Gabbing About Gaiman's Graveyard: The Platypus Reads Part XCIX

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I grew up surrounded by graveyards.  They intrigued me by day and creeped me out by night.  Some of them had witches, some of them had apostates, not a few had a charnel house, and a few had ghost-stories. I've also liked Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" since seventh grade.  With that in my background, you'd figure I'd have picked up a copy of Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" sooner.  Fortunately, a friend gave me a copy for my birthday and I've just finished reading it.  I can see why Gaiman took away the Newbury medal for this piece of work.  It is a compact and delightful retelling of "The Jungle Book" that seamlessly blends its source material into the dark and weird world of Gaiman's fiction.  The characters are well-drawn and compelling and the story unfolds at just the right pace.  Though the main character is a child, there is nothing childish about the work.  Each sentence is the work of a mature author at the height of his career.  If you haven't read it yet, this is well worth the read.

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The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

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Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
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