injection last week, but first the doctor took nearly 100ml of murky liquid out of the joint which relieved all the pressure on the tendons at the back of my knee. Now the steroids are kicking in, my knee is back to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[3915,2268,3463,10930,4238],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-232641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-annabookbel","tag-book","tag-group","tag-report","tag-update"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Update and Book Group report \u2013 AnnaBookBel - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=232641\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Update and Book Group report \u2013 AnnaBookBel - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Firstly a quick update on the knee situation: I had a guided steroid injection last week, but first the doctor took nearly 100ml of murky liquid out of the joint which relieved all the pressure on the tendons at the back of my knee. 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