A brief interlude in the midst of a series of mostly huge books, Amphitryon is the first, and, I am sad to say, because I rather enjoyed this, the only Roman play on the IWE lifetime reading plan. No Seneca, no Terence, and after this, no more Plautus either. Of course there is the expected portion of Greek plays to look forward to, twelve or thirteen of them, so we will be back again to the ancient theater, but I would have welcomed a few more Roman selections, especially as they are not only brief, but appear to have that rare quality of being briefer than one would like them to be. Naturally I could go ahead and just read them anytime I wanted to, but I find from experience that I read better, have more concentration, retention, enthusiasm and so on when I am following some kind of system. As this site bears evidence, I am not averse to tweaking my various systems from time to time to try to generate more of a certain type of book that I want to read more of, though the results of this tweaking usually turns out mixed at best. There are besides a lot of types of books I am trying to increase my exposure to other than Roman plays, plus I have to figure that they are not very prominent or seen as necessary on most mid-20th century become-intelligent-and-cultured-through-reading programs that appeal to me for some reason that I would probably accept as reasonable; so for the present I am going to continue to stay and work with the systems I have.
Not having read much specifically about the Roman theater in the course of my life, I needed to be reminded, via the notes and introductions in my book, that, like the sculptures of that people, nearly all of their plays were adaptations from Greek originals, though, especially with the comedies, not from the Greek plays that are most famous now, but the later Greek theater of the late 4th and early 3rd centuries B.C., Menander and those people. Almost none of these Greek works survive except in fragments, and the original of Amphitryon was not known at the time my edition was published (1942) and does not seem to have been discovered in the interval since. To recap the plot, Amphitryon was a Theban general (the Roman versions of these plays generally kept the Greek characters and settings) whose wife, Alcmena, while he was away fighting in a war, was visited by Jupiter (they do use the Roman god-names though) who had taken on the form of Amphitryon. Jupiter was accompanied in this adventure by Mercury, who took on the form of Amphitryon's slave and main attendant Sosia to complete the deception and cause more confusion among the real Amphitryon and Sosia when they return home to find everyone believing they had just been there, Alcmena thinking herself freshly ravished by her legal husband, and so on. This is the source of the comedy. Jupiter's rendezvous with Alcmena resulted in the birth of Hercules, along with a twin brother who was the natural and less godlike son of Amphitryon, and who one imagines must have grown up with the inferiority complex to end all inferiority complexes. The episode in which the baby Hercules strangles the two snakes in his cradle, always a crowd pleaser, is also included in the play.
The translation I read was by a gentleman named Sir Robert Allison in the Modern Library volume of Roman Comedies (containing four plays by Plautus and three by Terence), bound in matte, which was, as they say, a thing with the Modern Library for a while from the 40s through the early 60s, though this is the first of their matte editions I have acquired. The translation appears to date from around 1910. I don't know whether it is supposed to be a good translation or not, but as is often the case, I like the tone that comes across in this older version. It is fresh, hopeful, brisk, vigorous, and reminds the desiccated modern reader that literature, and life itself even, can be intelligent and serious and a source for deep understanding, while also being enjoyable and lively and not dependent for its pleasures on achieving a oneness with contemporary culture and technology. Did I learn anything or come to any insights with regard to the actual content of this play? Can I even say what it is *about* at the most superficial and obvious level? No; no, I can't seem to. The pleasure is all in the associations, of antiquity, of a certain kind of school, of Europe, of fabulous myths, of having command of language, of ideas, of the possession of significant abilities, of everything that the present workaday world of jobs and money and anomie, for me at least, is not. Sadly, that is all I can say about Amphitryon however.
The Challenge
1. Gillian Flynn--Gone Girl.......................................................................41,153
2. Transcendence (movie)............................................................................1,589
3. Office Space (movie)................................................................................1,578
4. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (movie)...........................................1,059
5. Legend of Hercules (movie)........................................................................856
6. Knocked Up (movie)...................................................................................538
7. Sabotage (movie)........................................................................................286
8. Willow Creek (movie).................................................................................249
9. Human Target (TV show)...........................................................................204
10. Harper's Island (TV show).......................................................................189
11. Thunderbolt & Lightfoot (movie)..............................................................157
12. Beauty & the Beast Broadway Soundtrack (record).................................130
13. Googoo Dolls Greatest Hits Volume 1 (record)........................................129
14. Hawthorne: Season 1 (TV show)..............................................................118
15. Malachi Martin--Windswept House...........................................................117
16. Dream For an Insomniac (movie)............................................................110
The movies really took over this one. That said, my magic words did not generate much that was exciting in terms of books. There was maybe one book that failed to qualify for the tournament that I would have been interested in reading, but it had only seven points and none of the libraries had it.
Round of 16
#1 Flynn over #16 Dream For an Insomniac
Following the formula.
#15 Martin over #2 Transcendence
#3 Office Space over #14 Hawthorne
Same here, movies generally get the automatic win over TV shows, unless I have a real animosity towards the movie.
#13 Googoo Dolls over #4 Final Fantasy VII
Music over violent movies aimed at people with two-digit IQs.
#12 Beauty & the Beast Broadway Album over #5 Legend of Hercules
#6 Knocked Up over #11 Thunderbolt & Lightfoot
I thought I might enjoy a somewhat contemporary relationship movie over guns and tough guys. There is something wrong with me though.
#7 Sabotage over #10 Harper's Island
#8 Willow Creek over #9 Human Target
Round of 8
#1 Flynn over #15 Martin
The only two books in the Challenge meet in the second round. The Martin book looks like pure formula, which it did not take long for me to weary of and feel that I never needed go back to. The Flynn book was a phenomenal seller, transcending mere genre almost, and the 41,000+ points in qualifying for the tournament is by far the record in my game (The Da Vinci Code, the previous record holder, had only around 5,000+).
There seems to be an attempt in Flynn to create characters who are in some way relevant to/the creatures of the current zeitgeist, which is why I might have the slightest interest in peeking into it. This now leaves Flynn as the only book remaining in the Challenge and pretty much guaranteed to win...unless one of the remaining competitors turns out to be entitled to an upset somewhere...
#3 Office Space over #13 Googoo Dolls
Any movie I am vaguely interested in seeing will defeat any musical record. I honor my eliminated records though by playing a song from them as they go:
#6 Knocked Up over #12 Beauty & Beast Broadway
Same here:
#8 Willow Creek over #7 Sabotage
I don't know anything about either of these, but the one sounds like it might be about small town life or a vacation, and the other like there might be a lot of gratuitous gunplay and pointless homicide in it. I kind of down on the latter type of movie at the moment.
Final Four
#1 Flynn over #8 Willow Creek
#3 Office Space over #6 Knocked Up
Office Space sounds like it might be slightly more intelligent than Knocked Up (needless to say, I have not seen either one),
Championship
#1 Flynn over # 3 Office Space
Office Space was entitled to no upsets. Flynn rolls to an easy title. I guess I will have to give the book a try. I was going to write here about how I might yet learn something about how to write a book that will sell, that seeing as it is increasingly unlikely that at age 45 and given my completely hopelessness and indifference with regard to computer technology I am ever going to develop the kind of job skills that will allow me to make an upper-middle class salary in the 21st century, writing seems like it might still be my most realistic chance of finding a source of income that is worth the effort needed to obtain it. But I though better of it.
Perhaps I have been living in the North too long, but she looks pretty cute to me.
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