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Sometimes we stop doing something for specific reasons.
Then we forget about those reasons, and go back to doing whatever we stopped doing...
Only to learn again why we stopped doing something - and go back to not doing it.

In my case the thing I stopped doing a while ago was reading modern accounts of ancient Greek figures.
The reason was the following: Modern accounts often make ancient events/figures fit modern clothes. Modern accounts desire to turn Sappho into a feminist icon, Plato into an atheist icon. Perhaps they aren't even entirely wrong, yet it gets rid of an ancient figure's/event's entirety/complexity - the buffet of interesting details which make things so lovely.

The modern depiction seems, at times, closer to fan fiction than anything else. Which, sure, is fine as long as we admit that that's what we're doing - or desire to read (modern retellings of ancient Greek tragedy and mythology can be fantastic and have real potential).

I kind of forgot those reasons as to why I tended to avoid modern accounts. Now I remember.


No stars in this review as I feel that it would be unfair to the author and the book. I'm sure many could easily enjoy this book.