Platypus of Truth

My series of posts on Ancient Witches continues over at Eidos with parts 2 and 3 . I've worked my way from the Sons of Asclepius to Helen of Troy and now on to Circe. Euripides Medea is coming up, followed by Apollonius of Rhodes reboot. After that, it's on to Vergil and Ovid. I plan on applying to grad schools again in September, so hopefully this popular-level writing will still be a help in upping my academic game. Meantime, it is summer and that should mean some summer reading. I just finished volume 9 of Neil Gaiman's Sandman  as well as Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall  (a book that's way ahead of its time in discussing Fundamentalism, Alcoholism, Home-Schooling, and Gender. There's a popular biography of Catullus on the list, and we'll see where things go from there.

Every year, in honor of Michael Ward's groundbreaking Planet Narnia , I award seven Summer reading books with to one of the seven heavens of Medieval cosmology. Prior awards can be found by following the "Summer Reading" tag at the bottom of this post. This year presents a bit of a challenge, as most of the books I read were technical in nature, but I think there were still enough idle hours to get us to our requisite "Seven Heavens". Moon: The Heaven of Madness and Change belongs this year to Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, as he appears in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman . I kinda, sorta, got this series in grad-school -it was perhaps too much for me at the time. All things have their season, however, and right now seems to be my time for The Sandman . Mercury: The Heaven of Language goes to the most well-written grammar for any language I've studied: Wheelock's Latin . All one has to do is pick up Hanson and Quinn's Greek to see the massive differ...

We're already past July 4th, and I haven't addressed the critical issue of Summer Reading. In part, that's because I'm applying to grad schools and six to eight hours of each week day is devoted to language study and catch-up reading. So, right now, most of my Summer Reading is Wheelock's and Hanson and Quinn. Other things have managed to slip in, however. If you've been following this blog, you may have noticed the Neil Gaiman binge. It started with Troll Bridge , moved on to The Neverwhere , gained steam with The Sandman  vols 1-6, The Dream Hunters  and Overture , and finished up with Fragile Things  and The Ocean at the End of the Lane . That's a lot of Gaiman! To break up the flow of goth drama and tragic sexuality, we've also been listening to Stephen Fry read the Sherlock Holmes novels and doing our own read-through of Frank Herbert's Dune . We're looking forward to watching the Sci-Fi channels mini-series after we're done with tha...

Another Labor Day Weekend is upon us and that means that another Summer Vacation has come to a close upon this middle earth. With that, it's time for 2017's annual Seven Heavens of Summer Reading Awards. As in summers past, I award the the most interesting books of the year's summer reading to the various medieval planets that most correspond to their virtues. Sun: The Sun is the heaven of scholars. A hundred years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien was penning the first words of what would become Middle Earth. It has taken two lifetimes to bring out all that was in that tweedy little don's head. Christopher Tolkien, at 93, has brought out what he considers the capstone of his father's work Beren and Luthien . Though there is no new material here, the arrangement allows the reader to see how the central tale of Tolkien's mythology evolved over the course of its creator's long life. The Solaric Award, then, goes to both Tolkiens for two life's-works well done. Mercu...

Summer has returned, though you wouldn't know it in Texas right now. Whatever the weather may be doing (and it's appreciated), school is out and that means that it's time for a new "Seven Heavens of Summer Reading". Stuff has been piling up on the shelves, so there's lots to work through. In the comics department, Valiant Comics is leading the field with Divinity , XO Manowar: Soldier , and Britannia: We Who Are About to Die . All of these are absolutely excellent middle-brow fair. Historical reading finds me following up last summer's A Storm of Spears  with Christopher Matthew's new ANZAC salvo on all things hoplite Beyond the Gates of Fire . We'll see if Matthew's team can send old V.D. Hanson's Western Way of War running for cover by showing that their models of hoplite battle can shed new light on the well trodden sands of Thermopylae. In the Fantasy genre, my wife and I are taking a second trip through The Last Unicorn  after s...

The first full week of classes is over and that means an early end to this year's summer reading at Platypus of Truth. If 2016 saw fewer titles, they were no less enjoyable than in years prior. As usual, topics varied widely with trips into 18th century literature ( The Vicar of Wakefield ) and comics theory ( Hellboy's World ). Without further ado then, let's move on to the awards. Sun: The heaven of scholars always has multiple works vying for the title. This year presented a strong field with several works on colonial New England ( In the Devil's Snare , Escaping Salem , and A little Commonwealth ). Inklings scholarship can never be ignored with Jane Chance's A Mythology of Power  and Mark Atherton's There and Back Again running against Corey Olsen's Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit . Ancient Greece wasn't missing either ( A Storm of Spears ). With such a tough field, it's hard to decide but the award goes to Mark Atherton's There a...

June is usually the month when I get most of the year's blogging done. This June has been full of distractions, so here I am at the end of the month just putting together a post on Summer Reading. Every summer I put together a prospective reading list. At the end of each summer, I award the best of those books the Seven Heavens of Summer Reading awards in honor of Michael Ward's Planet Narnia . So what's made the list so far? First off, I finished up a little more reading on the Salem Witch Trials with Mary Beth Norton's In the Devil's Snare , a book I found excellent but ultimately unpersuasive (especially because I was uncertain of what exactly the author was trying to persuade me). A more satisfying read was Escaping Salem  by Richard Godbeer about the witch trials in my own back yard (Fairfield County Connecticut) that I never knew about. Godbeer manages to treat his subjects as real people inhabiting a real time and place without the sanctimonious rush to j...

For years now, I've handed out awards to the top seven books of my summer reading. These awards are called "The Seven Heavens of Summer Reading" in honor of Michael Ward's groundbreaking dissertation Planet Narnia which attempts to prove that C.S. Lewis structured the The Chronicles of Narnia  around the Seven Heavens of the Medieval cosmology (not actually that weird when you remember that Lewis attempted to do just that with the space trilogy, was a medievalist, and had a taste for private jokes). For the awards, I match each reading with the attributes of a corresponding planet. Luna: The award for the Planet of Madness goes to that-book-which-must-not-be-read, The King in Yellow , by R.W. Chambers. This creepy work of decadent literature forms a bridge between Gothic writers like Poe and 20th Century Horror writers like H.P. Lovecraft. The work has just that combination of sophistication, refinement of sentiment, and gnawing pessimism that only exists in fin-de...

A typical summer here at the Platypus of Truth features literary reviews or live blogs of series such as Terry Brooks' Shannara or my projected plan to work through Garth Nix's Abhorsen series.  This year, while some books are being read ( Moby Dick  and The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings ) most of my time is being sucked away by a change of apartment complex and a slew of medical tests trouble shooting my perennial stomach problems.  In the meantime, pencils and pastels have become a favorite distraction and hence their proliferation on this site.  We'll see if enough reading gets done to still post the "Seven Heavens of Summer Reading" awards at the end of August, but that may not happen.  In any case, literary criticism will resume as soon as possible and the trip through Nix has not been forgotten.  Until then, whatever's going on with me, the Platypus speaks Truth.

Summer is dead and gone good lady; Summer's dead and gone.  The sunny season has finally given way to her more temperate cousin and that means it's time to take stock of this year's Summer Reading.  As usual on this blog, that also means that I'm handing out awards for the seven best books I've read during the break.  The awards are themed around the attributes of the seven medieval heavens in honor of C.S. Lewis and Michael Ward.  So, without further ado, here are this year's winners. Moon: The planet of madness goes to a book that nearly drove me mad:  Night Train to Lisbon .  Pascal Mercier's story of a Swiss school teacher's mid-life crisis is the sort of book that reminds you of the emperor's new clothes.  It attempts to cow you with its own pretentiousness.  That's sad, because with another round or two of merciless edits, I think it could have been a good book. Mercury:  This year's award for the planet of wordsmiths goes to one of...

This is the first summer in three years where I'm not live-blogging a read through one or more of the Shannara books.  Nonetheless, I am disposed to be communicative, but without a ready-made excuse for a post what shall I say?  Let's start with where the Summer Reading has gone thus far. I've handily dispatched Paul Cartledge's two popular-level books on Sparta's role in the Persian Wars, Thermopylae and After Thermopylae .  Cartledge comes out swinging for his side here and no mistake.  When push comes to shove, he thinks that the Spartans decisively won the Persian Wars and that the Athenians stole the glory.  That's controversial, to say the least.  The Athenian victory at Salamis cut the Persians' supply lines and also kept them from using the fleet to raid the Spartan coast or lend superior maneuver to the Persian army.  I also have to wonder, given what Herodotus account, if the Spartans could have won at Plataea without the support of the ba...

Well, the semester grades are in and that means it's time to begin thinking about summer reading.  The semester closed out with me working my way through the complete Calvin and Hobbes and I also managed to sneak in The Goblins of Labyrinth by Brian Froud.  So, to start off the official 2014 Summer Reading list, I'll begin with more Calvin and Hobbes and The World of the Dark Crystal by Brian Froud.  I'd also be terribly remiss if I didn't include the recently released Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien.  Obligations out of the way, I'm also looking forward to a brilliant little micro-history of the town I grew up in written by the daughter of the founder: Saltbox House by Jane de Forest Shelton.  All things New England are welcome right now, so I imagine that there will also be a few volumes on the Puritans.  On the far side of my historical interests, I'm also contemplating a return to Chinese History with some Jonathan D. Spence...

The summer is coming to a close (though the weather down here will be in the 80s and 90s until November).  That means it's time again for the Seven Heavens of Summer Reading awards.  These awards were created in honor of Michael Wards' groundbreaking book Planet Narnia which asserts that Lewis ordered his famous children's series around the seven planets of medieval cosmology.  Following this idea, I award seven books from my summer reading list that best exemplify the virtues of the seven planets.  Following the "summer reading" label at the bottom of this post will link you the lists of prior award winners.  Without further ado, let's get to it. Moon: This year's winner for the planet of change and madness has to be Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  Following the adventures of three board editors to create the ultimate conspiracy theory is enough to blur the boundaries of reality for anyone. Mercury: For the wordsmith's heaven, the award...

The school year ended yesterday amid much tidying of classrooms and eating of comestibles.  Another year of teaching down and another class of seniors sent off into the world of adulthood.  What that means practically is that summer is here and with it a return to the other things in my life.  After all, teachers, contrary to popular belief, don't spend the vacation resting in coffins beneath the school yard until the bell rings and they rise again to feed on the blood of the living (At least I don't).  Summer is the privilege of our professional status combined with our relatively smaller(compared with equally educated and qualified professionals) paychecks.  It's a time to refresh, recharge, and regroup before returning to the task of tutoring the next generation into adulthood.  My grand aunt, who was single for years, spent her summers traveling the world and becoming the sort of person that anyone would be privileged to learn from.  At the univers...

It's mid-April (the cruelest month), and Summer is still a month-and-a-half-away.  Nonetheless, sunny days and vacation time are beginning to peak at last over the horizon and my mind is contemplating 2013's course of Summer Reading. On the docket: A return to "The Summer of Shannara" with Terry Brooks' prequel The First King of Shannara Liveblogging my read through Robert E. Howard's Conan stories Learning a little more about the Spartans with Paul Cartledge's Spartan Reflections (I'm reading his The Spartans now). Going back to world of historiography with Confessing History , a series of essays on practicing the historian's craft written by Christian historians. Keeping up on my Tolkien with Caldecott's The Power of the Ring (formally released as The Secret Fire ) I have a trip to New England (Home, The Motherland) planned this summer so reading on Puritan New England will continue until moral improves (I'm already work...

Well folks, the end of the summer is upon us and that means it's time for the annual "Seven Heavens of Summer Reading Awards."  For those who don't know or don't remember, the SHSRA were started right here in 2008 in honor of Michael Ward's groundbreaking Planet Narnia .  In this work, Ward asserts that Lewis ordered his seven Narnia books around seven planets of Medieval cosmology.  Thus, when the end of summer draws near, I pick the top seven reads of the summer that best match with the characteristics of the seven Medieval planets.  Without further ado, then, let's get on to the awards! Moon: For the planet of madness, change and flux we have Terry Brooks' The Druid of Shannara .  This meditation on mutability has a city turned to stone along with its godlike keeper, a woman changed into the earth, an elemental changed into a monster, a wandering minstrel into king, and finally a reluctant recluse into the first of a new order of Druids. Mercur...

Tomorrow is the last day of classes and that means that it's time for the return of summer reading.  I'm planning on a follow-up to last year's "Summer of Shannara" by blogging my way through the Heritage of Shannara series (maybe they'll be better?).  There's also bound to be plenty of all things Greek with The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Memories of Odysseus, Spartan Notes, The Mycenaeans, Blackwell's Companion to Ancient Epic, etc. on the list.  The Greeks won't own the whole show as The Rape of Nanking and The Memory Palace of Mateo Ricci are also there to globalize a bit.  Tolkien certainly won't be left out as I happen to have gotten a nice critical edition of The Monsters and the Critics from some generous family friends as well as a copy of The Company They Keep from my wife.  Lewis is also on the menu with Sayer's biography as well as Gresham's Lenten lands and Lewis own Experiment in Criticism .  Back to the world of pu...

September is here and Summer has ended (even if it doesn't feel that way outside) and it's time for the 2011 Summer Reading Awards, or as I like to call them: "The Seven Heavens of Summer Reading."  The awards were established in honor of Michael Ward's "Planet Narnia," in which he claims that the seven books of The Chronicles of Narnia are ordered around the seven planets of medieval cosmology.  In that spirit, each award is given to honor an excellent book whose content is in keeping with the attributes of one of the "seven heavens."  With that bit of background, let's cut to this year's awards. Moon: "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones  For the sphere of madness, flux, and change, there could be no better match than this story of magical transformations, mistaken identities, and mad Welshmen. Mercury: "The Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot  In the matter of manipulating language, T.S. Eliot's Nobel...

September is just around the corner and that means that Summer is nearly at an end.  On that note, it's time to announce this year's winners for "The Seven Heavens of Summer Reading." Moon: Lilith by George MacDonald   Constancy and inconstancy form a central motif in this weird tale turned Universalist allegory.  As a symbol of this stand the various moons that govern the nightly changes of MacDonald's imaginary world. Venus: She by H. Rider Haggard  The colonial administrator turned author brings us a vivid picture of Venus Infernal in this seminal work of adventure pulp. Mars: Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein  One of the great soldier's novelists since Kipling, Heinlein easily captures the slot devoted to the god of war.  On the bounce! Mercury: From Alpha to Omega by Anne H. Groten  I tried to teach myself Greek this summer.  Not the best thing to try during a major move.  Still, what better book could there be for this summe...

Reading "This Discarded Image" this summer has deepened my respect for the Medieval model of the cosmos. So, to honor the imaginative achievements of my ancestors, I have decided to end off this summer by posting my awards for "The Seven Heavens of Summer Reading." Sun: The heaven of scholars could be monopolized any summer by C.S. Lewis, but as he seemed to prefer the sphere of Jove, how about an author that uses C.S. Lewis for a character? For giving us a thoroughly believable Lewis, the Sphere of the Sun goes to Peter Kreefte for "Between Heaven and Hell." Moon: For all its twists and turns, one book this summer deserves the honor of being paired with the Sphere of Luna; and it even shares her name: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," by Robert Heinlein. Mars: Last year's martial book "A Princess of Mars," is a hard act to follow. I think this year's winner is up to the task, however. In the category of glorifying coura...