The Frogs by Aristophanes

Tonight is apparently Greek play night, I've read two plays tonight in an attempt to quickly read a chunk of the 200  books and increase my motivation to finish this very big challenge. The Frogs is in the same book translated by Mr. Dickinson as Lysistrata. I enjoyed reading this play second as it was written later, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. This play's tone seems far more relaxed than Lysistrata, but that could be because there is no major crisis that must be solved. It is more an adventure, leisure, or character commentary. I find it interesting that this play was light on political references and commentary and won an award from the government instead of Lysistrata. Perhaps a statement from the government about their dislike of political themed plays? 

This story is about the god Dionysus going down into Hades to find Euripides a playwright who recently died. In a Dante like moment they see the various people who are in hell which gave me pause to wonder if the Divine Comedy may have been a bit inspired by this play. 

Dionysus even hosts a contest between Euripides and Aeschlyus to determine the better playwright. The outcome is not what I expected, but I am not versed in their plays so I was a little confused about the references to their plays. I will not say the end because this play is worth the read. And I'm opposed to spoilers.

I found it interesting how the slave Xanthias has to walk all the way around the lake and questions why he has to be put through all this.  His opinions and thoughts are not hidden or subtle. It's interesting that a slave in a slave culture society makes such statements. I wonder if this was a comment about slavery? I could be over reaching here. This could be a literary agent used to keep the play moving.

Either way it's interesting how macabre this play is in the beginning with talks of suicide and going into hell then ends saving someone from death and bringing them back to save the nation. All with a little poetry slamming in there, not unlike the various music cross referencing/commentaries we have going on today. I'm sure much of the subleties are lost on me this many years after their culture, but it was rich with comedy and imagination and made for a great read on a cold snowy night.

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

There is something nostalgic about reading an old book. That nostalgia is doubled when reading an old book translation of an old text. Today I read Lysistrata, a play by Aristophanes. The translation is by Patric Dickinson through Oxford Paperbacks circa 1970. The smell of must and old paper waft off the book as each page turns and I can't help but feel like Gandalf in the dank old library looking over old papers.  Too bad I had the hum of electricity and TV's around me to pull me from my revelrie.

Lysistrata is an interesting political play, which I understood better thanks to the succint prologue Mr. Dickinson provided. Aristophones wrote this during the Peloponnesian War...which was particularly draining on the economy and population.

 The basic plot is that Lysistrata meets women of the other areas involved and they all vow to not be sexual with their men until they agree to peace. She also has the older women take over the treasury so the men can't have access to it.  After 6 days of the men and women bickering, emissaries from the other cities come, desperate for the peace treaty that will bring their wives back to bed. 

I find it interesting that there were many degrading comments to women, that can still be seen today. The men did not appreciate the value or skill set that women can/could bring to the table. The men were outraged and horrified that Lysistrata would take over the treasury, saying that there is no way war coffers can be compared to a household budget. I find that oddly similar to today's government budget. We spend so much money as a government and culture and then borrow more money so we can give and spend more, it's dagerously reckless. Yet, it we had the common sense of a simple household budget on a large scale...would things be easier? Lysistrata thinks so.

It was very funny to see the women pining away for their husbands in the treasury and Lysistrata telling them to get back in, that they were not going to give in and ruin the protest. Though there are derogatory views of women and their frivolous housekeeping it is interesting to see women portrayed as amorous and in love with drinking...a far cry from the Victorian stoic lady of the house. It almost made me blush to see the women desire their men so deeply. I'm used to a culture where women bemoan sex with their spouse more often than they celebrate it. Not that I think that's better. I believe that God definitely made sex as a great gift to both the husband and wife. I'm also not sure I think that it's the best idea to withhold from your spouse, but it seemed like a short withholding before they came back together. So maybe, and I say this with utmost caution, there is some merit in this particular fast? 

 Throughout the play there is a wonderfully refreshing sarcasm and sardonic attitude throughout the play, so much so that I wish I could have experienced it as a real play during the time. It wouldn't be that hard to make the entire play cutlturally relevant and poignant to our current situation.  I'm sure there are many case studies from many disciplines that could be made from this play.

Aristophanes makes a strong statement in this play about the ridiculousness of war. Sparta was warring against Athens over an offense, easily forgetting the previous help Athens offered them. Athens warred against Spartans over another offense forgetting that Sparta laid armies to waste for them. Both aided and hated each other at the same time, dwindling resources to prove their own hatred the strongest. The play ended abruptly after they made a peace treaty, perhaps to make a point that everyone just wanted to get home? But I wish that there could have been a stronger statement to pooling resources to cooperate and do more good. In the end, this is a light play and an easy enjoyable read. 1 down, 199 to go! 

The first venture...a read through some classics.

I am participating in the reading through the classics club.

 Here are a few of the books I picked, a few over 200 because I have to do some larger selections from a few choice authors. What's a few more books, right?

Flatland, Edwin Abbott
Watership down, Richard Adams
Oresteia, Aeschylus
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee
Hospital Sketches, Louisa May Alcott
Jo's Boys, Louisa May Alcott
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Little Men, Louisa May Alcott
Stories of Eva Luna, Isabelle Allende
The House of the Spirits, Isabelle Allende
London Fields, Martin Amis
Winesburg Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
One thousand and One Nights, Anonymous
Lysistrata, Aristophanes read 12/15/2013
The Frogs, Aristophanes read 12/15/2013
Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle
The Doll Maker, Harriett Arrow
A Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
Complete Juvenalia, Jane Austen
Emma, Jane Austen
Lady Susan, Jane Austen
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
Northhanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Persuasion, Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Sandition, Jane Austen
Selected Letters, Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
The Watsons, Jane Austen
Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
Go Tell It On The Mountain, James Baldwin
Eugenie Grandet, Honore Balzac
The Black Sheep, Honore Balzac
Peter Pan, JM Barrie
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L Baum
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy
The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio
Ficciones, Jorge Borges
Lady Audley's Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Tennant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
Shirley, Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Professor, Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
The Making of a Marchioness, France Hodgson Burnett
The Shuttle, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Burns
Evelina, Frances Burney
The Fall, Albert Camus
The Plague, Albert Camus
The Stranger, Albert Camus
A Lost Lady, Willa Cather
Alexander's Bridge, Willa Cather
April Twilights, Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
One of Ours, Willa Cather
Shadows on the rock, Willa Cather
The professor's house, Willa Cather
The song of the lark, Willa Cather
My Mortal Enemy, Willa Cather
My Antonia, Willa Cather
O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
Sapphira and the Slavegirl, Willa Cather
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
The Duel, Anton Chekov
The Major Plays, Anton Chekov
Three Sisters, Anton Chekov
Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekov
Desiree's Baby, Kate Chopin
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Storm, Kate Chopin
The Story of the Hour, Kate Chopin
Youth, JM Coetzee
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sido, Collette
My Mother's House, Collette
Armadale, Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
Analects, Confucius
The Adventures of Pinnocchio, Carlo Collodi
The Pathfinder, James Fenimore Cooper
The Prarie, James Fenimore Cooper
The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper
The Divine Comedy, Dante
The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas De Quincy
The Little Prince, Antoine De Sait Exupery
Meditations on First Philosophy, Renee Descartes
Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens
Barnaby Rudge,
American Notes,
Hard Times,
Nicholas Nickelby,
Martin Chuzzlewitt,
Little Dorrit,
A Child's History of England,
Our Mutual Friend,
Tale of Two Cities,
The Chimes,
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
The Old Curiosity Shop,
The Cricket of the Hearth,
The Winds of Heaven, Monica Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Demons, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Eternal Husband, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Gambler, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Double, Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, Frederick Douglas
My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglas
The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Black Tulip, Alexander Dumas
Twenty years after, Alexander Dumas
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Echo
Brother Jacob, George Eliot
The Lifted Veil, George Eliot
Romola, George Eliot
Scenes of Clerical Life, George Eliot
The Complete Poems, T.S. Eliot
Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot
Medea, Euripides
Four Tragedies, Euripides
Sanctuary, William Faulkner
Tales of the Jazz age, F. Scott Fitzgerald
This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Passage to India, E.M. Forster
Where Angels Fear to Tread, E.M. Forster
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
1726 Journal, Benjamin Franklin
North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell
Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell
Mythology, Edith Hamilton
Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
Selected Stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Beowulf, Seamus Heaney
Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemmingway
The Illiad, Homer
A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume
Ghosts, Henrick Ibson
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving
Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Ivory Tower, Henry James
The Bostonians, Henry James
Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce
Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata
Poems, John Keats
The tale of the Genji, Lady Muraski
The Stone Angel,  Margaret Laurence
Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
The Garden Party and Other Stories, Katherine Mansfield
The Piazza Tales, Herman Melville
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, Yukio Mishima
Common Sense, Thomas Paine
Moralia, Plutarch
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
The Bride of Lammermoor, Sir Walter Scott
Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
Antigone, Sophocles
A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi Thiong'o
The death of Ivan Illyich, Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Sojourner Truth
The Art of War, Sun Tzsu
A Floating City, Jules Verne
Around the Moos, Jules Verne
The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne Read 1/11/14 
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
The Aenid, Virgil
Ghost Stories, Edith Wharton
Sanctuary, Edith Wharton
The Glimpses From the Moon, Edith Wharton
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf
Dream of the Red Chamber, Cao Xuegin
Irish Faerie Tales, William Butler Yeats
Nana, Emile Zola
The Earth, Emile Zola
Therese Raquin, Emile Zola
We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The Touchstone, Virginia Woolf
The Reef, Edith Wharton
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Greenbanks, Dorothy Whipple
The Winds of War, Herman Wonk

The very first post

I should be grateful to venture into the technological realm, but I do this with much trepidation!
There is a fine line between writing humbly and arrogantly. Clearly the preference is to write humbly, without giving away the farm so to speak.

This venture blog is starting because I wanted to do a challenge...the classics challenge. I'm going to read 200 books! And I'm going to write a review of them. When I signed up for this challenge, I was advised that I need a blog. That is the reason I've created said blog. With an eye to the future...maybe there will be another blogging challenge I can add.

For now, I am venturing through the classics...while raising a toddler and increasing intimacy and spirituality in my marriage and personal life with Christ. Many of my book reviews may incorporating my life experiences with the book...hopefully making each review somewhat relatable.

So for now...this is all. I will write later today/tomorrow my book list. 200 books! What did I get myself into?