December 11, 2007

I took the second of my finals, today -- a hoary Sphynx's challenge of multi-paragraph essay questions on the great works of world literature, as set forth by my English 105 literature book. Mostly, they involve morally-ambiguous people dying unmourned and members of minority groups complaining. I aint saying it's pretentious, but... wait, that is what I'm saying. It's really pretentious.

We did read Sophocles' "Oedipus," and I admit to being strongly intrigued by the idea of ancient Greek theater, despite the professor's best efforts to make it boring and tedious. I'm fascinated by much of ancient history... In part, I think, because it's so darned hard to connect those people, back then, with our people in the here and now; they of the Parthenon, we of the Taco Loco and the 60-ounce Drinkinator. The past seems so formal; maybe not refined, necessarily, but in my mind it's a place wrought of "thee"s and "thou"s, of people striding great hallways and holding daggers to the air and making long soliloquoys -- it goes without saying I'd be disappointed taking a trip to the real past, where like as not all I'd see of ancient civilization would be a couple of filthy, hairy men scratching themselves. Realism: overrated.

Sophocles, of course -- famed Greek tragedian. Not a job description you see much, anymore, though I haven't looked at Ang Lee's business card. Regardless, here was a guy whose whole stock and trade was in tales of people falling into utter ruin; THERE's a fun guy to hang around. I like to think that maybe he had the occasional bull session with his assistants before starting up a new play. "And it turns out the gold he got was actually because he had unwittingly betrayed his sister to the rival king. No! Because he killed her, himself! Accidentally!" "And then he married his dog!" "Yeah!"