First of Poetry

Well I finished The Three Theban Plays. I liked them all. They were very depressing and about everyone dies at the end, but they were so well written, the characters were well formed, and everything made sense at the end.

The three plays are the story of a man whose fate was told to his parents at birth, the fate was so horrible that they sent him away and once he was old enough to understand his fate he went out of his way to avoid it. The horrible thing about it is that if no one had known of his fate, it would never have happened. His fate came true because of everyone's reactions to it. I really liked the idea of the story.

My next book is a book of Poetry, called Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves. I know absolutely nothing about is except that it is the first book of a series. I am not going to be reading all the other books, just this one. I do not know why, but that is what mom is telling me to read. :)

Thoughts On Book Two

Today I started The Three Theban Plays. The book includes three plays (hence the name) and the plays are, Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus. If you have read these plays before and notice that they are in the wrong order, than congratulations because my mom pointed that out to me only after I was half-way through the first play. Instead of completely starting over I decided to just keep on reading.

To me plays have always been harder to read and to understand mostly because of the long flowing speeches, the format, and because I find plays harder to picture in my mind than with books. Although what I have gone through so far in Antigone has been really good and interesting.

The play started very abruptly because the story was already in motion. The characters are all very interesting people, the uncle is the evil, unfeeling bad guy that uncles always are in story's. And the two sisters are two very different people, but they make sense as sisters.

So far I like this book and I am curious as to what happens next which is always a good sign that the book is a good one.

Number Two

Well, since I finished The Odyssey I will be starting the next book on my list. The book is is another Greek classic called, The Three Theban Plays, by Sophocles.

This one I do not at all know if I will like, mainly because on the back of the book it says, "This book towers over all the rest of Greek tragedy." Yay, a sad book.  I am not like my older brother, he really likes tragedies, not me. If the story ends with one or both of the main characters dying I don't like it.

My brother says, "But if everything turns out right it isn't realistic." I agree but I would rather see a movie or read a book about a happier world where everything is good, then a movie or book where everything is like our world- unhappy.  

Ah well. I will read it and decide after I am finished whether I like it or not. Who knows, it might surprise me.