Scan barcode
A review by pottedplnt
Women & Weasels: Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome by Maurizio Bettini
5.0
WEASELS. WEASELS. THIS ITALIAN MAN REALLY WROTE 200+ PAGES ON WEASELS.
I read and took 16 pages notes on this entire book today (or... yeasterday). I should have started and finished it a while ago but it's done. I'm shaking. I've been sipping tea that I used mircowave water for hours ago and ate my soondubu dinner. I haven't stayed so late at the Library since my freshman year.
This book was an absolute joy (stunning translation work too). The writing is AMAZING. I have never known any academic work to use so many metaphors (Relating the mythos surrounding weasels as a Folia (of music) and then refering to the weasel as a constant leitmoteif! Whoa!). I imagine this book was a labor of love but the author clearly had fun putting it together.
Bettini has the sweetest concluding paragraph.
"With this we must bid farewell to our Rescuer. In the Conclusion of the book, we will see other variants of Alcmene’s story that turn up unexpect-edly in far distant lands. These variants are so similar to the stories that we have already seen that we will have no trouble at all recognizing the notes of La Folia; but the weasel will not be there. Our mischievous little animal now exits stage right, leaving only humans to play the Rescuer—but it will still seem to us that we see it from time to time, slipping out from under the bed of the Woman in Labor."
I read and took 16 pages notes on this entire book today (or... yeasterday). I should have started and finished it a while ago but it's done. I'm shaking. I've been sipping tea that I used mircowave water for hours ago and ate my soondubu dinner. I haven't stayed so late at the Library since my freshman year.
This book was an absolute joy (stunning translation work too). The writing is AMAZING. I have never known any academic work to use so many metaphors (Relating the mythos surrounding weasels as a Folia (of music) and then refering to the weasel as a constant leitmoteif! Whoa!). I imagine this book was a labor of love but the author clearly had fun putting it together.
Bettini has the sweetest concluding paragraph.
"With this we must bid farewell to our Rescuer. In the Conclusion of the book, we will see other variants of Alcmene’s story that turn up unexpect-edly in far distant lands. These variants are so similar to the stories that we have already seen that we will have no trouble at all recognizing the notes of La Folia; but the weasel will not be there. Our mischievous little animal now exits stage right, leaving only humans to play the Rescuer—but it will still seem to us that we see it from time to time, slipping out from under the bed of the Woman in Labor."