Ovid is a little more relevant than I thought!

As you may have gathered from my "currently reading" list to the right, my Medieval literature class is currently discussing Beowulf. The experience is a somewhat awkward balance between students who have no interest in the epic whatsoever, a [very small] handful who actually legitimately enjoy the subject matter, and a professor who tries to sympathize with the people who hate it and leaves her own opinions largely up to one's imagination.

This awkwardness may have been caused in high school, where famously bad english teachers pound classic literature into bored young minds, or it may have been due to a cultural stigma against classic literature in general and particularly epic poetry. Or maybe not. I don't pretend to know why so many people dislike the dying genre. I know that the movie "Troy," did well in the box office, but whether this is due to a massive interest in ancient Greek city-states and the accompanying mythos, politics and history, a culture that has been overly desensitized to blood and violence, or just because Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger are all really, really hot is something that is beyond my resources and capability to find out.

Or maybe nobody dislikes it.

This weekend, Chad and I went to Barnes and Noble to explore the shelves and tack more titles and authors onto our growing lists and shrinking budgets, when a bright red hardcover display caught our eyes. (Now, I don't care what anyone else tells you or what the old saying is, packaging and design sell books. This particular one is eye-catching in the best way.)



Anyway, despite that, packaging isn't everything, and when we flipped the book over, I swear that one of the quotes said that the author was "the best thing since Ovid," or something like that. Now, Chad shares this belief with me, that there is definitely such a thing as over complimenting, and it IS detrimental to my opinion of a book. In other words, don't tell me Joe Smith is the next William Shakespeare. I won't believe you.

In this circumstance, however, I may have been mistaken. I'm ALSO a firm believer that one of the best ways to test an author's skill at writing is to read the first page. So imagine my surprise when we opened it and saw... epic poetry. I'm not kidding. Apparantly the Ovid reference wasn't as inane as I thought! That's what I get for being cynical and snobby, I guess.

Anyway, I haven't read the book yet and I can't tell you if his poetry measures up to "The Metamorphoses," but just because this guy tried, I'll read it. You try it, too, and we'll compare notes later.