5 Minute Iliad & Other Classics

Zusatztext Garrison Keillor Funny and well done....America wants comedy that is both gentle and weird! and these are qualities Mr. Nagan possesses. Informationen zum Autor In addition to his work as a writer for Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, Greg Nagan was the cofounder of both the critically acclaimed Chicago theater group igLoo and the award-winning Studio 108. The creator of the popular Web site JustMorons.com, he lives in New York but remains nostalgic for Central Time. Klappentext From the author of "A Prairie Home Companion's" beloved "Five-Minute Classics" comes a witty and profane send-up of the Western literary canon--aka the "Spinal Tap" of literature. Includes 15 parodies that provide a riotous romp from Homer to Kerouac, from Ancient Greece to Postwar America. 16 illustrations. Leseprobe Chapter One: The Iliad by Homer (700 B.C.) No, my friend, I have no desire to fight the blithe immortals. But if you're a man who eats the crops of the earth, a mortal born for death -- here, come closer, the sooner you will meet your day to die! Homer (no relation) was a blind poet who lived in Greece around the ninth or eighth century B.C., and, as a result of the curious Greek dating system, was apparently born about eighty years after he died. It is believed the Iliad and the Odyssey, his two surviving works, were both originally oral rather than written works, which goes a long way toward explaining how a blind guy could have written them thousands of years before the invention of Braille. The Iliad is a vital piece of literature for all readers, because all the greatest writers of Western Civilization have been alluding to it for eons ("alluding to" being Greek for "stealing from"). This is an abridged translation, meaning I have skipped all those parts of the epic that might have been troublesome to translate and have made up the rest. Also, it does not rhyme and has no meter. I assure the reader that in all other regards this is almost a faithful presentation of the Iliad. Ancient Greek civilization flowered around 500 B.C., at which point it became classic. Its eventual decline was the result of ouzo and philosophy, which might have been survived separately, but taken together proved too much. Rage -- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles! If you don't know it I can hum a few bars. Murderous, doomed, he cost the Achaeans countless losses (or the Argives, or the Greeks, same difference), hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls that they opened an Achilles wing. And gave a discount. Begin, Muse, when the two got in each other's faces, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. What god drove them to fight with such a fury? Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto. Why? Who knows. The gods have reasons, and see things unseen by us, their wisdom penetrates all mysteries; and also, they can be pissy. And so Apollo, God of the sun, Golden-faced Apollo, did drive a wedge between them, Agamemnon and Achilles, general and warrior, friend and friend. And so the warrior Achilles, great Achilles, was moved to anger and would not lead his men to fight beside Agamemnon unless Agamemnon said he was sorry, and begged forgiveness, and didn't just say it, but really meant it. But that lord of men, that Agamemnon, was proud, and would not say he was sorry, because he wasn't, and why should he apologize anyway? Wasn't he general? Didn't anyone know how hard it was to be general? Didn't anyone care about his feelings? And so while the Greeks, or Achaeans, or Argives, or some combination thereof, but not necessarily limited thereto, laid siege to Troy, or Ilium,...

Product details

• Authors: NAGAN, Greg Nagan
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2008
• EAN: 9780684867670
• ISBN: 978-0-684-86767-0
• No. of pages: 228
• Subjects: Fiction > Comic, cartoon, humour, satire; HUMOR / Form / Parodies, Humour