wyrd

I started reading  Beowulf again. This time, a translation by Seamus Heaney. AMAZING. So many translations to choose from, so many people are critics of the epic and ignore the translation, or are ignorant of the origins of this masterpiece. I am thoroughly enjoying Beowulf, partly due to it being something I decided to read again rather than be assigned, and partly due to the wonderful translation. If you have any desire to read this ancient poem, I would strongly recommend this version.

On a side note, reading Heaney's introduction to his translation of Beowulf also gave me a quite a bit more appreciation for Katharine Kerr's incredibly detailed Deverry series (fifteen books of interwoven lives and stories). Sometimes we just enjoy a work of art for it's beauty, not being able to fathom the effort and immensity of what the artist did to give us the final version. When we get a hint, it's a glimmer of something incomprehensible in our peripheral vision, so easily dismissed    ---  unless we have been there too, and recognize it in ourself as well.

Social Bonds

I read "The No Name Woman" again. My mind finds it so strange to read about the cultures ans social rules of other countries. I find myself angered at people acting in their social rule set and the anger covers from my eyes the fact that I am putting our rules over theirs to try to conform them or say why they were right or wrong. Where are my ancestors' ghosts? What are the rules I am supposed to go by? I must be so steeped in these social bonds that I cannot see them any longer. Yet I know they are there - I can almost feel them around me - like demons.