Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:13:29 -0600
From: James Jordan 
Subject: Re: (urth) Reading the Soldier books

James,
         I gotta respectfully defer to your much better advice.

Respectfully,

Nutria

At 01:04 PM 1/20/2003, you wrote:
>Regarding reading the Soldier books, Nutria wrote:
>You might want to skim Bulfinch's Mythology before starting in. You've
>gotta know a bit, yea more than a bit, about ancient Greek mythology. And
>if the series continues, you're going to have to know something about
>Zoroastrianism also, I suspect.
>
>
>Crush refutes:
>I gotta respectfully disagree with this. This is no more true than that one
>needs to know a lot about Sun mythology and symbolism to enjoy the "New Sun"
>or (the "Long Sun"), or to know about world Serpent mythology and classical
>references to enjoy the "Long Sun".
>
>When you read these books you will **want** to find out more about the
>things you read about there (e.g. Cybele, Spartan culture & history, etc.).
>But, one might know a decent bit generally about Greek mythology,
>literature, and history and still find he has plenty to learn while reading
>"Mist" and "Arete."
>
>For reading the Soldier books, I recommend doing what one would do for
>Wolfe's other works:
>1. Read the books
>2. Look up the obvious blanks the stories imply to you (or read Graves'
>"Complete Myths" from start to finish because this was an important source
>for this work)
>3. Reread the books
>-- Crush
>
>
>
>
>--



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