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Nov. 28th, 2010 01:38 amOver the last couple of days I read Hamlet's Mill, which Wikipedia says has "tenuous arguments based on incorrect or outdated linguistic information." This is an understatement. The entire thing is an exercise in jumping to conclusions. I'm not even going to go into the argument, which is something along the lines of "myth was primitive science" or the fact that most of the books had nothing to do with the argument, but rather with finding equivalents throughout world mythology. No, I'm just going to reprint my new favorite paragraph in anything ever¹ ²:
...where he meets Siduri, the divine barmaid, "who dwells by the edge of the sea".
Under the eyes of severe philologists, slaves to exact "truth," one dare not make light of this supposedly "geographical" item with its faint surrealistic tang. Here is a perfectly divine barmaid by the edge of the sea, called by many names in many languages. Her bar should be as long as the famed one in Shanghai, for she has along her shelves not only beer and wine but more outlandish and antiquated drinks from many cultures, drinks such as honeymead, soma, sura (a kind of brandy), kawa, pulque, peyote-cocktail, decoctions of ginseng. In short, from everywhere she has the ritual intoxicating beverages which comfort the dreary souls who are denied the drink of immortality. One might call these drinks Lethe, after all.
So the whole book is like that. The whole book. In writing style and in ridiculous arguments. There is something on literally every page to make to make me stop and look at the authors funny.
Although I am kind of worried. There seems to be a disease infecting everyone who knows lots of different folklores - because these people know their stuff, clearly, it's just their conclusions that are lacking - that makes them want to connect everything, or just leap to really odd conclusions. Like, Atlantis was in Finland! All of Indo-European society was divided in three parts! Absolutely everyone really has the same mythology! Hamlet is Väinämöinen! And I mean, I know a lot of folklore. Am I next?
--
¹ And mention the fact that he manages to associate the death of Pan with the king of the cats
²Admittedly I have a new favorite X all the time.
...where he meets Siduri, the divine barmaid, "who dwells by the edge of the sea".
Under the eyes of severe philologists, slaves to exact "truth," one dare not make light of this supposedly "geographical" item with its faint surrealistic tang. Here is a perfectly divine barmaid by the edge of the sea, called by many names in many languages. Her bar should be as long as the famed one in Shanghai, for she has along her shelves not only beer and wine but more outlandish and antiquated drinks from many cultures, drinks such as honeymead, soma, sura (a kind of brandy), kawa, pulque, peyote-cocktail, decoctions of ginseng. In short, from everywhere she has the ritual intoxicating beverages which comfort the dreary souls who are denied the drink of immortality. One might call these drinks Lethe, after all.
So the whole book is like that. The whole book. In writing style and in ridiculous arguments. There is something on literally every page to make to make me stop and look at the authors funny.
Although I am kind of worried. There seems to be a disease infecting everyone who knows lots of different folklores - because these people know their stuff, clearly, it's just their conclusions that are lacking - that makes them want to connect everything, or just leap to really odd conclusions. Like, Atlantis was in Finland! All of Indo-European society was divided in three parts! Absolutely everyone really has the same mythology! Hamlet is Väinämöinen! And I mean, I know a lot of folklore. Am I next?
--
¹ And mention the fact that he manages to associate the death of Pan with the king of the cats
²Admittedly I have a new favorite X all the time.
