This book has been on my Physical TBR for a hot minute. Before bringing it back with me to add to my Cardiff TBR it was sitting in my childhood home waiting for me to read it.
It is essentially a book that encapsulates short stories and chapters of Greek and Trojan history. It was my father’s book when he was a child and I know he loved to read it and had a passion for Greek History.
It was my turn to read it and although I have been reading it since February, it was such a lovely read.
THE REVIEW
Summary of the book
Strangely there is not a summary or blurb that is featured on the Goodreads page, so it means that I have to do some work for once and write up a mini summary.
This book essentially spans from the beginning of the Greek Gods up until the story of Odysseus, talking about key Greek myths that occur along the way through short sectional chapters.
I am rubbish at summarising without spoiling but I think that this is the best that I can do because the plot is Greek Mythology. Just that!
My thoughts: The layout of the book
The book is separated into short chapters covering different aspects of Greek mythology in a chronological order, so from the very first Greek heroes up until Odysseus. At the beginning of each chapter there is a sort of covering page where we get a small snippet of a poem or song or passage in relation to the story that is to come as well as an image.
It is something that I really loved about this book, the different drawing and imagery that are dotted throughout. In every story you have at least one drawing depicting an aspect of the plot which helped me to picture or envision what was happening. It also gave a sort of rustic feel and look to the book itself and made it quite unique purely because of the artistic style.
One thing that stood out to me was that Roger Lancelyn Green’s writing style is very easy to read and to understand. Even though most myths are taught in sort of a textbook manner, Green added an element of story telling and included some additional snippets that gave you insight into how the Greeks would process and understand things that happen.
One of my favourite snippet esque stories was the way they interpreted the snake shedding its skin. If you want to find out click to reveal!
This is within the chapters discussing Prometheus and how he gave fire to humans.
Zeus was not happy about the fact that humans were granted the gift or skill to create fire, and wanted to find out which Titan or God provided them with this knowledge. To do this, he disguised himself as a human and walked amongst them querying to different people.
When doing this a young man revealed that it was Prometheus who revealed the gift of fire to humans. Zeus was happy to have a name and provided the human with a gift: a bottle of Nectar, drink of the Gods, to provide immortality to him and his family.
The man took this nectar, strapped it to his donkey and started the journey to go and visit his family to be able to share the gift. Along the way, they had to stop at a river or lake in order to have a drink. The donkey went by the waters edge and proceeded to begin to drink until it caught eye of a snake.
The snake warned the donkey that if he dared to drink the water, that the snake would bite and its venom would kill the donkey. The donkey, unsure on what to do, pleaded with the snake begging him to replenish his thirst by drinking water. The snake noticed the bottle that the donkey was carrying and decided to bargain what it thought was wine for the donkey to be able to have some water.
The donkey naturally agreed so that it could drink as it was parched. The snake slithered and took the bottle, gently opening it and drinking its full contents. When it was done it went away, but felt an instant change.
Because of the snake drinking the Nectar, it explains why snakes shed their old skin and appear to be continuously young, or ‘forever young’.
Although the writing style and the stories were interesting, I would say that this is not a fast read for me. It is more of a book where the stories are bed time stories. There were times where I had read 50 pages and felt a bit bored, so I think the way to go is to read a couple of chapters a night and to spread the story out.
My thoughts: General
In general, I enjoyed this book and can understand why so many people love and cherish Green’s novels. It is lucky that I had my hands on it as it was one of the books in my father’s collection.
I am a huge fan of Greek Mythology so I was looking forward to reading it when I got my hands on it. Recently, I have had a couple of flops when it has come to Greek Mythology retellings, ahem Circe ahem, but I was hopeful with this novel as it is just the Greek myths themselves without any retellings or transformations as such.
The reason I actually picked up this book was because of the novel The Girl with all the Gifts. Within this novel, the main teacher reads snippets of a different Roger Lancelyn Green book that is about Greek Mythology, and the main girl is obsessed with Pandora’s story.
And so I picked up this book, and like our main girl Melanie, Prometheus and Pandora’s stories were some of my favourites!
To be honest I do not really have much else to say about this book. I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot, and think that it would be a good entrance into Greek Mythology stories.
Would I recommend this book?
I would recommend this book to anyone who is discovering Greek Mythology. The stories are short and succinct, some not over 8 pages, so make for a nice quick read. Or if you are anything like how I read it, a gentle bed time story style read.
My personal favourites were the passages about Prometheus and Pandora. It is probably one of my favourite Greek myths! I kind of wish there was a retelling about Pandora, or maybe a Twisted tale that is like what if this happened instead to Pandora.
Let me know if you get round to reading it! I am intrigued to find out what more people think.
My rating
The Little Sunflower Library 