Collected stories: Ancient Greece

Culture through fiction

The fiction I love the most comes in the form of short stories. You can learn so much about different cultures just through the stories and tales they tell. In this new series I’m going to share some of the collections I’ve enjoyed the most, and why.

I intend to travel in my armchair around the world, taking in places as diverse as Australia, the Caribbean and (continuing the alphabetical order of this list) Wales. And places in between of course. I hope you will join me.

Today, though, as well as travelling hundreds of miles across the world, I am also travelling hundreds of years back in time. That’s right: I’ve topped up the time machine with the highest grade plutonium, tweaked the flux capacitor, and made out my last will and testament. (One can never be too careful, I always say.) So buckle up while we delve into the Greek myths or rather, to be precise about it, a review of a book about them. A book by none other than Robert Graves.

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Many moons ago I bought myself a copy of The Greek Myths, by Robert Graves. There were several reasons for this. One was that I enjoyed a pilot episode of I, Claudius, so I assumed that the writing on which it was based must have been pretty good. Another reason was that I felt I needed to be more knowledgable about such things. And yet another was that I’d very foolishly joined a mail order book club, and I had to select something from the catalogue before I had the so-called (and hugely expensive) “book of the Month” foisted upon me.

I put it in on my book shelves, where it languished for years, until recently. In 2019 I attended a one day course entitled “Icons and Iconography” at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. The tutor spent a day showing us slides of paintings, and pointing out the references to the Greek Myths embedded within them. He recommended reading

Stephen Fry

’s books, Mythos and Heroes. That reminded me that I already had Robert Graves’ book, so I determined to read that instead.

Predictably, given all the other reading and writing and working that I’ve been doing, I forgot. But then I met Heather. She was listening to Mythos, and told me she was finding it both enjoyable and informative. And that rather long-winded tale explains why I finally opened The Greek Myths about a week ago.

Let’s deal with the good points. First, it’s a beautiful edition, as you’d expect from Folio. A luscious cover, high-quality pages, a two-volume set in its own box.

Secondly, the Editor’s Introduction is interesting, and serves to whet one’s appetite for the joys to come.

Unfortunately, they never do.