A Twist of Fate

"It was the will of Zeus, she said: Europa was to be an Asian girl carried off by a stranger"- Calasso pg. 5





In mythology, fate is inescapable. Many times it is gods like Zeus who say how things are going to be. Even more powerful are the actual three Fates (see above picture) who decide life- and- death. We discussed fate a great deal this last lecture, using stories such as Oedipus and how he fuflilled the prophecy that he would kill his father and have intimate relations with his mother despite him doing everything in his power to avoid it.

It is this moment, when one meets his or her fate, that they go through their transformation, or their final phase. However, long before that phase is the seperation. That is where I am now in The Magus. Nick, a very unlikable character best known to readers as a bit of a womanizer, recieved a teaching post in Greece. This is where he will enter his initiation, and as inevitable as fate, a transformation.

Relations of Gods and Man

"For Apollo, possession is a conquest"- pg. 145. Possession of something or someone is a common theme in Calasso's work. This is most often shown through the act of rape. One such instance was mentioned in my previous blog; Apollo turning into a wolf and raping a woman. Transformation also seems to be common during these scenes of rape. It solidifies the fact that the gods and mortals are very different.

Rape is the second stage of the relationship between god and mortal, according to recent lecture. The first is conviality: a wonderful friendship between the divine and mortals. Once the Axis Mundi (the tree that connected our world with the divine) fell down, the connection was broken. It eventually led to the third stage, Indifference, in which there is no relationship between the two sides.

Separation to Transformation

"To have her surrender her virginity without regrets, Apollo chose one of his most secret forms: the wolf"- pg. 152. It was this that led Apollo to having a child with this female companion. Such creates a new beginning, which was the main topic of my most recent class. First is a seperation from the peace of that beginning, then comes the initiation which brings the character to the middle of their life (and with it a great deal of pain), and finally there's the transformation, in which the person is no longer who he or she was in the beginning.

Going back to Calasso, I was surprised at how racy Greek myth can be. Apollo becoming a wolf and raping a woman is just one example. It's rather interesting how Greek culture contrasts our modern one. Then, men having sex with young boys and animals (who, to their credit, were gods) was a walk in the park. We've taken a great deal from Greek culture... though thankfully, we have also left some things in the past.

The Moon and Death

"She was hostile, and dead; everything Achilles loved in a woman"- Pg. 120. Achilles, like all heroes, thought himself great above imagining, and as a result thought he could have anything or anyone he wanted, including an Amazon woman who died in the fight to kill him. Achilles would never admit it, but there are much more amazing things in mythology than him. An example is the death- origin story I told in class. Every night, the moon would ressurect people from the dead, until an old man demanded it stop; people should remain dead. The moon obeyed... all except for itself; a moon that came back from the dead every night. Such is a feat not even the great Achilles could accomplish.

Origin Myths

"To me, you are not the cause, only the gods can be causes."- Pg. 93. This reiterates a point I made in an earlier blog; people at this time weren't made to be responsible for their actions because those actions were encouraged by a god or two. That excuse certainly worked for Helen of Troy. In fact, in mythology, the gods are the cause of practically everything, including (as we learned in class) the creation of the Earth. One of the most popular myths is the earth- diver myth, which generally includes a deity or very capable animal diving into the ocean and creating land from the dirt below. Dr. Sexon noted in class how coincidental it was that so many different cultures had this myth in common. I find it is much the same as reincarnation; cultures ranging from Ancient Egypt to the native Americans believed in it, despite having nothing to do with each other. It will be interesting to discuss in class how it works that unrelated cultures have so much mythology in common.

What Myths Can Tell Us

"A mythical event can mean a change of landscape."- pg 64. This is quite an understatement. A mythologlical event can change an entire life. For example, a god falling in love with a human certainly alters that person's life from what it could have been, more than likely ending in a gruesome death. But then, as we learned in class, every story must end some way, and what is a life but a breathing story. They all start with creation, life symbolizes the middle, and then comes the apocalpse. There are many stories to be told, and many of them are told in "The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony". Fascinating stories they are. I've come to the point where I couldn't help but notice that practically everyone in these stories, god and human, appear to be bisexual, or more specifically what we would call pedophiles today. It is interesting how through a book of myth, we are able to see the evolution of what is deemed acceptable in society.

A God Made Me Do It

"He had dared to bring a dead man back to life, so Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt." - pg 59. In the ancient Greek religion, hubris was among the worst laws you can break. To think oneself above a god could very well lead to your demise. As I continued reading "The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony" and took notes in class, I often found the gods to be a very selfish bunch. They're prone to fits of jealousy, often killing or transforming the lovers of a rival god, or really anyone that crossed them, such as Arachne did with Athena. They also think nothing of using humans in rather deadly ways to obtain a goal. For example, what started as a beauty contest between three goddesses led to the Trojan War. The theme of literature pertaining to the religion of ancient Greece was that the gods were dangerous whether they loved you or hated you. In fact, the only good thing about them was that if some normal human strife went wrong, there was usually a god to blame.

The Friendly Tree

"The craziest type of people are those who scorn what they have around them and look elsewhere/vainly searching for what cannot exist." - Calasso pg. 59. This is a good description for many characters in mythology. A great deal of them shoot for the greatest, both in career and in romance. This is not neccesarily a bad thing in my view, but it is a risky road, especially when one attempts to woo a god. As was mentioned in the previous entry, romantic interests of gods often perish. Others are turned into things, whether they be animal or even a tree. We were told to hug a tree in class for this very reason. The spirits are, after all, human, and so need affection.

This was not a very intimate embrace. It was, after all, our first meeting, and I did not wish to be too forthcoming so as to scare her into retreating further into her trunk. So, for now, a friendly, one- armed hug as a photo is taken will do nicely.