The Complete Guide to American Film Schools and Cinema and Television Courses Book

The Folio Society published this rather splendid two volume book of The Greek Myths by Robert Graves in 1996. I purchased it then but I basically only looked at it from time to time when I wanted to know about certain myths or gods, and thus there was always something that I could look up which would give me pleasure.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted as, well to me anyway, it is an excellent reference book that I will pick up from time to time and browse through it or look for further information. I don’t think that I could actually have sat down and read this from cover to cover as there is too much factual information and some of the names can be quite confusing.

Also there were certain facts that I had in my head that I certainly proved to be wrong here. Little things I know but I always thought that it was Pandora’s box and not the jar and I had never even heard of The Sprites until I arrived at this part of the book. Also the Minotaur, well my own interpretation of that was completely wrong.

But when you think about the Greek Myths, it wasn’t until I went through this introduction that I found out the following:

The Romans, who annexed Greece in the second century BC, modified the Olympian religion to include their own local gods and practices, but otherwise simply took Greek stories over lock, stock and barrel. Sometimes names were changed (as when Aphrodite became Venus or Odysseus Ulysses); sometimes they were actually spelled differently (as when Asclepius became Aesculapius); sometimes no changes at all were made, so that stories with a particular Green location (such as the spring of Hippocrene near Thebes, created when the winged horse Pegasus stamped his hoof on a rock) were accepted quite happily by people who had never otherwise heard of, or seen, the originals.”

So really all one can do about this rather complicated book as I’ve done is to concentrate on for example, Pandora, as she fascinates me, to begin with and find out who she’s related to (which in itself is like being on an odyssey) and working out from there as if I were a spider on the web awaiting my next “kill”.

The Greek God Hermes (Mercury to the Romans and the son of Zeus), I have a particular fondness for. Many years ago I was in a garden centre in England and I saw this lovely little bronze statue of Mercury. I paid a lot more for it than I should have done but I knew that a pay cheque was around the corner and now it sits in my lounge. Perhaps it should be in the garden but I like to be reminded of it. So Mercury, sorry Hermes, I stand corrected. Strange really but Hermes is one of my favourite perfumes.

My only fault with this book lies with the two volumes, the index is at the end of the second one which is fair enough but it is still annoying when searching for an individual and then finding that it spans the two books.

This is a delightful book and will give me pleasure for many years. So try it, if you haven’t already. You may like it.