2 Metamorphoses by Ovid

I bought two versions of this for the Kindle, because the first one I bought was hard going (archaic English, no explanations).  The second version has a great introduction by the translator about Ovid, and then each of the 15 books that make up Metamorphoses also has a summary telling me what to watch out for.

Ovid is a Roman poet who lived around the time of Christ.  He's collected a lot of stories from Greek and Roman mythology, all of them about metamorphosis (human to animal, human to tree, human to water, human to rock, human to god, man to woman, woman to man - you get the idea) and linked them together in one long poem.  It made me think of someone telling jokes and saying 'if you think that's good, did you hear the one about ....?'.

He's a great story teller who uses subtle little details to make his characters individuals with real feelings.

1 Aesop's Fables

The introduction, by GK Chesterton, says fables are stories where the main characters are animals. Each character is defined by its nature, for example, foxes are always sly and crows are always greedy. I'd read some of these fables as a child but didn't realise how many there were.

Each fable has a moral. I was surprised to discover how many of the morals from Aesop's Fables are still referred to today, without knowing the source: the goose that laid the golden egg; who is going to bell the cat; one swallow doesn't make a summer; honesty is the best policy; necessity is the mother of invention; don't count your chickens before they are hatched; the boy who cried wolf.

I'm fascinated that the fables and their morals are still referred to, and are still relevant, today - about 2000 years later. You could build a whole ethics course for kids around these fables

I love my Kindle

I love my Kindle
I bought an Amazon Kindle when I got home from the US last November because Pete was sitting next to an American lady on a plane who had one, and he thought I'd like one.

I love my Kindle and I carry it with me all the time. I love that I can lie in bed reading the book reviews in the weekend paper and buy the book they've recommended as an e-book from Amazon without getting out of bed! And it has been great to take away on holidays, for sitting in airports and on the plane and by the pool.

I can browse books by category, and I've found some new authors I love (Mary Doria Russell for one). I now have the complete works of Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, and all the Sherlock Holmes stories, on my Kindle.

So I have pretty much given up borrowing books from the library and buying print books. This has got to be bad for libraries and bookshops, but great for authors and publishers (because I can't lend books on my Kindle the way I used to lend or give away printed books).

However, there is a downside, which is that although Amazon offers over 300,000 e-books for Kindle, most of them are not books I want to read, and there are a lot of duplicates. So sometimes browsing is frustrating (but no more so than browsing in a bookshop and not finding anything I like).

1001 Books
Now, it happens that I have a (print) book published by the ABC called "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die". I've decided to work my way through that, and see how many of those books are available for Kindle, and use this blog to keep track of my progress.

Measure for Measure
Before I tell you about the first book, here's a sidetrack. Pete and I are going to see 'Measure for Measure' at Company B on Sunday afternoon. I couldn't remember the plot, and thought I had better refresh my memory and give Pete a synopsis to help him follow the story.

I was able to find the play on my Kindle (and as a bonus, look up the definition of some of the words I didn't know). This is the story of Measure for Measure:

Duke Vincentio decides to take some time off and appoints Antonio to rule in his absence. His idea is that Antonio will enforce the law more strictly and bring people into line. The Duke disguises himself as a friar so he can observe what happens.

Antonio promptly arrests Claudio, who's got Julietta pregnant, and sentences him to death. Claudio's friends plead with Antonio for mercy, and Antonio says if he committed this crime he would expect to be executed, so it's only fair that Claudio should be executed.

Claudio asks his sister, Isabella, who's about to enter a nunnery, to plead with Antonio for Claudio's life. Antonio tells Isabella he will free Claudio if Isabella agrees to have sex with Antonio. Isabella refuses, but when she tells Claudio this (and that she's sure Claudio wouldn't expect her to sacrifice her honor for his life) Claudio begs her to save him.

The disguised Duke intervenes with a solution: Isabella will arrange to visit Antonio at night, but it will be Antonio's ex, Mariana, whom he dumped when she lost her dowry, who turns up disguised as Isabella.

Then the Duke returns. He asks if anyone has any grievances, and Isabella tells the Duke about Antonio's proposal. Antonio denies it, the Duke pretends to believe him, and Isabella is unable to produce the friar (the disguised Duke) as witness. Then the Duke leaves, and reappears as the friar, and reveals himself. Angelo admits his guilt, all is revealed, Claudio marries Julietta, Mariana pleads for Antonio's life, and the Duke proposes to Isabella.

As well as all this there's a subplot involving Mistress Overdone, who runs a brothel, and Pompey, her bawd, and Lucio, who claims to know the Duke well.

I'm really glad I've read the play beforehand, because the language is fairly hard to decipher. I hope it will all make sense on Sunday.