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Loading... The Golden Fleece (1944)by Robert Graves
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3424586.html Graves here subverts the received version of the story by situating it in an ancient world of magic and gods, where the worship of the mother goddess has been written out by later traditions. There are some thrilling bits here, as the Argo plays hide-and-seek with its pursuers around the margins of the Black Sea. Graves has a lovely eye for detail, and the humour is a bit hearty but also humanising. I probably read this in high school and thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it. With a myth you already know the story- the trick is to see how the writer makes it work. I love Graves' perspective and am going back to revisit his myths and the White Goddess. I was struck by how few scholars these days (or maybe I just don't hang in the right circles) actually read the classics in Greek and Latin. What sources we must be missing! We do have the modern information that comes from Archeology and aerial photography, but these sources tell what the men of the time (or at least those who wrote about them) in their own words. My greatest complaint is the difficulty in finding a map to follow along. They had one of the Aegean area, but once they got past Lemos, we were (like the Argonauts) in Terra Incognita. Apparently Graves had a large government map of the Black Sea while he was writing it. I wish he'd included a map in the book! This novel, not surprisingly for those who know Robert Graves preoccupation with the idea of a transition from matriarchal worship of the Triple Goddess to the patriarchal Olympians, fairly creaks with scholarship. Every incident seems constructed to buttress some portion of theory to reconcile traditional accounts with Graves interpretation. Nor is it a novel in the usual sense. Incident after incident is recounted but we have little access to the inner lives of the characters. Nor is Heracles really a major character. Interesting to a student of Graves, but not engrossing as a story. Substance: Kind of fun to read, despite the endless minutiae of ancient Greek names and places. Graves does an excellent job ot tying together all (surely he got them all..) the mythical and legendary people and events and places of ancient Greece into a coherent, plausible narrative. Despite the title, Hercules is almost tangential to most of the action, although he is a symbolic and actual focus for much of it. The original title "The Golden Fleece" is much more descriptive. Style: Graves is very detailed, very descriptive, and very funny, in a sly manner. His narrative writing is very akin to his poetic style, which he exercises in translating the Greek poems (and possibly creating his own). * * * I bought this during a decade-long obsession with Robert Graves in the 1990s and only got around to reading it this year (2018), mostly to get it behind me and clear out my stacks, but decided I like it enough to keep it. no reviews | add a review
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"Along with I, Claudius, The Golden Fleece is considered one of Robert Graves's most exciting and transporting historical novels. The Golden Fleece was at one time the most sacred religious object of the ancient Greeks, and had been sent away as the result of a power struggle between the Greeks and earlier inhabitants of the Greek peninsula. In this the original quest narrative, Jason leads a voyage of heroes, including his friend Hercules and many others, in his ship the Argo, to recapture the sacred Golden Fleece and bring it home. To do so he must travel across the whole of the ancient world, perform impossible tasks, and undergo betrayals and tragedies beyond comprehension or human endurance. Poet, translator, memoirist, novelist, classicist Robert Graves stands alone for his ability to bring to modern readers the great stories of the ancient world with all their vividness and gore and power intact. As he has shown in many of his 140 published works, his facility with ancient myths and his understanding of how they still inform our imaginative lives helps make The Golden Fleece feel as fresh and necessary today as it did the first time someone told the story of Jason and the Argonauts some three thousand years ago. Seven Stories' Robert Graves Project spans 14 titles, and includes fiction and nonfiction, adult, young adult and children's books, in a striking new uniform design, with new introductions and afterwords. Among the works still to come are Count Belisarius, Hebrew Myths, and Lawrence and the Arabs. The online partner for the Robert Graves Project is RosettaBooks"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.912Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Robert Graves
Publicado: 1944 | 560 páginas
Novela Aventuras
«El vellocino de oro» es una historia legendaria, que desde hace miles de años ha incendiado la imaginación de quien la lee o escucha. Sucesión de fantásticas peripecias en la que se narra la venturosa expedición de los Argonautas en busca de una extraordinaria piel de carnero, esta obra se basa en un viaje supuestamente realizado en 1225 a. C. A bordo de la nave «Argo», que parte de las costas de Farsalia, la tripulación está capitaneada por Jasón e integrada por los más atractivos personajes de la mitología: Hércules, Orfeo, Atalanta de Calidón, Meleagro, Cástor, Pólux, Linceo, Autólico, Peleo, Mopso y Nauplio, entre otros.