bookishwendy 's review for:

Metamorphoses by Ovid

4.0

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Diana looks so sweet. Just don't let her catch you looking, or she'll give you antlers and set your own dogs on you.

Between the ages of 8 and 10 I was obsessed with all things Roman & Greek. I had these water-color illustrated books of classic myths and knew them all by heart, even if DID pronounce Eurydice like Yuri-dies. (and still do, apparently). I did eventually move on to other obsessions but it was a joy to revisit some of my favorite stories, even if (or because?) Ovid's versions have not been sanitized of the violence, sex and all sorts of "alternate lifestyles" that I'm pretty sure I would have remembered had they been illustrated in watercolor in my childhood books.


Seriously, Ovid's version is way more intense than...well, this.

For the most part, these stories were just as riveting all over again, although there are so many names flying at you at once, and stories within stories within stories, that it can get confusing at times. I'd like to go back again someday with a paper copy of this book, and take my time with it. And yet, I think the average modern reader could would get something out of this. It's not so unfamiliar now, is it? I know Game of Thrones is popular these days because it pushes the envelope with all the incest and the killing off of favorite characters and deadly weddings and dragon queens...well all that was written down by Ovid (and other storytellers before him)--these elements are as old as civilization itself.


Red wedding? Yeah, Ovid did that a few millennia ago.

There may be no original stories, but if the old ones don't get old, who cares?