Recently, a friend mentioned listening to an audiobook with Stephen Fry as a narrator, and I realized this was something I needed in my life, so it was off to the Libby app for me, to see what all he had read. This reminded me that he had a series of books of Greek myths, which it turns out of course he is also the audiobook narrator for. I immediately put a hold on Mythos, the first book in the series, and after a bit of a wait, I had one of the early highlights of 2024.
Stephen Fry has a voice that is made for audiobook narrating. I mean, not only is his voice pleasant in its timbre, but he puts his acting chops to work and brings real emotion to what he’s reading.
Like many of us, Fry got his hands on a book of Greek myths in his youth, and fell in love. This appears to have been a life-long love for him; while some of us went on to get distracted by other lands’ mythologies, or other styles of stories, he was all in on the Greeks. This really shows in how he tells the stories. There’s a real appreciation and enjoyment on display here.
I feel like most collections of mythology really situate themselves in the time and place of the stories, but at a bit of a remove from the characters, which can make them feel a bit distant and in the worst cases, flat or dusty. But Fry weaves in and out of time, giving us dialog between the gods and the inner thoughts of mortals, and then pulling back to the modern time to let us know what minerals and places are named after this individual, or which poets, playwrights, and painters were inspired by that story. By showing how interwoven these narratives are into our daily lives, he makes them feel more relevant. He’s also not above referring to a particularly brooding titan as “emo” or otherwise deploying modern language and analogies.
This collection isn’t concerned with the psychology of mythology, or the morals, or the connection between the myths of the world. Fry is just out to tell the stories in a way that entertains, although he talks about other more academic resources in the afterword, should anyone feel inspired to dig deeper. He wryly acknowledges his own limitations as a scholar and clearly isn’t out to attempt to dethrone the Bullfinches and Campbells of the literary world, rather, to provide a different option, something that splits the difference between the bowdlerized collections we were handed as kids, and the academic analyses we might be handed in a college course.
About that lack of bowdlerization… Fry doesn’t shy away from the sexual content and violence inherent in the original myths, though he doesn’t get especially graphic in his descriptions of either. He acknowledges the lack of consent inherent in a lot of couplings. He also highlights some of the queer couples and themes that are often left out or minimized. You probably don’t want to introduce your young children to this version of the myths, unless you want to have some uncomfortable conversations about the castration of Uranus, but it would probably be appropriate for teens with an interest in mythology.
CWs and TWs: See above paragraph. There’s also some violence against animals; misogyny; violence against children/babies, including death; and incest, none of which is especially graphic.
Format and Source: I listened to an audiobook from Pierce County Library System.
Book Bingo Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): In Their Own Words. I can’t think of much that is more delightful than listening to Stephen Fry read his own telling of the Greek myths.
Brick & Mortar: The Cover is BLUE: I went back and forth on whether this cover was more blue or green… until I realized that sometimes I was looking at it with an amber-hued blue light filter. *face palm* But now it also looks a little more green on my laptop. That said, this Penguin edition has an unambiguously blue cover:
Current Bingo Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 4 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 2 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Brick & Mortar: 8 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.