The Universe, the Gods, and Men: Ancient Greek Myths Told by Jean-Pierre Vernant

I almost didn't buy this book because of the low customer reviews, but then I used the "look inside" feature and liked what I saw. I did order the book and I'm very glad I did. I teach creative writing at the college level and will recommend this book to my students. I find the tellings to be very clear and also very poetic. As a writer, I turn to myths to help me find my own stories--this book, I know, will pull many stories out of my unconscious, where they now are hidden "in the depths of the Earth; the void." I also find the author's introduction informative and useful in explaining why myths are important. I love this book.

What the previous reviewer seems to have misunderstood is Vernant's point: that this is a book of stories to be told to one's children. Thus, a dialogue naturally begins when the child asks a question like "who is that?" Vernant presupposes only one thing: that the adult who is reading the story will fill in the details regarding the Greek myths as he or she wishes, or is asked questions about. He presupposes that the adult is already familiar with the myths, and is introducing them for the first time to his or her child. A parent obviously cannot read Bulfinch's Mythology to a child, it would be ludicrous, and so Vernant has produced a book that can be read to children for the first time, and one which relies on the parent's knowledge to fill in whatever elements that he or she desires to, or is asked to say more about. In short, it is a book for children that presupposes that the adult knows his or her Greek mythology. There is quite simply no other book for children that introduces them to the world of Greek mythology. That it presumes that the parent reading it knows more than the child does and also more than what is in the book should not come as a shock. What Vernant accomplishes here for the first time is to give children their first access to what are otherwise very complicated stories, and to let us fill in the gaps as they come up.