Reading Notes: Anthology

I thought all of the stories were a great introduction to storytelling! I liked that we got a little taste of the ways different cultures tell their stories and learned about what is important to them when it comes to myths. It was also nice to know that all cultures have origin stories and stories about the supernatural and tricksters. Even though some of these cultures never interacted with one another, there are still common themes and events found in their legends and myths.

Out of all of the stories, my least favorite was The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge fan of ghost stories in general because when I think ghost, I think horror and I don't do the horror genre. I also think it could have been that it didn't make much sense to me. I wanted answers about the old woman in the beginning and this skeleton man he battled. Was there supposed to be a message? If so I couldn't find it. I was also expecting it to be creepy or ominous which it was neither of. I don't know if I could fix the story to make it something I liked because I don't think I could stay true to the message of the story when I don't really understand it.

The story I liked the most was Pygmalion because I have a couple of ideas already on how I would tell it. While it was a little creepy, it had great detail and made you sort of understand how he could fall in love with a statue. A lot of Greek and Roman myths end in tragedy and misfortune so I wasn't expecting the happy ending at all! I kept thinking the statue was going to reject him or she wasn't going to turn fully human or Pygmalion would suffer public humiliation.  I could definitely rewrite the ending to be sad instead of happy. You never really know what the gods are going to do and I think exploring another god's reaction to Venus' decision to bring the statue to life would be cool. Another interesting concept would be seeing the story from the perspective of the statue and learning her feelings about all of this.

Pygmalion and his statue

Image Information: Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Léon Gérôme  (1824–1904)