The Karen Armstrong Myth book is only published here this week. Looks like I
will have to pay for it in hardback.

And I spent the afternoon watching Andy Murray slaughter Tim Henman. There
will be great drunken parties in Scotland tonight. Where is Robin?

Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
 http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: Geoffrey Hill: The Orchards of Syon become faith vs reason


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 3:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Geoffrey Hill: The Orchards of Syon become faith vs reason
>
>
>>I take both your points as given (from reasoning).
>>
>> I've just been reading this new series of books on Myth, which begins
>> with Karen Amrstrong's A Short History of Myth, in which she takes a long
>> walk through the way myth has operated from the Paleolithic to today. Of
>> the modern period she says, the triumph of reason & science has cut many
>> off from the uses of myth, understood as story & not as science. Her
>> point about what Alison calls 'the dress of reason' is intriguing: for
>> she sees the scientific approach partly obscuring the way of myth, the
>> power of metaphor, etc, so that (as a 'short history' must simplify)
>> 'Creation stories had never been regarded as historically accurate; their
>> purpose was therapeutic. But once you start reading Genesis as
>> scientifically valid, you have bad science and bad religion.'
>>
>> Her book is about what myth-making, which she finds now in the arts, can
>> still do for us, but not as science, &, as a very short overview, it does
>> a pretty good job for Woolf's Common Reader (if such still exists).
>>
>> Doug
>>
> Karen Armstrong and Margaret Atwood are discussing Myth tonight on Radio 3
> and I will be listening, having a night off from my Bach concerts. I saw
> these little books being reviewed but didnt realise Karen Armstrong had
> written one. I read all her work. I think Margaret Atwood's book is the
> retelling of a Greek myth which she is turning into a play (or TV
> programme) with Phyllida Law. I just found the article in today's
> Guardian...Atwood will be acting in her update of the Odyssey told from
> the viewpoint of Odysseus's wife.
>
> And I remember these myth books are published by The Honourable Jamie Byng
> at Canongate whose ex-wife Whitney had a marvellous statement about their
> love in Scotland on Sunday this week. So Karen Armstrong must have written
> an introduction for them. To Amazon!
>
>
> The staged reading of The Penelopiad is on tonight at St James's Church,
> Piccadily.
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