A few years ago, my granddaughter Kathryn, then 9 years old, had a part in a school play about Greek mythology. She was Ares, the god of war — an interesting choice for a little girl who is sometimes quite shy.
Standing before an audience on her school’s gymnasium floor, she was dressed in a homemade costume that suggested ancient Greece crossed with modern Hobby Lobby accouterments. Kathryn belted out some lines about her character while a teacher pounded a drum and a dramatic soundtrack played in the background.
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In a video that my daughter recorded, I could hear Kathryn in a rare, menacing voice as she bellowed, “Don’t get me mad. I have a bad temper. I mean war! I mean death! I am Ares!”
Believe me, it was something to see. She brought down the house.
I thought about that performance Thursday evening when I tuned in for a livestreamed program that kicked off Hopkinsville’s seventh Big Read. Madeline Miller, author of the bestselling novel “Circe,” explained how she came to write about a female sorceress from Homer’s ancient Greek poem “The Odyssey.”
“My first encounter with Circe actually came from when I was 13 years and I was reading ‘The Odyssey’ …,” Miller said. “I was excited because I heard there was this female character named Circe who turned men into pigs — and I thought, well, that sounds really interesting.”
See what I mean? Another young girl inspired by the power of a memorable character in ancient Greek literature.
I believe that’s the reason we have a Big Read — to celebrate literature that gets us thinking about what’s possible. The fact that we can do this as a shared, community experience is a bonus, of course, especially during a pandemic that’s made shared experiences hard to come by.
Isolation is a relevant theme in MIller’s novel because Circle lived on the island of Aeaea, where she perfected her powers.
She was “the original social distancer,” Miller said.
The Pennyroyal Arts Council organizes the Big Read with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Several partners help locally, including the public schools, the community college, the public library and the museum.
You can watch a video of Miller’s opening program, and you can learn about several more virtual Big Read events planned for the next month on the Big Read Facebook page.
Copies of the book are available at the Alhambra Theatre, the Pennyroyal Area Museum and the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library.
I hope you’ll take time to check out some of the Big Read events and see that a modern story can give new meaning and access to ancient Greek characters.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
