Book Review: The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology by Marcel Detienne

Marcel Detienne’s The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology was one of the first books I put on my list for the Read-A-Myth Challenge, because it seemed to combine three things I love to read about: food, history, and mythology. And it definitely did that. But despite the title, the emphasis of the book is more on the way the evolution of the myth of Adonis – a myth affirming the renewing cycle of birth and death that symbolizes the calendar year – reveals prevailing societal attitudes and beliefs in classical society.

For those of you who, like me, stowed your copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in a box in your parents’ basement after college with a promise to retrieve it “once you had the room for it,” only to have said box’s decaying contents hauled to a local used book seller when the parents finally retired and moved to Florida many years later, a refresher of the Adonis myth might be in order. In what is arguably the most famous version of the myth, Myrrha is cursed by the Furies to fall in love with her father. Her nurse helps her seduce him during the harvest festival of Ceres. When he realizes of whom he’s had carnal knowledge, he vows to kill his daughter. Myrrha flees Cyprus for Arabia (the place where spices come from) and wanders for nine months. She finally begs the gods to have mercy on her, and they grant her wish by turning her into a myrrh tree, (because after all, what could be more merciful than losing your body and gaining some foliage?). Realizing that Myrrha is pregnant, Lucina, the goddess of childbirth, goes and touches the myrrh tree and it splits open to spew forth Adonis*. Myrrha continues to cry sappy, scented tears for her lost son that are the basis for the perfume trade.

The young Adonis is so beautiful that Venus falls in love with him while he is still a child, but for some reason has Proserpina foster him in the Underworld. Once he becomes the most gorgeous man on the planet, both of the goddesses want him for their own, so Jupiter intervenes, and decides Venus can have him for a third of the year, Proserpina for another third, and that Adonis can choose for the last third. Like Paris, Adonis chooses beauty (Venus) over power (Proserpina), to predictably bad results – Proserpina sends a wild boar to kill him while he’s waiting around in a lettuce patch for Venus, providing a one-way tour of the Underworld for Adonis. Venus cries foul, and Jupiter intervenes by declaring Adonis dead only part-time, giving him to Venus for half the year (spring and summer) and to Proserpina for half the year (fall and winter).

So where do the spices of the title come in? According to Detienne, the true significance of the Adonis myth is its ability to link the botanical, classical world with the exoticism of the East, the place where spices, so significant for the culinary, ritual and sexual lives of the Greeks and later Romans, originate. But more than that, the Adonis myth provides a powerful reminder of the dangers of unbridled emotion in women, who are linked alternatively to both virtue (through Demeter, motherhood and the harvest) and licentiousness (through Venus, carnal love and spices) throughout the mythological cycle.

In fact, the title refers to gardens that were planted by the secret Adonis cults, groups of women who came together to mourn the death of Adonis by planting quick growing seeds, like herbs, that would sprout during the festival and quickly die, leaving behind their scent. This, of course, made Greek men like Plato very uncomfortable, because women were getting together without men – and you know how much trouble those women could get into when there wasn’t a man around to control things! (Who knew planting a terrarium could become a means of subverting hegemonic masculinity?)

In contrast to a festival such as the Thesmophoria which was celebrated in public and in very official manner, the Adonia took place in private, in some private house where women would meet together, each the confidant of the other’s secret love affairs, for a fleeting moment rejecting, in a way, a social order noted for its public and masculine character. pp. 129-130

This is a short book, especially by scholarly standards, but Detienne has a rambling style, shifting between myths and Greek sects with no introduction or explanation. I didn’t find it an easy read, but that may be a matter of style more than substance – I found myself having to put it down and pick it back up multiple times. It may just be a cultural thing – the book is translated from French, and it’s entirely possible that French readers do not crave the organization that an American reader would. But I certainly learned a lot, and I think those interested in ancient cultures, food history and feminist history will all find something to enjoy with this book.

This is my fifth book for the Read-A-Myth Challenge hosted by JoV and Bina (only one more to go!), and the last of the titles I committed to for the Dewey Decimal Challenge (even though I wound up reading a bunch of additional non-fiction for that challenge) hosted by Jen at The Introverted Reader. So thanks to all of you for hosting!

*I included a kind of creepy rendering of that moment from Franchesi. The screaming tree reminds me of the ones from The Wizard of Oz!

TLC Book Tour Review: Peter Sis' The Conference of the Birds

When I took Peter Sis’ The Conference of the Birds out of the envelope and paged through it, I thought, “This is easily the most beautiful book that has ever been in my hands.” The paper is textured and the colors are vibrant. A very promising start. Still, I didn’t know much about Sufi mythology—the book is adapted from a Sufi mythical poem by Farid od-Din 'Attar– so I did a web search to try to contextualize the story. If you’re interested, you can find more information about Sufism here.

The story appears to be a simple parable of all the birds in the world deciding to search for their true king, Simorgh, urged on by their leader, Hoopoe.

Come on, you brave birds!

Let’s glide, let’s fly, let’s soar.

Love loves difficult things.

We’re on our way!

But it’s actually so much more than that: The Conference of the Birds has the look and feel of a gorgeous children’s picture book, yet it tackles some of the deepest philosophical questions humans can ask: Who are we? What is truth? What is the nature of God?

The simplicity of the language and the childlike illustrations probably make comparisons to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince inevitable. And the book certainly shares a dreamy quality with that famous novella. But The Conference of the Birds lacks the character development that makes The Little Prince so poignant and touching – I didn’t bond with the individual birds enough to feel sad when they dropped from the flock, or feel joy when they reached their goal.

I think where this book really succeeds is in bringing a central concept of Sufism – the concept of God within each individual – to a Western audience. That, and in the enjoyment of Sis’ gorgeous illustrations. This book is highly recommended for readers interested in mysticism, mythology or Persian culture. And also for lovers of the book as art. And also lovers of poetry.

Well, I’m happy to say that this book puts me back on the map in the Read-A-Myth Challenge – I’m still thinking I will finish that one before December. Thanks to Thanks to JoV of Bibliojunkie and Bina of If You Can Read This for hosting. And because Peter Sis is Hungarian, this also counts for the Eastern European Challenge. Thanks to my buddy Amy at The Black Sheep Dances for hosting!

I read this book as part of TLC’s book tour, and received a copy of it in return for my honest opinion. I encourage you to check out these other stops on the tour:

Tuesday, November 1st: Bibliophiliac

Wednesday, November 2nd: Book Snob

Monday, November 7th: Sarah Reads Too Much

Tuesday, November 8th: Library Queue

Wednesday, November 9th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Thursday, November 10th: Col Reads

Tuesday, November 15th: Wordsmithonia

Wednesday, November 16th: Hungry Like the Woolf

Wednesday, November 16th: Melody & Words

Monday, November 21st: Unabridged Chick

Thursday, November 22nd: Seven Impossible Things

Monday, November 28th: Alexandra Boiger

Tuesday, November 29th: Abigail Halpin

Wednesday, December 14th: Layers of Thought

Read A Myth: In which our heroine takes on another challenge and hopes you will join her, because it looks like fun!

All I can say is thanks, Bellezza dear!

Having already committed (emotionally, at least) to two 2011 challenges (Beth Fish Reads' What's in a Name 4, because version 3 was my first-ever challenge, and Black Sheep Dances' Eastern European Challenge, which hasn't even been announced yet but sounds so interesting I can't wait to join), I had decided I was going to eschew other challenges and chart my own reading course come January 1.

Not so fast! Yesterday, Bellezza announced she was joining the Read A Myth Challenge. She was so excited I had to investigate. An entire year to read a flexible number of books, based on the myths from cultures of your choice! Academic literature is encouraged. The button features Artemis, my daughter's favorite goddess (and her Halloween costume, as it turns out). I started to do a little research and suddenly the possibilities were amazing - in a fit of enthusiasm I signed on the dotted line!

Here's where my list stands so far:

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Prince of Ayodha, Ashkor Banker
Psyche in a Dress,Francesca Lia Block
The Firebrand, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso
Goddess of Yesterday, Caroline Cooney
Runemarks, Joanne Harris

I'll need one more to reach Level 4, but I'm assuming I'll get plenty of ideas as others begin to log their books! Maybe something based on the myths of Egypt?

If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Ice Land: Of Valkyries and Volcanoes

If I had no other knowledge of the time period and place, here’s what I would know about medieval Scandinavia after reading Betsy Tobin’s new historical fantasy, Ice Land: 1) men were brutal; 2) arranged marriages were unhappy; 3) Asgard was some prime Icelandic real estate before the volcano Hekla chose to blow her top; 4) being a Norse goddess – even the goddess of love – was not all it was cracked up to be; and finally, in reference to #4, 5) the feathers were a nice perk, though.

Tobin’s novel is both imaginative and derivative. The Norse pantheon is, ironically, less known to English-speaking audiences than their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts. Tobin attempts to bring the Aesir to life, also ironically, just as they are about to fade from the planet, with the coming of Christianity to Europe’s last pagan outpost, Iceland. Freya, the Norse goddess of love, beauty and loss, is the first person narrator of the adventure. However, her personal reminiscences are mixed with the omniscient narration focused on other main characters: Fulla, a beautiful young woman from a traditional pagan (or godi) family, in love with the young man whose father killed her father (an old motif, but one sure to cause tension); Dvalin, half dwarf/half Aesir, marked by Brando-like internal struggle; Hogni, one of the last of the godi, trying to secure his granddaughter’s future in a world he will not see, and cannot understand. The change in narrations does serve to give us different views of Freya, but it also means that the book is at times disjointed.

The short passages narrated by The Norns (Norse goddesses of destiny) are particularly dissonant, as they mix modern knowledge of plate tectonics and vulcanology with the mystic ability to see the future when explaining Hekla’s machinations. These interludes stood out as particularly silly, frankly, and not up to the rest of Tobin’s accomplishment.

The book is imaginative because Tobin presents us with a very different version of the Aesir than might be expected. They have powers that humans do not have, certainly – humans don’t go flying around in falcon forms unless one of the Aesir is willing to take them along for the ride. But Tobin makes them far more human than godly, with their power based on their own astute public relations as much as their exceptional gifts. When asked by a young dwarf to tell him about her people, she struggles:

Where do I begin? With our deceit, our jealousies, our failures? Or with our own imagined triumphs, the heroic tales we’ve told each other for so long we now believe them to be true…I realize that the lines between truth and falsehood have long ago become blurred in my mind. (p. 140)

The book is derivative because it harkens back on so many levels to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s amazing The Mists of Avalon. Small band of true pagan believers? Check. Forced baptisms? Violent and greedy men bent on using the new religion to consolidate power? Check and check. Misunderstood humanoids of extraordinary power and beauty at their fin de siècle? Check. Romance despite the backdrop of complete cultural and social revolution? Check. In fact, Tobin plucks Asgard right out of the heavens and plunks it down in a mysterious Icelandic valley that can only be reached through a veil of water. (Hello, Morgaine Le Fay, here! The drippy trip to the magical world was my calling card – can you please send that back?) And while the placement of Asgard subjects it to physical, rather than metaphysical, decimation, the threat to the magical world permeates the book, just as in MofA.

The book also suffers from major lapses in continuity. Iceland was settled late in European history (the late 9th century, by most accounts) by disaffected Norwegians and Swedes who presumably took their culture, including their gods, with them. Why then the placement of Asgard in Iceland? Were the gods and goddesses commuting to Trondheim from their summer places near Reykjavik during most of their pagan reign? It’s silly to quibble with a fantasy, I understand, but that breech in historicity was so clear that I found it distracting. Another lapse involves the overlapping of two significant incidents in Icelandic history that actually happened 100 years apart. It’s the kind of thing that makes my inner medieval history major cringe.

Ice Land is a very decent beach read, especially if you’re dreaming about cooler climes in summer. It moves quickly and lightly, and the plot is interesting enough to keep you turning the pages. But if the literature critic from The Times of London really called it “Not just a good story, but one of the greatest,” as noted on the back cover, he or she seriously needs to expand the library. I think I’ll help by sending a copy of The Mists of Avalon.

This book counts for both the Goodreads Seasonal Reading Challenge and the Scandinavian Challenge. Can't fit it into No Ruts though, as I've definitely read something like it before!