Revival!

Okay, everyone. School's out, so our summer reading program has officially begun! I haven't read this month's selection before, but I've been wanting to for quite some time (it's a favorite of my parents...translation: this could go either way, but definitely worth a shot). I suppose you can go to wikipedia to find out more about Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, but in a nutshell, it's the retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of Psyche's sister, Orual. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part significantly longer than the second. So, as far as a reading schedule goes, I say let's just have the first part (to about p. 250 in my version) finished by May 20th and the rest of the book (to p. 309) by the end of the month. Give or take. And now, for your reading/browsing/just glancing over pleasure, I'm going to include the story of Cupid and Psyche (included also as a note at the back of the book), for those of you who weren't FORCED to take Greek and Roman mythology to get their degree in humanities like I was. I'm still a little bitter. This is long, so brace yourselves, people.

A king and queen had three daughters of whom the youngest was so beautiful that men worshipped her as a goddess and neglected the worship of Venus for her sake. One result was that Psyche (as the youngest was called) had no suitors; men reverenced her supposed deity too much to aspire to her hand. When her father consulted the oracle of Apollo about her marriage he received the answer: "Hope for no human son-in-law. You must expose Psyche on a mountain to be the prey of a dragon." This he obediently did.
But Venus, jealous of Psyche's beauty, had already devised a different punishment for her; she had ordered her son Cupid to afflict the girl with an irresistable passion for the basest of men. Cupid set off to do so but, on seeing Psyche, fell in love with her himself. As soon as she was left on the mountain he therefore had her carried off by the West-Wind (Zephyrus) to a secret place where he had prepared a stately palace. Here he visited her by night and enjoyed her love; but he forbade her to see his face. Presently she begged that she might receive a visit from her two sisters. The god reluctantly consented and wafted them to her palace. Here they were royally feasted and expressed great delight at all the splendours they saw. But inwardly they were devoured with envy, for their husbands were not gods and their houses not so fine as hers.
They therefore plotted to destroy her happiness. At their next visit they persuaded her that her mysterious husband must really be a monstrous serpent. "You must take into your bedroom tonight," they said, "a lamp covered with a cloak and a sharp knife. When he sleeps uncover the lamp--see the horror that is lying in your bed--and stab it to death." All this the gullible Psyche promised to do.
When she uncovered the lamp and saw the sleeping god she gazed on him with insatiable love, till a drop of hot oil from her lamp fell on his shoulder and woke him. Starting up, he spread his shining wings, rebuked her, and vanished from her sight.
The two sisters did not long enjoy their malice, for Cupid took such measures as led both to their death. Psyche meanwhile wandered away, wretched and desolate, and attempted to drown herself in the first river she came to; but the god Pan frustrated her attempt and warned her never to repeat it. After many miseries she fell into the hands of her bitterest enemy, Venus, who seized her for a slave, beat her, and set her what were meant to be impossible tasks. The first, that of sorting out seeds into separate heaps, she did by the help of some friendly ants. Next, she had to get a hank of golden wool from some man-killing sheep; a reed by a river bank whispered to her that this could be acheived by plucking the wool from off the bushes. After that, she had to fetch a cupful of the water of the Styx, which could be reached only by climbing certain impracticable mountains, but an eagle met her, took the cup from her hand, and returned with it full of the water. Finally she was sent down to the lower world to bring back to Venus, in a box, the beauty of Persephone, the Queen of the Dead. A mysterious voice told her how she could reach Persephone and yet return to our world; on the way she would be asked for help by various people who seemed to deserve her pity, but she must refuse them all. And when Persephone gave her the box (full of beauty) she must on no account open the lid to look inside. Psyche obeyed all this and returned to the upper world with the box; but then at last curiosity overcame her and she looked into it. She immediately lost consciousness.
Cupid now came to her again, but this time he forgave her. He interceded with Jupiter, who agreed to permit his marriage and make Psyche a goddess. Venus was reconciled and they all lived happily ever after.

Whew. There you have it. To me, it's kind of like a Beauty and the Beast meets Rumplestilskin (sp?) meets Ladyhawke (has anyone else seen that?). Anyway, get reading!

Background Info for Bells Tolling

Okay, here is the skinny on our new book. I will try and throw in some Ernest Hemingway tidbits as I can. Hemingway is a favorite of mine and this is his longest novel.

As a brief background, Hemingway was born in a Chicago suburb and spent a lot of time fishing and hunting during the summers in Michigan. He started his writing career as a reporter for the Kansas City Star and kept getting different writing gigs throughout his life. He spent time in Europe hanging out with the Paris literary elite such as Ezra Pound. When he visited Spain, he absolutely fell in love with it. He continued to write about Spain and follow bull fighting for the rest of his life. One of his jobs was to cover the Spanish Civil War for an American magazine. He "embeded" himself with the Republicans and was able to report from there. This gave his a first-hand view of the war which is our setting for the book. More on Hemingway later.

The Spanish Civil War

In just going to throw in enough so that you have the backdrop. It is actually fairly complicated and more info can easily be found on Wikipedia. The Spanish civil war was fought between the Republicans (reformers who were the legitimate government at the time) and the Nationalists (the right wingers or fascists). To break that out a little more, Spain had been going through a lot of reforms and changes in govenment in converting from a monarchy to a republic (republicans, get it?). In the elections leading up to the civil war (1930s) the government was increasingly being controlled by left wing coalitions that ran the gamut from moderates to socialists and even communists. Obviously it was much more complex than this, but they started making big changes like changing land ownership laws and redistributing land to the huge poor class. Spain, like many latin-american countries today, had a lot of poor peasant class people and then a few wealthy land-owners. The new government had been working to level the field. All of these social reforms naturally worried the wealthy and the conservative institutions like the Catholic church, factions of the military, and those that still wished there was a king. So they mounted a coup attempt led by military types. The most significant of those being Franco. Together they were the Nationalists. The civil war was marked by its brutality and cruelness on both sides and as is usually the case, the peasants were the ones that suffered greatly.

The Nationalists were backed by Italy and Germany who recognized that Franco was quite a bit like them and thought he would be a good ally. Spain ended up being almost a testing ground for many of the tactics and weapons used by the German army in WWII (blitzkrieg, airplanes, etc.). Interestingly enough, once WWII broke out and Franco was safely in control of Spain, he stayed out of the war.

The Republicans were backed by the Soviet Union and anti-fascists from all over including America. Many people went to Spain to fight fascism in the war.

Our novel is about one of these people - the American Robert Jordan who loves Spain and hates fascism - so basically how Hemingway saw himself there. RJ is with a group of Republican supporters who are behind the enemy lines. The novel's events take place in the mountains outside of Madrid. They mention several times Escorial which was the traditional palace and burying place of the Spanish kings.

So that's the background. Ask questions if you like. I will post more on the actual story soon.