Heroes: Greek Legends Retold: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

This week I’m featuring one of my birthday presents, Heroes: Greek Legends Retold by Stephen Fry.

The book begins:

Zeus sits on his throne. He rules the sky and the world.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

She looked down, plucked Alcides from her nipple and threw him disgustedly from her. Milk sprayed from her nipple in a great arc across the night sky, imprinting it with stars, which from that moment, would be known as the Milky Way.

Description from Amazon UK

In this companion to his bestselling Mythos, Stephen Fry brilliantly retells these dramatic, funny, tragic and timeless tales.

Join Jason aboard the Argo as he quests for the Golden Fleece. See Atalanta – who was raised by bears – outrun any man before being tricked with golden apples. Witness wily Oedipus solve the riddle of the Sphinx and discover how Bellerophon captures the winged horse Pegasus to help him slay the monster Chimera.

Filled with white-knuckle chases and battles, impossible puzzles and riddles, acts of base cowardice and real bravery, not to mention murders and selfless sacrifices, Heroes is the story of what we mortals are truly capable of – at our worst and our very best.

If you have read this book, what did you think?

8 thoughts on “Heroes: Greek Legends Retold: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56”

    1. Stephen Fry has added a footnote to this: ‘Sounds silly, but it’s true. The Milky Way is a galaxy and the word galaxy is derived from the ancient Greek word gala, meaning ‘milk’. Hence galactic and, perhaps, Galaxy milk chocolate.’

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  3. I don’t like Stephen Fry’s style but I still think this is a useful book because most people these days have never read the Greek myths. In my day, we read a (sanitised) version of them in primary school and were given retellings for children as birthday presents, and then in secondary school we came across them again when we did Shakespeare. But although my teaching experience with students is different because they loved the ancient myths I read to them in the library, most teachers think that students would rather read something ‘relevant’ so I was old-fashioned in that sense!

    By coincidence I am at the moment reading Barry Unsworth’s (2002) The Songs of the Kings which is a retelling of a shocking event that took place before the Trojan War. There are other retellings well worth reading: the pick of them is David Malouf’s Ransom, but Madeline Miller has done some from a feminist point-of-view too. Circe (2018), and The Song of Achilles (2011), and probably more because these two were bestsellers. (All reviewed on my blog, just use the search box if you are interested.)

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    1. I read the Greek myths at primary school too and also Shakespeare at secondary school. I loved  Madeline Miller’s Circe and have The Song of Achilles waiting to be read (soon I hope). I’ve also enjoyed Pat Barker’s Women of Troy trilogy.

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