Even if Achilles posses superhuman strength, agility and has a very close relationship with gods, he may be not so heroic to the modern readers.  (His mother Thetis is Goddess and was nymph of the ancient one of the seas in the historical vestiges of most Greek mythology)

 He has all the marks of a great warrior, and indeed proves the mightiest man in the Achaean army, but his deep-seated character mistakes constantly slow down his ability to act with nobility and integrity.

He can not control his superiority and rage that surges up when his pride is injured. This attributes so poisons him that he abandons his friends and even prays that the Trojans will kill them, all because he has been slighted at the hands of his commander, Agamemnon. Achilles is driven primarily by a desire for glory.  

Part of him desires to live a long, easy life, but he knows that his personal fate forces him to choose between the two. Ultimately, he is willing to sacrifice everything else so that his name will be remembered.

Like most Homeric characters, Achilles does not have a spiritual transformation of the epic. Although the death of his friend Patroclus makes him to seek compromise with Agamemnon, it does not increase his rage, but redirects it toward Hector. After that Achilles is not purposeful or self-reflective character. Bloodlust, wrath, and pride continue to consume him.

Here's a nice tidbit from George King III (NY Post):

Though Alex Rodriguez eyes a return from the disabled list Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, Rodriguez said he understands he set himself up for a vicious booing by Red Sox fans for helping friend Manny Ramirez celebrate when Ramirez hits his 500th home run.

"Manny wanted four people to make a video for him, and I was one of them," Rodriguez said. "I filmed it last week."

What does Rodriguez say to his friend upon entering the fraternity Rodriguez joined last year?

"I said, 'Manny, I am going to make this brief because I am going to get booed. Congratulations and many more.' "

With the Red Sox starting a seven-game home stand tomorrow night, there is a good chance Ramirez will reach the magic number.

That's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to Manny's 500th HR.

Zeus sends a false dream to Agamemnon in which a figure in the form of Nestor persuades Agamemnon that he can take Troy if he launches a full-scale assault on the city’s walls. The next day, Agamemnon gathers his troops for attack, but, to test their courage, he lies and tells them that he has decided to give up the war and return to Greece. So To help the Trojans Zeus makes it and ships go home. After that Hera inspires Odysseus o call the men back. He shouts words of encouragement and restores their confidence. After that soothsayer Calchas says that nine years would pass before the Achaeans would finally take Troy. When Zeus sends a messenger to the Trojan court, telling them of the Greeks’ awesome formation, and Trojans gets their own troops under the command of Priam’s son Hector.  Paris challenges Menelaus to single combat over Helen while she watches from the walls of Troy with Priam; Paris is quickly overmatched by Menelaus, but is rescued from death by Aphrodite, and Menelaus is seen as the winner.

Homer writes of Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, that he was to instruct Achilles so as to make him into a "speaker of speech" (a rhetor of mythos) and a "doer of deeds" (a praktēr of ergon). The greatness of Achilles is his eventual fusion of these two into a single form. The political and the performance in war are inter-dependently related.

Homer in the Iliad wrote:

[Peleus, your father] sent you out from Phthia to Agamemnon, a mere child, knowing nothing yet of evil war, nor of assembles in which men become preeminent. For this reason he sent me to instruct you in all these things, to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds (Iliad 9.338-444).

Cicero the great champion of rhetoric, decried that Greek philosophy of arguments from first principles had broken instruction into two entirely distinct realms, that of knowledge and that of persuasion. The tongue had been separated from the brain, the "knower" from those "with the capacity to speak" (alii nos sapere, allii dicere docerent, Cicero De oratore 3.61). The result of which is a philosophical concern with the "res obscurae" and "non necessariae". Philosophy, in Cicero's view, had become preoccupied with its own products. The public and practical (pragmatic?) dimensions of knowing had atrophied.

Wittgenstein, a suitable Achillean character for a philosophical place like Cambridge, which can be our contemporary Troy, through his concept of "Language-games" and "meaning is use" breaks down this very rationalist Greek distinction. The rhetor and the gnostic are no longer divided. Speech is an act, one becomes a praktēr of mythos, and in language use one is a rhetor of ergon. The using of language is a kind of doing; knowing how to use words, how to "follow a rule" is the inscription of the realm of knowing itself, through the production of "meaning". Meaning as practice.

With the unsustainability of verificationist claims of epistemology, rhetoric, that is the effective use of words, becomes the horizon of knowing. Consider Aristotle's definition of Rhetoric in this respect.

Aristotle in Rhetoric wrote:

Rhetoric then may be defined as the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever. This is the function of no other of the arts, each of which is able to instruct and persuade in its own special subject; (translation J.H. Freese.)

Literal: Rhetoric thus is the capacity (dunamis) upon of each of the beheld (theōrēsai) to take in its own persuasiveness (pithanon), and not of each different thing (heteras) [this] is this skill's (technēs) work (ergon). For each of the other kinds, the underlying (hupokeimenon) of its own, it is instructive (didaskalykē) and persuasive (peistikē) of that sort. (1.2.1)

The literal translation brings about a certain richness.

Rhetorical "Faculty" is actually capacity, or power. A "Subject" is each thing beheld, seen, considered (from which we get the word "theory" ). The "Persuasion" of a perspective, it should be noted, is derived from Peithō, Persuasion a goddess attendant of Aphrodite.

Theorizing in the rhetorical sense, is beholding and taking upon oneself (endexomenon) the inherent persuasiveness in the thing considered, that is it is the capacity of capacities. It is interpreting in terms both of sense, and in the power to convince others in a social sphere. It requires a certain discernability that will be marked in terms of a power (dunamis), to join language games to each other, bringing about consent. Instead of epistemologies, there are capacities. It is notable that the capacities are performed in rhetoric through forming arguments (enthymemes) through the identification of topoi (that is literally places), which are ways of relating. The forms (topoi) of Aristotle argumentation it can be said correspond to the rules of Language-games (and in the end Lebensform) of Wittgenstein. The rhetor is gnostic.

[written May 14, 2006]

Sólo les dejo las imágenes....

Name a hero and Achilles, Agamemnon, and Heracles immediately spring to mind. These characters are the household names, so to speak, among the heroes, and we are well informed about both their spectacular lives and their deaths from epic and myth, and of the sanctuaries and shrines where they received cult. But what about Egretes, the Children of Caphyae, and the ‘‘Heroes in the Field''? They were also heroes and, though less well known to us, certainly no less important to the people who worshiped them. And what do we make of the figure or figures who for more than a hundred years received offerings of pottery, figurines, and metal objects from the rural inhabitants of Berbati in the Argolid, when they feasted next to the monumental Mycenaean tomb in the midst of their valley? This may also be a hero-cult, though we can neither name its recipient nor define his (or her) character.

Heroes (hērōes, fem. hērōinai, hērōissai) are a category of divine beings of Greek mythology and religion which are difficult to define, since they varied over both time and place. To quote a now classic statement by Nicholas Coldstream: ‘‘Greek hero worship has always been a rather untidy subject, where any general statement is apt to provoke suspicion''. A characteristic of heroes and hero-cults is their heterogeneity, both in relation to the nature of the heroes themselves and the appearance of their cult-places, and, to a lesser extent, the cult practices. Their importance in the Greek religious system is, on the other hand, indisputable, not the least from the fact that they were worshiped all over the Greek territory from the late eighth century BC to the end of antiquity.

For the ancient Greeks there was no clear-cut definition of a hero; still, heroes were distinguished from gods and from the ordinary dead. How we perceive a hero and his cult is dependent on which kind of evidence we consider. A hero can be defined as a person who had lived and died, either in myth or in real life, this being the main distinction between a god and a hero. He was thus dead and may have had a tomb, which sometimes was the focus of a cult, though not all heroes received religious attention. The difference between a hero and an ordinary dead person lies in the relationship with the living, the ordinary dead having some kind of connection with those tending the grave and presenting offerings, while the heroes were worshiped on a more official level. Finally, the hero was generally a local phenomenon and most heroes were connected with one specific location.

The use and meaning of the term hērōs

The written sources provide us with accounts of myths and cults of heroes, but the designation hērōs is not always a distinct marker of the status of the figure described in this manner or of the extent to which he received any form of cult. The etymology of the term is unclear. A connection with Hera has been suggested, the hērōs being seen as the young divine consort of the goddess in her aspect as a goddess of marriage or of the seasons.

A Linear B tablet from Pylos (PY Tn 316) mentions a Tiriseroe which may refer to a divinity, but it is difficult to know whether the Mycenaean hērōs constituted an equivalent to the hero of later periods.

Homer uses hērōs for the human protagonists of his epics, not only the warriors but also the bard Demodocus and even the people of Ithaca at large, but not for a recipient of cult in the same sense as in the archaic and classical periods.

In Hesiod's Work and Days (157-68), the Heroes constitute one of the four races, which came before the present Iron Race of men. After Gold, Silver and Bronze, the Heroes were created, ‘‘a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods''; they fought at Thebes and Troy and perished there, apart from a lucky few who continued their lives on the islands of the blessed.

From the archaic period, hērōs is used not only for a figure of extrahuman status, a protagonist of myth and epic, but also for a divine figure receiving cult. The terminology is not unambiguous, however, and an individual who fulfilled the criteria for being a hero could sometimes be called a god (theos), as was the case with the athlete Theogenes, worshiped on Thasos (Pausanias 6.11.2-9), or the healing divinity Hērōs Iatros from Athens, designated as theos in a third-century inscription (IG ii2 839).

Hērōs seems in this case to have functioned more as a name or a title. The disparity between terminology and content is evident also for the heroines. Though the concept of a female equivalent of hērōs exists in Homer, the earliest use of a term for a heroine (hērōis) is found in Pindar (Pythian 11.7). But the fluid use of hērōs can reflect the character of the figure in question as well, Heracles being the prime case. Born a mortal, he burnt himself to death on Mount Oite and finally ascended to the gods on Olympus. He was worshiped all over Greek territory but there was no tradition of him having a tomb. Heracles was primarily perceived as a god, though of mortal descent, a status pinpointed when Pindar describes him as a hērōs theos (Nemean 3.22). Also the Dioscuri and Asclepius transgressed the category of heroes with the panhellenic spread of their cults and their mythical background presenting them as partly immortal.

In the hellenistic period, some tombstones for the ordinary dead begin to carry the word ‘‘hero'' or ‘‘heroine.'' These are frequently decorated with heroic motifs, such as banqueting scenes and riders, and, where the age of the departed is known, they were often children or adolescents, whose untimely death may have led to them being heroized. Instead of taking hērōs to have meant simply ‘‘dead man'' and as a sign of the devaluation of hero-cults after the classical period, it seems that these individuals were in some way considered as special and distinct from the ordinary dead.

The rise of the hero concept

The earliest traces of hero-cults depend on which kind of sources are considered and it is not obvious that the written and archaeological evidence for heroes and hero cults coincided from the beginning. Tendencies of hero-worship may be distinguished in Homer, such as the tomb of Ilios being a respected landmark (Iliad 10.414, 11.166, 371, 24.350) and bulls and rams being sacrificed by the Athenian youths to Erechtheus (Iliad 2.550-1).

The basic features of the Hesiodic heroes, that they are mortal but still semi-divine, is in accordance with the concept of heroes as we know it from later periods and it is possible that these heroes (as well as the races which preceded them) were thought to correspond to the heroes of the kind later receiving cult.

Even though our earliest written sources do not use hērōs in the same sense as in later periods, or refer to hero-cults directly, the archaeological evidence indicates that hero-cults existed in some form in the late Early Iron Age. From the eighth century, there is a small and scattered group of hero shrines, all connected with epic or mythic heroes, identified by inscribed dedications (in most cases postdating the installation of the cult): Helen and Menelaus at Sparta, Odysseus in the Polis cave on Ithaca, and Agamemnon at Mycenae. A hērōon dedicated to the heroes who participated in the expedition against Thebes was established in Argos in the early sixth century.

Traces of Iron Age activity are found at Mycenaean tholos and chamber tombs over most of the Greek mainland in the eighth century, though some instances date back to the tenth century BC. Some deposits, rich in content and spanning several centuries, were probably herocults (as at Menidi in Attica and Berbati in the Argolid), while offerings of a more simple nature suggest ‘‘tomb cult'' directed towards the recently dead or to ancestors. A recent finding at a tholos tomb in Thessaly of an inscribed tile (seventh or sixth century BC) dedicated to Aeatus, the mythical founder of the region, shows that the heroes worshiped at the Bronze Age tombs may have been identified with mythic and epic figures as well.

Veneration of the recently dead also developed into hero-cults. Some individuals were buried in a manner clearly exceeding the regular norm, such as the couple interred in the tenth-century monumental house at Lefkandi, though at this site there is no sign of a subsequent cult. In Eretria, a group of people - men and women - were given rich cremation burials near the West Gate in the late eighth to the early seventh century. A triangular precinct was constructed around 680 BC and a building functioning as a shrine or a dining room was later erected next to it, the cult-place being in use until the late classical period, most likely as a hero-cult.

Another early category of hero to consider is the oikist, the leader of the party setting out to found a new colony outside the Greek homeland. The oikist was chosen by the oracle at Delphi and after his death buried in the agora of the new colony and there received a cult. Considering the early institution of some of these cults, as early as the mid-eighth century BC, it is possible that they influenced or even gave rise to hero-cults in the motherland.

Why did hero-cults arise in the eighth century? The spread of the Homeric epics (and Hesiod's writings) may have stimulated the identification of the Mycenaean tombs as those of the Homeric heroes, though a number of later-attested heroes do not figure in Homer. The occurrence of hero-cults is contemporary with the rise of the city-state, and hero-cults can be seen as a response to political and social changes. It has been suggested that they were mechanisms for aristocrats and prominent families to assert themselves or attempts by individual landholders and smaller communities to claim rights to land and territory.

On the whole, the origins of hero-cults must be viewed as highly diverse. Certain hero-cults may be derived from an interest in ancient graves or the tending of the graves of important contemporary individuals, while the heroes of myth and epic inspired others. To attempt to single out the factor that gave rise to hero-cults seems to be a futile endeavor. A more fruitful approach is to focus on the development of the category of heroes, a heading under which a whole range of figures with diverse origins came to be included, as well as on the political, social, and religious changes which contributed to this process.

Though the earliest traces of heroes and hero-cults date back to the Early Iron Age, heroes and hero-cults in the full sense of the terms did not become a prominent feature of Greek religion until the archaic period. Furthermore, different hero-cults came into being (and also disappeared) continuously all through the archaic, classical, and hellenistic periods, and the Bronze Age tombs even became the focus of religious attention a second time, in the late classical and hellenistic periods.

Book of interest

THE ODYSSEY
A film by Jeff Burns

Homer wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey more than 2,800 years ago. Now, that DWEM must have had somethin' goin' on because everybody's been trying to own him ever since: an ancient Roman named Virgil, a modern Irishman named Joyce, a couple of directors named the Cohen Brothers… We've had poems and plays and TV miniseries and a really bad action movie starring Brad Pitt.

So what's it all about? (Hey, we also slept through Western Civ 101, so don't feel bad.) Well, in the first part, we get the grotesque thrill of War. The sequel's about one soldier's voyage Home from that War. That's Odysseus. He's a clever dude, king of his island. But some of the gods don't like him. They blow him off course and make him wrestle with monsters for a decade. The Odyssey, at its psychological core, tries to answer one of civilization's most important questions: how does a soldier, dehumanized by warfare, return Home to be a man again, a loyal husband, and a just king of his domain?

Today, we've got our own War. And we, the people – our soldiers and our society – need to come Home from that War. We need a retelling of The Odyssey for our generation.

New York filmmaker Jeff Burns does it in 9 minutes 15 seconds.

A hyperactive, frequently hilarious video-collage, "The Odyssey" situates Homer's epics within the United States's recent history of warfare, from World War I to the present day. Recognizing that in the 21st century, our deep cultural mythologies are largely created and communicated by the American media and entertainment industries, Burns re-appropriates clips from a dizzyingly eclectic array of newsreels, cartoons, TV shows, movies and video games – all perfectly syncopated in MTV style to the tunes of Charles Mingus ("Haitian Fight Song," 1957), Tony Christie ("Is This the Way to Amarillo," 1971) and RJD2 ("Kill Them All," 2004). Burns' intricate layering of aural and visual information presses the envelope of what can be achieved synchronically in a diachronic medium. The result is a highly entertaining, viciously frenetic, deeply intertextual work of art of immediate importance, equally accessible to The Greatest Generation and Millennials alike.

"Chapter One: State of War" ingeniously conflates the thousand-ship armada of Agamemnon, the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and George H.W. Bush's declaration of war against Iraq with the bewildering confusion of Dorothy's tornado in "The Wizard of Oz" and malevolent sequences from Walt Disney's "Fantasia."The 1995 film "Dead Presidents," directed by Albert and Allen Hughes, makes its first appearance as one of Burns' recurring motifs.

"Chapter Two: Heading Home" exuberantly embraces the hit 2005 spoof video of "Is This the Way to Amarillo" made by Royal Dragoon Guards stationed in Iraq, and creates a picaresque of Odysseus's wanderings, touching upon several of Homer's classic episodes including Cyclops, Circe, Hades, and Aeolus.

"Chapter Three: Civilian Life" brilliantly locates, within The Odyssey's monsters, tribulations and trials, the returning soldier's psychological journey through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. General Wesley Clark makes an appearance, testifying to the dissociation of modern warfare – and its consequences – as Burns conflates PlayStation clips and military videos to devastating effect. Burns' tightly structured, wildly intertextual visual narrative invites you to interpret this film not only through Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, not only through Joyce's Ulysses, but also through a wide swath of American cultural history, affirming a Humanism that remains above and beyond today's divided political sphere.

BACK COVER:

About 1,000 veterans attempt suicide each month, according to a recent private email by the Director of Mental Health at the Veterans Administration. Three hundred thousand American veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been diagnosed with clinical depression or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This film has been created, and is dedicated, in support of greater awareness, treatment, and re-integration to civilian life of our veterans who willingly face the unthinkable. Please show your support for the GI Bill 2008 at http://www.gibill2008.org.

Como tudo na Web hoje em dia, já surgiram várias outras pessoas seguindo a onda de Pixeloo. São os tempos modernos, não se compartilha só os resultados, mas também as propostas.

Achilles The ancient Greek warrior and hero who, in Homer's Iliad, fought in the Trojan wars. 

The son of Peleus and Thetis, at birth Achilles' mother held him by the heel and dipped him in the fiery river Styx to obtain magical protection from his enemies. 

Achilles' heel remained dry, becoming his vulnerable spot. 

Often savage, Achilles killed Hector and mangled his body. Achilles also offered human sacrifices. 

The violent aspect of the Achilles legend brings to mind historical killers who find temporary satisfaction by expressing turbulent psychological forces. 

Achilles could also be seen as a brilliant, if undisciplined, military commander. 

Antonio Balestra's (1666-1740) oil on canvass depicts Thetis dipping Achilles, head-first, into a cauldron of water, presumably drawn from the river Styx.

More recently Brad Pitt played a convincing Achilles in the film, Troy. 

Achilles was eventually killed by Paris' poisoned arrow to the heel. » Balder, Olympus, Shadow, Wotan, Zeno

Add to this, report errors, suggest edits or voice your opinion by posting a comment

simpática y disparatada (caso personal). Un poquito de concentración y te acuerdas de los diálogos y todo. Otro día podemos hablar del horario de emisión de estos dibujos tan educativos para los más pequeños(Sobre todo cuando Homer agarra del cuello a Bart).

.: Vídeo :

Words of Wisdom

---Nature and wisdom never are at strife.
Plutarch

---It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld

---The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
William James

---The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.
Solomon Ibn Gabriol

---Years teach us more than books.
Berthold Auerbach

---The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy.
William Penn

---A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.
Latin Proverb

---Silence does not always mark wisdom.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

---No man was ever wise by chance.
Seneca

---The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom, in the heart.
William Hazlitt

---Of all parts of wisdom the practice is the best.
John Tillotson

---The more a man knows, the more he forgives.
Catherine the Great

---A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
Charles Dickens

---One who understands much displays a greater simplicity of character than one who understands little.
Alexander Chase

---How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
Homer

---On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows,

In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
Edward Young

---The man of wisdom is never of two minds;

the man of benevolence never worries;

the man of courage is never afraid.
Confucius

source

He says things like:

He may be the dumbest yellow creation around, but yet the most loved and hilarious.

It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

Is that what we want to be like? Depends on the moment, but in a word, yes!

It takes some serious skill to be that dumb, but Homer does it, often very humorously.

Bueno, hoy me he dedicado a 'robar' algunas frases de Homer... que son imposibles de olvidar, y ¿de verdad alguien puede pensar así? Pongo mi favorita de primera:

- “Tendrá todo el dinero del mundo… pero hay algo que jamás podrá comprar…. un dinosaurio”.
- “En la vida hay 3 tipos de hombres, los que saben contar y los que no”
- “¡¿¡Operadora!?! ¿Cuál es el número del 091?”
- "Mi Personaje de ficción favorito es DIOS"
- "Intentar algo es el primer paso hacia el fracaso"
- "Yo jamás me disculpo. Lo siento mucho, pero así es mi forma de ser…"
- "Si cierro los ojos no tiene por qué estar pasando”
- "Nunca pienso demasiado en ti, pero si en verdad estás ahí arriba… sálvame Superman!!"
- “Es mejor ver hacer cosas que hacer cosas”

[...] entre muchas otras, que en un capítulo pueden salir docenas :D

De intro van de Simpsons is geweldig omdat die elke keer een beetje anders is. Zo schrijft Bart elke keer iets anders op het bord, maar ook de manier waarop de hele familie op de zetel voor de televisie verzamelt is elke keer anders.

Volgens mij worden er mensen full-time betaalt om alleen maar die scène elke keer opnieuw te verzinnen. En terecht. Er zitten echt pareltjes tussen al die diamanten en gouden tanden. (Om maar te zeggen dat elke versie goed is)

't Zou eigenlijk super tof zijn moest iemand er zich eens mee bezig houden om al die zetelscènes uit de intro te halen en die allemaal achter elkaar te plakken. Zoiets zou natuurlijk super veel werk zijn, maar zo'n video zou ik dan als beloning op mijn blog zetten.

Gelukkig bestaan er mensen die niets beter te doen hebben...

Xixarro

As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying is a book about Addie Bundren. It tells the story of her death through the eyes of many different characters. Cash, Addie’s eldest son is making her coffin for her as she is watching outside her bedroom window. Her two other sons leave for a long trip to see a friend whose daughters have been helping Addie as she has been ill. Her youngest son, Vardaman has had the hardest time with his mother’s death and associates it with the fish that he caught and killed earlier that day. Addie had requested to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson, so the Bundren family heads out on their journey. They come across many obstacles but eventually make it to Jefferson and bury Addie. However, all of their lives change once they get to Jefferson and bury their dead mother.

This book has 15 different narrators to the story, which means that there are 15 different stories being told. Though they may be relatively close to the same basic idea, they still are being told in different perspectives which can make it rather difficult for the reader to follow. On top of that, the story lacks a certain amount of thrill or excitement. All those English majors and minors at Buena Vista University can either agree or disagree on whether this is a good summer read because this is a required text for the American Literature classes.

Beowulf

Beowulf can be dated back to the 8^th to 11^th century. Beowulf, the hero of Geats, battles three of the stories antagonists: Grendel, Grendel’s mother and a dragon. Grendel is attacking the Danish, and the king of the Danes, Hrothgar has said that anyone who can beat Grendel will get a reward. Beowulf feels as though he is up to the challenge. In the final battle with the dragon, Beowulf becomes fatally wounded and died.

This story was written in ancient Britain by an unknown author. Although it is considered to be one of the classics, the plot and story line are very difficult to follow. This is part of the required reading for British Literature I. If being confused is what you look for in a book, Beowulf would be a good choice!

Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad

This story is a story of Marlow’s time with the Belgian trading company who is out to get all of the ivory that they can from the jungles of Africa. He is able to get the job through a contact that his aunt had within the company. She is very excited for him to have this sort of opportunity, though he seems to be rather numb to it. This company hires native laborers and then employs European men as the “bosses” of these laborers. The laborers are treated very poorly, much like they are in the diamond mines today. Marlow and his crew get a ship and sail down the river to Kurtz’s camp in order to get some of the ivory that he has and bring it back to the company. There are many different hurdles that Marlow and his crew need to overcome, including the death of Kurtz and a laborer aboard his boat. Overall, this is a story of how Marlow comes to be a part of this company, his time in the company and ultimately how he is affected by the experiences in the “Heart of Darkness.”

This book is one that is read in the British Literature II class. The story is interesting, but the language of the story is not entertaining and the story flows at a rather slow pace. If you are interested in the story line, check out the movie that was made called Apocolypse Now.

Iliad
Homer

The Iliad is the story of the fall of Troy. Hektor and his younger brother Paris are in Greece celebrating the new-found peace between Troy and Greece. While there, Paris falls in love with Helen and takes her away to Troy. Menelaus, Helen’s husband, is very distraught that she has left Greece with another man. He calls his brother Agamemnon to his aid, and Agamemnon decides to attack Troy. He calls in Achilles who is the best warrior in all of Greece. After all the battles, many lives are lost on both sides, and the story continues into Homer’s sequel: The Odyssey.

Though this book has some thrill and interest, it is very hard to follow being written in the form of a poem. Back in the days before people wrote things down, they sang them, so this poem was written in such a way that it would be easier to remember the poem. This book is read in the Introduction to Early Literature course that is offered on campus.

Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights is a story about the love between Catherine and Heathcliff and Catherine and Edgar Linton. Catherine and Heathcliff were friends for years and they fell in love. However, Catherine needed to think about her future and chose to marry Edgar instead. Heathcliff is heartbroken and leaves right away. Years pass, and he comes back. Once Heathcliff comes back, numerous events happen; Catherine has a child and dies. The rest of the book is spent explaining how her daughter’s (Catherine) life is spent, and how she corrects the mistakes that her mother had made in her life.

This book is required reading for the British Literature II class and has a very slow story line. It is a rather boring book that really does not capture the attention of the reader in a timely fashion. There are moments that are intriguing but the language that is used and the fact that the story proceeds so slowly entirely takes away from the overall outcome of the story.

These books have made my list of the top five books to avoid reading during the summer because of the storylines, the way they are written and because if you have to take any English courses on the Buena Vista University campus, you will undoubtedly read one, if not all of these books. As an English minor, I am required to read all of them in any of these three 200 level course: British Literature I, British Literature II and American Literature. They are all classics, however they are not the most enjoyable to read if you are more interested in contemporary literature. BVU would do well to add a contemporary literature course to their course listings. Then students could read books that may actually interest them.

-Katie