Turns out I like Stephen Fry a lot more than I like Greek mythology - my bad.
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The Blurb:
No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly and brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses. They are like us, only more so - their actions and adventures scrawled across the heavens above.
From the birth of the universe to the creation of humankind, Stephen Fry - who fell in love with these stories as a child - retells these myths for our tragic, comic, fateful age. Witness Athena born from the cracking open of Zeus's great head and follow Persephone down into the dark realm of Hades. Experience the terrible and endless fate of Prometheus after his betrayal of Zeus and shiver as Pandora opens her jar of evil torments.
The Greek gods are the best and worst of us, and in Stephen Fry's hands they tell us who we are. Mythos - smart, funny, and above all great fun - is the retelling we deserve by a man who has been entertaining the nation for over four decades.
The Review
I love Stephen Fry. I love him on the TV; I think he's funny, erudite, self deprecating and piercingly intelligent. Yup, I'm a big fan. I was so sad when he stepped down from Q.I, although completely mollified when I realised Toksvig was taking over, as she's also excellent.
So I was gutted that I wasn't crazy about Mythos. I think the problem for me is more about the content matter than it is the manner of the 'telling'. Fry writes in as engaging and humorous a manner as you would expect. But what I really like from a book is a narrative, one continuous story that unfolds over a period of time. And although this is the story of 'Greek Mythology' and Fry really tries to tie them into major themes, it still felt very ...bitty to me.
This may sound like a really horrible criticism, but for me this is the definition of a 'toilet book'. (And that's not me finding a veiled way of saying it's crap!) It's just that this is the type of book you could pick up and read one story from, and then come back to it again a few days later, and it not bother you in the slightest. I just had no compulsion to go back to it very often. Perhaps if I was more interested in stories of the Greek Gods I would have found it more absorbing.
The fault here may be mine - I picked up a book because I resolutely believe in Fry's ability to entertain, not because I'm thart interested in Greek mythology.... lesson learned.
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