THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/04/19 -- Vol. 38, No. 14, Whole Number 2087
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
METROPOLIS Restored (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Kasha, Part 3: The Cross Examination (comments
by Mark R. Leeper, Jim Susky, and Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE BESTOWAL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
RIVERDALE (television review by Dale Skran)
THE DAY SHALL COME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Parkinson's and THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
(letter of comment by John Hertz)
MUNCHHAUSEN, the Berlin Sex Museum, and the Berlin Currywurst
Museum (letters of comment by Paul Dormer, Scott Dorsey,
and Dorothy J. Heydt)
This Week's Reading (PERI APISTON (ON UNBELIEVABLE TALES))
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: METROPOLIS Restored (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The title of this column does not seem all that impressive. There
have been a lot of restorations of Fritz Lang's science fiction
classic film from 1927. This is one more, but it is dubbed and
colorized. It can be found on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75YCtJJFX0
It comes as close as possible to a film that has the modern
conveniences. [-mrl]
[It also has subtitles, but those are automatically generated, and
at times laughable, e.g., when someone says is name if "Georgi"
(pronounced "yorgi"), the subtitles says "york key". -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Kasha, Part 3: The Cross Examination (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
In response to Mark's comments on kasha in the 09/13/19 issue of
the MT VOID, Jim Susky writes (and Mark responds):
JS: Let me see if I connected the dots correctly.
JS: Dot 1: "(As a child you were) a very finicky eater"
MRL: Not especially, but I did run into foods I did not like. One
of them was pizza
JS: Dot 2: "(since age 12 you) have liked pretty much every new
food (you) have tried"
MRL: Something like that.
JS: Dot 3: "(Evelyn brought home) a can of something called "Kasha
and Gravy."
MRL: My mother did. I was something like 9 years old.
JS: Dot 4: By implication you have never eaten or sniffed Kasha
therefore this is not "something (you) have disliked (since
childhood)
MRL: I sniffed it about age 8
JS: Dot 5: This canned product has a "smell that is amazing. It
does not smell like food."
MRL: It does smell like food, but not an attractive food. It is
much like Gefilte Fish in that way.
JS: Dot 6: "Pick four cans of various repair materials at a
hardware store, add a fifth can--an open can of kasha--and (conduct
blind trials to determine) which one was food (by smell). (You)
doubt that the kasha would be picked (more than 20% of the time)"
MRL: No, Kasha smells like food, but it is not an attractive food
smell.
JS: Dot 7: Evelyn "so rarely is wrong (that she will) go to
ludicrous lengths to prove she was right". Since kasha's aroma is
essentially indistinguishable from "repair materials", you did not
"like it"--a rare occurrence much like Evelyn's being wrong.
Therefore Evelyn is wrong (this time)? Wrong in that she thought
you would almost certainly like kasha?
MRL: I think she wanted to see if I would like it. She surprised
herself that she did not like it.
JS: I await Kasha (Part 2)--meanwhile I offer the "Omnivore 100"--
link and list below. The idea here is to review the list and mark
those you have sampled to date. I had to look up some of these--and
still don't remember what they are.
MRL: You gave me "Kasha (Part 3): The cross-examination"
JS: I think "my number" is in the mid-60s--roughly equal to the
number of elements I can recall and write down. What's your (and
Evelyn's) "number"?
To clarify that a bit--so far as the Omnivore's 100 and Periodic
Table go, I have sampled about 60-65 of the food items. And, last
time I tried, I was able to write (if not correctly spell) the
names of 60-65 chemical elements.
Some of the food items, that I allege to have eaten, are
"stretchers" (to borrow from Huck Finn). For instance:
"salted lassi": I regard this as a variant on yogurt--and "lassi"
evokes for me my mother's Finnish heritage. On a lengthy 1973 trip
to Finland, we children had many chances to eat "fee-lee-a"
("Villi" in wikipedia entry). This is a mildly sour, "stretchy"
cultured milk product.
"haggis": while I've not had a dish so-named, I do enjoy "menudo"
at a local Tex-Mex restaurant. Both involve the stomach from
livestock.
"heirloom tomatoes": in 1960s, my father didn't call his tomatoes
"heirloom" - not that I ever heard. Given that he used mail-order
seeds (and strawberry plants) some of them may have "qualified".
"Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut": the chain is a recent
addition to Anchorage, at my lady friend's insistence we tried a
few. Given that they cost twice as much for half the size, with
little else to distinguish them, a "repeat performance" is
unlikely.
Finally, I was intrigued by the reference to "baijiu", a Chinese
liquor which is "the best selling spirit in the world, with 10.8
billion liters sold in 2018, more than whisky, vodka, gin, rum and
tequila combined."
Though the reference is now missing from the wikipedia entry, I
recall that it is used to prepare "drunken shrimp", which is sort
of like sashmi - except no knives are required. Shrimp are stunned
by soaking them in baijiu, which are then served.
THE OMNIVORE 100
TOPIC: THE BESTOWAL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Steven, a successful salesman, is depressed. After seeing
the world unimproved in spite of his best effort, Steve is ready to
commit suicide when who should drop in on him but Death. Not just
someone calling themself Death but Death itself. It is not a
skeleton carrying a scythe but the form of a beautiful woman. The
two have a long (and often tedious) metaphysical discussion about
questions that intrinsically have no answer. The two characters
try to decide what the Universe really needs. Sam Brittan plays
Steven and Sharmita Bhattacharya plays Death. Directed by: Andrew
de Burgh; written by: Andrew de Burgh. Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4)
or 4/10
This is a film that looks beautiful but is often every bit as
awkward as its title. It is an allegory of Christian theology.
Steven is about to commit suicide over the sorry state of the world
when Death in the form of a beautiful woman appears in his home to
avert the sin and to have a metaphysical discussion of what is
life, death, and everything in between. For a film that bills
itself as "a sci-fi drama" it has no science and little to appeal
to a sci-fi fan. Somehow my mind rebels at the image of Death in
false eyelashes. But is it really Death? Not as we know Death.
When it suits her she is actually an inter-dimensional being who
appears in the form of a beautiful woman, false eyelashes and all,
and she is visiting "from the 17th Dimension." (No kidding. The
17th Dimension!) Death explains that suicides if allowed to be
successful do all sorts damage. At long intervals Death repeatedly
shows up to discuss with Steven what he has been doing since her
last visit and how the world has changed and deteriorated in the
decades since her last visit.
The souls of suicides run amok, we are told. Steven complains that
he lost his faith because God allowed the Holocaust to happen.
That is almost a cliche. Losing ones soul because God permits huge
evils to happen seems a common plot and usually it is the last
character you would expect to feel to be so deeply affected.
There is no denying that Bhattacharya playing Death is an
attractive presence at some level. But the words she has been
given to speak do not help her create her image. It is not for me
to say if Britten is attractive, but he speaks in a monotone
straight out of the First Dimension.
This all may be a little harsh on the film. The director de Burgh
shows the viewer a nice piece of artistic design. But it is like
the two actors are standing in a painting. It takes a very short
time to place the two actors in this one setting, but then the two
actors go into a slow dialog that is laced with some not very
believable talk and more talk and some more after that. One has
the feeling that the debate would be easier to appreciate if it
were presented in printed text rather than spoken. I rate THE
BESTOWAL high 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10
Film Credits:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7978752/reference
What others are saying:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_bestowal
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: RIVERDALE (television review by Dale Skran)
I've been bingeing RIVERDALE, and am about halfway through the
third season. A fourth season starts next month on the CW. I was
initially put off by the dark tone of the trailers, and in any
case, I've never been a fan of ARCHIE COMICS on which RIVERDALE is
based. However, recently I got inspired to give RIVERDALE a try,
and discovered that it was surprisingly compelling.
One way to understand RIVERDALE is to imagine that BUFFY was split
into two new shows, one containing all the "rational" fears that
impact high-schoolers, and the other focused on "supernatural"
threats. In this taxonomy, RIVERDALE focuses on the "rational"
fears, while THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA focuses on
"supernatural" fears. Although RIVERDALE is on the CW, and SARBINA
on Netflix, they are in the same "universe" and there has been at
least one character cross-over, plus various events that leak over
from one town to the other. Fans, of course, would love to see a
cross-over involving the main characters.
RIVERDALE takes fairly close representations of the core characters
from ARCHIE COMICS and moves them to the modern era, where they
face the dark chaos of a bleak rural America. There is a nod to
"Scooby Doo" here, with menaces often appearing to be supernatural,
but turning out to be some form of a crook in a costume. However,
unlike in "Scooby Doo" which featured a "monster of the week"
RIVERDALE provides an E. E. (Doc) Smith style ascending staircase
of villains, in which it is never clear who is really pulling the
strings.
RIVERDALE more than nods to the super-hero genre in a minor key.
ARCHIE COMICS had a line of super-hero comics featuring mostly
unfamiliar characters like the Black Hood, The Fly, Flygirl, the
Comet, the Web, and so on, under the moniker "Red Circle." The
Black Hood is a major character in RIVERDALE, but like everything
in RIVERDALE, has become a twisted yet compelling version of the
heroic Black Hood in the comics. Additionally, Archie organizes
teams variously called "The Red Circle" and "The Black Circle" who
wear masks to engage in vigilante justice. The names are a homage
to the ARCHIE COMICS super-hero titles.
Finally, some of the Archie characters have been morphed into low-
power superheroes in the mold of Batman and Green Arrow. Betty
Cooper is Nancy Drew growing into Veronica Mars. With her handy
Nancy Drew detective handbook, the ability to pick any lock, crack
any code, hot wire cars (she is a skilled mechanic), plucky girl
heroine bravery, and a ruthlessness taken from older versions of
Batman, she is a scary enemy. Somehow everyone she hunts ends up
dead, although not directly by her hand. Cheryl Blossom is
basically "Speedy" from the Arrow TV show. Nicknamed "Deadeye",
and wearing her red hunting cloak, she appears to have something
approximating perfect aim with a long bow. At various times she
shoots a member of a rival gang in the shoulder from a truck,
knocks a can off Jughead's head, and hits the Black Hood in the
shoulder before hunting him through the dark woods.
Archie himself is on a journey which seems to be leading in the
super-hero direction. Given his penchant for wearing hoods of
various colors, his willingness to "gear up" with his favorite
baseball bat, his time spent in "teen fight club" while in jail,
his natural athletic abilities (football, basketball, wrestling),
and summers spent working at his dad's construction firm, Archie is
a formidable fighter on a path to being a better fighter under the
boxing tutelage of Mr. Keller. He is shown as being both able to
take down most opponents with a few punches, while able to absorb a
tremendous amount of punishment in a fight, and as well as being
determined and ruthless, such as when he reports Poppa Putine to
Hiram Lodge, knowing Lodge will have him killed.
The strength of the group is a kind of super-power in RIVERDALE.
Jughead is an intellectual writer born to be "The Serpent King"--
the leader of his father's gang, a mantle he eventually takes on,
if only to keep the Serpents out of the drug business. Betty
becomes Jug's girlfriend, and ultimately joins the Serpents.
Together Jughead and Betty are a devastating detective team, able
to field soldiers to assist with virtually any plan.
Veronica wields the super-power of money, combined with keen
business acumen, the allure of the femme fatale, and a knowledge of
the ways of organized crime. Her skills honed by an endless
conflict with her crime-lord parents, Veronica uses deception to
build her power-base around her ownership of Pop's Chocolate Shop.
It seems obvious that in time her nemesis will be the temptation to
take on her parents' criminal empire.
Archie can assemble the Riverdale High Bulldogs football team into
his "gang" on occasion, while Cheryl Blossom organizes the "Pretty
Poisons," a girl gang she is training in the long bow. As Veronica
builds her business empire, she recruits her own set of loyal
"capos", and sometimes calls on the ROTC squad for additional
muscle. She also makes a deal with the Serpents to protect her
business against her father's enforcers. And of course, the
foursome of Archie, Veronica, Jughead, and Betty form a core "gang"
of best friends who when united are quite formidable.
RIVERDALE throws Josie and the Pussycats into this mix. Unlike the
multi-racial originals in the comics, the initial version of the
Pussycats is all black, but over time goes through several
evolutions, and for a while includes Veronica. There is a lot of
singing and dancing in RIVERDALE, with most of the cast appearing
to have come straight off Broadway. Josie does not escape the
darkness of RIVERDALE. Her musician father drives her constantly
toward musical success, such that she sacrifices a normal live. At
the same time her mother, the mayor, works as a toady for Hiram
Lodge's criminal empire.
In the noir world of RIVERDALE, our heroes' parents are the
villains. Veronica's parents are crime lords with an apocalyptic
plan to convert RIVERDALE to a hell on Earth just for them to rule.
Cheryl Blossom's parents are a maple syrup magnate who is really a
drug runner, and a society mom who is a serial poisoner and brothel
owner. Jug's father battles with alcohol while using the Serpents
to do dirty work for several sides in "Game of Thrones"--Riverdale
Edition. Betty's mother, a former Serpent, is a nasty piece of
work who thinks nothing of forcibly committing her daughters to the
"Sisters of Mercy"--a rogue group of nuns who provide gay
conversion therapy services and test illegal drugs on their
charges. Betty's father--SPOILER--turns out to be the Black Hood,
a psychotic serial killer, and Betty's inheritance is his quest for
justice and a growing darkness that leads Betty further from the
light, possibly toward the ultimate destiny of taking up the hood
herself. Jughead's mother may turn out to be the most dangerous of
them all as she schemes to take the fizzle rocks trade from Hiram
Lodge. Only Archie's dad is a figure of righteousness in this
bizarre world, although Josie's mom turns toward good when she
loses her job as mayor.
The menaces are many--drugs, gangs, organized crime, deadly memes,
cults of wackos, epidemics of seizures, mass suicides--all dolloped
out in a creepy, gothic style where no one is innocent and trust is
an illusion. The first season villain turns out to be Cheryl
Blossom's father, the second season main villain is the Black Hood,
and the third season focuses on the Gargoyle King, perhaps the
gang's most dangerous foe yet. In this blasted, virtually post-
apocalyptic American small town, drugs are ubiquitous, the only
jobs are at the prison Hiram Lodge is building to manufacture
drugs, the police work for the mob, criminal gangs rule the
streets, and the governor is a paid toady of Mrs. Lodge, who is
perhaps more dangerous than her husband. The "adults" of RIVERDALE
play a never ending "Game of Thrones" where death is only one false
step away. Our only hope is a varying gang of teens led by Archie,
Betty, Jughead, and Veronica. Enmeshed in a complex web of
friendship and lust/love, the friends are sometimes best friends
but often rivals as they seek their ultimate destiny.
I'd love to see RIVERDALE morph into THE RED CIRCLE after a few
more seasons. Betty could take on the mantle of the Black Hood
after finding the cursed black hood (perhaps in Greendale during a
SABRINA crossover!) that often appeared in the comics, which gave
the wearer powers but led them to do only good. Archie could
easily become the Shield, perhaps after finding a costume in the
basement of one of the many abandoned houses hear Riverdale. Jug
is a natural as the Web, with a similar origin, and I'd love to see
Veronica find the technology-based Flygirl costume that was
sometimes the source of Flygirl's powers. A Red Circle based only
on technology and muscle would be a great, weak, super-team, and
just a slight extension to what the characters already are. And,
of course, Cheryl Blossom and Toni, her Serpent lover, would join
as Deadeye and the Cat Burglar. The team might operate out of the
basement of Pop's Chocolate shop. It would be a different show,
but also one possible evolution of RIVERDALE, and also a logical
response to the strength of crime in RIVERDALE. I don't think this
is all that likely since RIVERDALE's writers seem interested in
exploring the bad side of vigilante justice, but you never know!
This kind of show is a guilty pleasure. It's not for everyone for
sure. RIVERDALE shares with a lot of other "high school" shows the
conceit that 25-year-old actors are really 16. There is a lot of
sex for a TV show, and scary elements galore, including drug use
with "imaginary" drugs with names like "Fizzle Rocks." There are
major gay/lesbian characters and relationships, with the struggle
of gays/lesbians for self-determination in the face of violent hate
a significant theme. Having said all this, the violence is mostly
off-screen, unlike in R-rated SABRINA. RIVERDALE is not for kids,
but I'm not sure RIVERDALE is any scarier than BUFFY. Our heroes
are flawed, and none more than Adderall stealing cam-girl Betty.
RIVERDALE feels darker than BUFFY since the menaces are more
realistic. The deeply scary part of RIVERDALE is that it starts to
seem like the real world after a while. RIVERDALE reflects common
fears that it is no longer possible to live an honest, middle-class
life in America. That the only job left is running drugs or
working at a private prison. That the rich run our lives, and we
are just pawns in their games. At the same time RIVERDALE evokes
the can-do heroics of NANCY DREW and the HARDY BOYS, with a bit of
HORATHIO ALGER and FAME thrown in. It can be a compelling mix.
[-dls]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE DAY SHALL COME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Moses is the head of a very tiny church in Miami--less
than a handful of members--that preaches that the Great Inversion
is coming. European whites will be on the bottom and blacks will
be on the top. In the meantime his church is about to die of
financial problems. Watching the film one is never sure what group
will be skewered next by Chris Morris' bitter, toxic wit. Directed
by: Christopher Morris; written by: Jesse Armstrong, Sean Gray,
Tony Roche, and Christopher Morris. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or
8/10
As the film opens we are told by a title card that it is "based on
a hundred true stories." Moses' church is in financial difficulty.
Then he gets funded by a local activist who, unknown to the
preacher, is actually an undercover agent of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security agent Kendra (played by Anna Kendrick) has an
unenviable task. She has to prove that there is terrorist activity
in her area. With no notable local examples she is instructed to
frame the preacher in her area. She regrets that she is justifying
her employment with what she knows is a lie. The actress manages
to look almost identical to her character in UP IN THE AIR (2009),
for which she received an Academy Award nomination. However, the
film was stolen by Marchant Davis as Moses al Shabaz. who has a
nice, comfortable acting style on the screen. His character Moses
wants to do the right thing and so will be the person most hurt by
the forces of justice, while Kendrick's perky young agent has high
moral standards. Her attitude rubs some fellow agents the wrong
way with her resistance to their scheme.
THE DAY SHALL COME was directed by and co-authored by Chris Morris,
who nine years ago gave us FOUR LIONS. That latter film was about
four incompetent terrorists more dangerous to themselves than to
outside international terrorists. Morris's style is now more
polished and more sharp. Morris repeats that point he made in FOUR
LIONS. When we face an opponent we over-estimate our opponent's
strength and under-estimate our own. That is true of both sides.
Morris says that ignorance in the hands of the enemy is more
dangerous than is truth. I rate THE DAY SHALL COME a high +2 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Release date: September 27, 2019.
Film Credits:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7078658/reference
What others are saying:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_day_shall_come
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Parkinson's and THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
(letter of comment by John Hertz)
In response to Mark's comments on Parkinson's in the 02/15/19 issue
of the MT VOID, John Hertz writes:
Thanks to Mark for his brave health report. My grandmother had,
and two of my friends have, Parkinson's. She was and they are
indomitable. Be strong and of good courage.
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL
AND MR. HYDE in the 08/02/19 issue, John writes:
Stevenson's "Jekyll and Hyde" (1896) is indeed a wonder, worth
reading and re-reading. It was one of the SF Classics we discussed
at Midamericon II (74th Worldcon; see my report file770.com/kansas-city-there-i-went/7).
There as before and since I recommend
the best I know, and I include Chesterton's. [-jh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: MUNCHHAUSEN, the Berlin Sex Museum, and the Berlin
Currywurst Museum (letters of comment by Paul Dormer, Scott Dorsey,
Dorothy J. Heydt, Gary McGath, and Kevin R)
In response to Taras Wolansky's comments on MUNCHHAUSEN in the
09/27/19 issue of the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:
[Taras Wolansky writes,] "On German tolerance for nudity in the
movie MUNCHHAUSEN, many years ago I read about the woman who was
West Germany's chief purveyor of 'adult toys'. She explained her
sexual frankness on her 'thorough Nazi education'."
Would that be Beate Uhse? I remember reading her obituary in a UK
paper back in 2001. She was a Luftwaffe pilot and as Berlin was
falling, she found a plane and (according to Wikipedia) she flew
out with her young son ahead of the Soviet troops into what would
become West Germany.
The first time I went to Berlin in 2004, there was a huge Beate
Uhse Sex Museum just round the corner from my hotel, just south of
the Zoological Gardens railway station (which was then the main
railway station). When I went back to Berlin a few years later, it
was no longer there. [-pd]
Scott Dorsey responds:
It closed in 2015; they are looking for a new location for the
exhibits but to be honest they were mostly kind of tacky. [-sd]
Paul answers:
I thought it had closed when I was there in 2010, but I might be
mis-remembering.
I was really annoyed that the Currywurst museum had closed in
Berlin. I only heard about it after my visit to Berlin in 2017 and
it closed before I got back there this year. [-pd]
And Scott responds:
Oh no! That was actually kind of cool, because they talked about
the history of currywurst being created out of foods that could be
obtained from British forces during the occupation, and how it
evolved. And you did get to eat a currywurst at the end of the
trip. [-sd]
Paul responds:
I'd heard that the tomato ketchup was obtained from the US forces,
but I'd guess curry powder was a very British thing.
I have found a recipe for currywurst online that I've tried with
success:
http://www.thekitchenmaus.com/homemade-currywurst/#Currywurst
[-pd]
And Dorothy J. Heydt adds:
Awwww. At the other end of the table, perhaps, I once read a
review of a book of recipes devised by the wives of GIs occupying
West Berlin after the war, trying to make American food out of
German materials. It was long ago and I don't remember any
details, except that necessity is the mother of invention. [-djh]
Gary McGath writes:
The oddest museum I've encountered in Germany is the Museum of
Mustard in Cologne. It's right across the street from the Museum
of Chocolate. Guess which one gets more visitors. [-gmg]
Kevin R responds:
There's a US version in Middleton, WI, formerly of Mount Horeb.
https://mustardmuseum.com/
[Chocolate museums] are popular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chocolate_museums
What you need next to a mustard museum is a sausage or pretzel
museum, and a brewing museum. Chocolate museum for dessert. :-)
[-kr]
Dorothy suggests:
Maybe a cheese museum as well? I seem to recall having read that
the POWs on Bataan, who had nothing but rice and mule meat to
eat, could be divided into two groups: those who dreamed about
chocolate, and those who dreamed about cheese. [-djh]
Kevin R replies:
Cheese museums!
https://culturecheesemag.com/cheese-bites/incurdible-museum-
The Monroe, WI public high school athletic teams are
nicknamed "the Cheesemakers." [-kr]
And Paul notes:
Been to Cologne a lot, but never noticed [the Museum of Mustard].
Noticed the chocolate museum, but haven't been in it.
It seems over the last few years I've at least changed trains a lot
in Cologne, as if I'm travelling anywhere in Germany and points
east, it's Eurostar to Brussels, and then Thalys or ICE to Cologne.
I even have a favourite hotel in Cologne near the station for when
I want to break my journey there. (This is not some anti-air
travel thing on my part, I just like travelling by train.)
[And in response to Kevin's suggestion above of a nearby sausage or
pretzel museum, and a brewing museum, with a chocolate museum for
dessert,] I'll drink to that. [-pd]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I have just discovered the original "mythbuster": Palaephatus. His
dates (or even his real name) are uncertain, but he's generally
placed in the fourth century B.C.E., and his work is PERI APISTON
(ON UNBELIEVABLE TALES). This consists of 52 chapters, each
debunking a Greek myth. Like Ovid's HEROIDES, which I reviewed in
the 07/05/19 issue of the MT VOID, this is one of the lesser-known
classical works that gives a different perspective on what most
people know (or think they know) about the ancient Greeks and
Romans. In the case of PERI APISTON, Palaephatus's observations
about the myths, in which he explains how the myths represent
either real events misinterpreted (e.g., centaurs were just men
riding horses as observed by people who had never seen this
before), or are symbolic of real events (e.g., the rape of Europa),
he is contradicting the idea that all the Greeks actually believed
all these things.
Often the symbolism involves claiming that it was a confusion over
names, e.g., there were not apples of gold on a tree guarded by a
dragon, but sheep that produced beautiful wool and hence were
called "gold" that were guarded by a shepherd named "Dragon".
Palaephatus says some of the confusion is because "sheep" and
"apple" are the same word in ancient Greek (*)--this appears to be
true.
Palaephatus often begins by recounting the common version of the
myth and then saying something like, "If anyone believes that there
may have been such a beast, he believes in the impossible," or,
"Whoever believes that a human can become a stone, or a stone a
human, is a simple-minded person. The truth is this." After this
he gives his version of what (probably) happened.
Ugo Bratelli notes that Palaephatus also makes errors: "Palaiphatos
confuses the Gorgons, whose names he quotes, and the Greeks [sic];
it is the latter who have only one eye to them." The ones with
only one eye among them were the Graeae, apparently Chrome's
version of Google Translate stumbled here, so there are enough
errors and mistakes to go around. Bratelli's French translation
has "Grees" (with an accent acute on the first 'e'. Stand-alone
Google Translate renders this as "Graians", which would be the
anglicization of '"Graeae".
This work is not exactly widely available. Gutenberg doesn't have
it, but the original Greek is available free on-line, as is
Bratelli's French translation. If you don't read French, Chrome's
automatic translation is really quite good. Various translations,
including English, are also available for sale, mostly at higher
prices than you would want to pay for a work of under 10,000 words.
(*) Bratelli says "mela"; other sources say "melon" or "melos";
Langenscheidt has "melon" as the root.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
There is a great deal of difference between the eager man
who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a
book to read.
--G K Chesterton