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The Stories We Tell
May. 9th, 2011 12:34 amI've lately been reading and watching a couple of wonderful things and I want to write about them. As I was having lunch with Rick after seeing Thor, I realized that lately I've been encountering a number of retellings of tales that are much older. This is something I love, as a storyteller, I know there's such power is finding a new way to look at a story. The tales that we as different cultures keep telling our selves hold such amazing secrets as they show what we hold dear and what we're scared of.
Thor is the story of two brothers trying to please their father and learn how to be men. Deathless is the tale of Marya who is learning what she wants for herself. War for the Oaks is about Eddi deciding what is important to her and where her power is. Within each of these works are older stories that sometimes have not been changed terribly much in terms of what happens when, but how and why things happen and what's going on does shift.
I've lately been thinking about my failed masters thesis on the Greek poet Pindar who wrote odes for athletic victors and used myths as a way to honor them and their families without causing hubris. One of my favorite lines in Pindar is where he says that Homer told a particular myth in this way but Pindar is choosing to tell it this way. I'm going to post a link to my Milliways' paper soon and I'm wondering if anyone would also be curious to see the start of my thesis.
Creators who can see and understand the bones of these old tales and then take them apart in such a way that we see them new again amaze me. I hope that in some small way I might be able to do that some day. In the meantime, I recommend seeing Thor and reading Deathless, the first is the perfect superhero movie to start the summer and the second is a complex reworking of Russian fairy tales.
Tomorrow I begin my summer class and I'm taking today as a wonderful omen, the weather was fantastic, I saw a fun movie and talked for a long time with a good friend.
Thor is the story of two brothers trying to please their father and learn how to be men. Deathless is the tale of Marya who is learning what she wants for herself. War for the Oaks is about Eddi deciding what is important to her and where her power is. Within each of these works are older stories that sometimes have not been changed terribly much in terms of what happens when, but how and why things happen and what's going on does shift.
I've lately been thinking about my failed masters thesis on the Greek poet Pindar who wrote odes for athletic victors and used myths as a way to honor them and their families without causing hubris. One of my favorite lines in Pindar is where he says that Homer told a particular myth in this way but Pindar is choosing to tell it this way. I'm going to post a link to my Milliways' paper soon and I'm wondering if anyone would also be curious to see the start of my thesis.
Creators who can see and understand the bones of these old tales and then take them apart in such a way that we see them new again amaze me. I hope that in some small way I might be able to do that some day. In the meantime, I recommend seeing Thor and reading Deathless, the first is the perfect superhero movie to start the summer and the second is a complex reworking of Russian fairy tales.
Tomorrow I begin my summer class and I'm taking today as a wonderful omen, the weather was fantastic, I saw a fun movie and talked for a long time with a good friend.
