Classics Book Club of NY
Classics Book Club of NY
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Gilgamesh (~3500 BCE). "Our next meeting will be on Nov. 29th at a place to be determined. Our next selection is Gilgamesh – commonly accepted as the oldest written work in the world. Most of us probably missed it the first time it was out so this is a perfect time to see what the critics are (or were) raving about!"-Becky
“For those of us who crave a focus on modern, exciting, adventure-filled epics – are you listening, Stanley?! – I attach a recent letter to the New York Review of Books, in response to the article reviewing Stephen Mitchell’s version of Gilgamesh (which review I earlier emailed to the group). The letter discusses the endings of (a) Gilgamesh, the approximately 4,000 year old epic, and (b) “Lord of the Rings,” the epic only 50 years old. (I also re-attach the initial review, in case you missed it.)”-Ken
“Ah, an opportunity to express my disappointment with the ending of the "epic" Gilgamash. Perhaps this is due to being fed so much deus ex machina saccharin from the stories I'm exposed to. Sure, the deepest truths are "inseparable from failure, defeat and death", but no second thought was given when Gilgamesh's found herb of immortality was chewed up by a garden snake. All he does is go home. Maybe the moral is that people live and die but the relics of civilization (as Uruk is described at the end) have staying power (read in John's new Jerusalem from the Book of Revelations). Still, the part that interests me most is what becomes of the newly immortalized snake, and that part is completely glossed over. I was left with a similar disappointment after reading Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to find the answer to life the universe and everything is 42. Such an anticlimax.&nb sp; But perhaps that's life, some retrovirus will be around long after our wonderful species is extinct.”–Eric “I don't think that the "deus ex machina" snake obstructs in any significant way the humanizing, humble "acceptance of mortality" lesson of the partial god and hero, Gilgamesh. In the end, he becomes proud of his civilization, accepts the small part he plays in it, and no longer insists on dominating. Lessons here, it seems to me, that the later Western biblical scriptures miss - though the Buddhist scriptures might not!” P.S. The snake sheds its skin and, in so doing, becomes more "youthful.” -Ken
“Below is a link to a song by The Flaming Lips that Gilgamesh made me think of (at least the lyrics, not really sure what's going on in the video)”-Eric
“This is where American culture has gone to? I blame the Republicans-- who are responsible for everything wrong in the country and the world.”-Stan “Yes, it's remarkable how everyone else in the world would otherwise be behaving like little ladies and gentlemen.”-Ellen “Unless, of course, they saw Gilgamesh and Enkidu as prime examples of matter and anti-matter colliding, merging and continuing in harmony, and what turns into a symbiosis beyond explication and mathematical proof but matter much stronger than they were individually before and ready to reflect rather than engulf light in the totally known universe like a black hole rather than a supernova.“-Mario
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