Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

[d_aulnoy]

I am massively depressed by the reviews of Troy that I am reading. Not just because the movie sounds like shite (one *does not* cut the gods - this is hubris on a scale that begs for lightning bolts, just like the Passion), but because it's becoming depressingly clear that Classical literature just isn't making the best-seller lists nowadays. Ack. I know that I'm a specialized geek in a lot of ways, and when people look at me blankly for abbreviating Little Red Riding Hood to LRRH, or, worse, AT 333, I'm fine with that. But c'mon ... it's HOMER. Our educational system is down the tubes, past the gate, and in the sewer.

Moving away from my bizarre scholarly rant (I mean, one reason that I'm going into academia is because there's just stuff out there that I think everyone should read, and I want to be in a position to force them to do so) I should also point out that, naturally, think a lot of people who are loving the movie are slashers. Everyone is, of course, picking up on the obvious tension between Achilles and Patrokles. Lovely. But if you read the original, you get to read about the cross-dressing ... s'all I'm saying.

Comments

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

I said the same thing when my sister and I were reading a recent article on the movie.

Me: Ah, I see Hollywood is taking some liberties with Homer.
green_tea_lady: Why do you say that?
Me: Because they have amputated the gods and made a supporting character out of a non-speaking slave girl in order to establish Brad Pitt's heterosexuality.
green_tea_lady: You mean Achilles is supposed to be gay?
Me: As a day in May.

I'm in it for epic battle scenes and classicist wenching. She's in it for the Pretty.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

I've always been skeptical about Homer. Not that people _shouldn't_ learn "his" stuff, but it seems strange to make him the absolute centerpiece. I find it very hard to think about questions of canoncity, because it always seems so circular: why read Homer? Because he's good. But why is he good? Because people tell you to read him. Also, the middle ages didn't know anything about homer besides the fact that 1) he was good and 2) the basic plot outline, and the middle ages got along fine. I mean, literature wise, obviously considering wars, prejudice, misogyny, disease, and social injustice they didn't 'get along fine' in all respects.

As for the cutting of the gods, that doesn't really bother me either. It definitely isn't the way I would adapt the movie, but I think changing old stories to match contemporary standards of narrative and behavior is part of what makes old stories live. As long as people know that liberties have been taken, it's fine with me. Of course, the problem seems to be that their adaptation just isn't very good, which makes it a little less justifiable.

I have to read iliad again for this 'general ed 101' course I'm taking in june, so I'll be able to ponder homer's possible greatness again. I wish I could read greek, but that's not directly relevant to my studies right now and will have to wait until, perhaps, my genteel retirement, when I shall read homer in the original and prepare for death to come like the lark that sometimes flits down briefly from the mountain only to turn up into the air again and at the last moment dive. Or something like that.

[papajoemambo.livejournal.com]

I might refer you to the oft-cited story concerning Dashiel Hammett and people making bad movies with the same titles of pieces he had written, but bearing very little resemblance otherwise. He was asked "Aren't you afraid that your books are being ruined?"

The story goes that he gestured towards a bookshelf with his thumb and said "No... the books are just as they were yesterday. They haven't been hurt at all."

Rather than seeing a second-rate movie about Troy this summer I'm finally going to read The Iliad.