I stir up the gifts of the gods in me and around me, and I am blessed on every side with happiness, success, and true achievement.Well, with that affirmation let me return to this blog. (No, I haven't been sleeping on the job, but out of town, down at the mouth, otherwise occupied.) Let me stir up some good news that the Olympian (read true) gods are yet alive and living in ...London.
My favorite bookseller, lent me an advance copy of a delightful read,
Gods Behaving Badly, a new British novel by Marie Phillips. It seems Aphrodite, Artemis, Apollo, et al., have been living in London these 2000+ years after having been displaced in the people's affections by the messiah. They're having a hard time of it, being forgotten and all, cooped up in one ramshackle residence, getting on each other's nerves.
Of course they're in London. The ancients always have British accents in movies after all. It's an effortless book because it all makes perfectly good sense. Dionysus is a dj in an underground club. Demeter is plum worn out. Aphrodite is - well, Aphrodite
must be played by Catherine Zeta Jones in the movie, because Aphrodite is gorgeous, but she has that
nasty streak. Brad Pitt, oh god yes, would be Apollo. Sean Connery, Zeus. The big stars are gods, the gods are big stars - even as they age, they are gorgeous.
I'd vote for Maggie Gyllenhall to play the waif-like mortal heroine of the story. Who wouldn't go to the underworld for her? Even Marie Phillips likes her. You can read about that here:
normblog When it comes out, in December in the US, read the book. Revive these gods. We'll all be better off for it.
