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Remember These Stories?
Local couple puts new spin on ancient tales with ‘Dummies’ book
Greenville News, Aug. 7, 2002
http://greenvilleonline.com/entertain/2002/08/07/2002080726772.htm
By Mike Foley
STAFF WRITER
If you think you left mythology behind in high school, along with quadratic equations and diagramming sentences, think again.
Before you do, slip into your Nike (Greek goddess of victory) shoes, hop into your Toyota Cressida (legendary Trojan woman who was unfaithful to her lover), crank up an Eric Clapton/Cream CD (try “Tales of Brave Ulysses”) and go rent a video of “O Brother Where Are Thou?” (Homer’s “Odyssey” loosely retold).
Mythology is everywhere, from commercial products, to movies, to video games. And if you don’t know Poseidon from Neptune, there is help.
Greenville residents Amy and Chris Blackwell have co-authored the recently published “Mythology for Dummies,” yet another release in the “Dummies” series. But why mythology and why now?
“Mythology is hot,” Mrs. Blackwell, a 32-year-old freelance writer and former Greenville attorney said.
But there’s a deeper connection, said David Gonzalez, a storyteller and performing artist from New Jersey who gave a seminar to Greenville County educators on the topic in February at the Peace Center. Whenever the world is in turmoil, people turn to mythology in a search for epic heroes.
“Mythology is always a hot topic,” Gonzalez said. “But it becomes even more so in times of crisis.”
With war raging in the Middle East and in our own post-9/11 world, people are looking for heroes.
“That explains the popularity in our culture of everything from the ‘Star Wars’ trilogy to Vin Diesel’s ‘XXX’ movie, Gonzalez said. “Because most video games have a basis in mythology, a book like this can serve as a bridge for teenagers and 20-somethings from that rather naive and superficial knowledge to the original sources.”
[...]
The book is crammed with sections on Greek, Roman, Northern European and non-European — including American Indian — mythology. The Blackwells even found time to touch on uniquely American myths such as Johnny Appleseed and Br’er Rabbit.
If you’re thinking such a book might be a snooze, wake up. While the book is scholarly based, it’s written in a light-hearted and fun style, a “Dummies” staple.
[...]
The Blackwells were well-prepared to handle the subject. Chris, a Greenville native, has been at Furman since 1996, teaching the classics. He graduated from Marlboro College in Vermont and then received his Ph.D. in classical studies at Duke University.
Amy has degrees in medieval and Renaissance history from Vanderbilt and Duke universities and a law degree from the University of Virginia. She was a lawyer in Greenville for several years before embarking on her freelance writing career.
[...]
“It’s amazing to see the immense number of parallel stories in mythology. It’s astonishing to see the Orpheus myth in, say, Japanese mythology,” Mrs. Blackwell said. “It makes you wonder, where did all this come from?”
And for Blackwell, who’s also written a scholarly tome, “The Absence of Alexander: Harpalus and the Failure of Macedonian Authority,” this was a chance to write in a clearly different style.
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