This is not a summer beach read. Wood will stretch your mind, twist it around, throw a cloud of uncertainty over it, and, just when you think all will be made clear, finish you with a new note of ambiguity. But, that's the story of oracles, as we will see shortly.
Myth guides our lives more subtly than we know consciously. Since ancient times we have been on a quest for truth. For knowledge. For certainty. We have a need to find our place in the cosmos, a raison d'être. We want to understand, and we want guidance toward a more complete understanding.
Wood puts that timeless seeking into perspective and leads us toward comprehension. However, this book is not for everyone. Its many high points are scintillating, while its low points, principally in one chapter, lugubriously fail to bring an argument or literary criticism into focus. The low points do not succeed. One gets the impression that Wood lost the thread in one of the final chapters. Nevertheless, the good clearly outweighs the bad even if much of the book has a textbook-like tone to it.
"[W]e hear what we hope for and get what we fear" from oracles. But, what is an oracle? Definitions are non-specific. Oracles are "supposed to be" or "reputed to be."
Myth guides our lives more subtly than we know consciously. Since ancient times we have been on a quest for truth. For knowledge. For certainty. We have a need to find our place in the cosmos, a raison d'être. We want to understand, and we want guidance toward a more complete understanding.
Wood puts that timeless seeking into perspective and leads us toward comprehension. However, this book is not for everyone. Its many high points are scintillating, while its low points, principally in one chapter, lugubriously fail to bring an argument or literary criticism into focus. The low points do not succeed. One gets the impression that Wood lost the thread in one of the final chapters. Nevertheless, the good clearly outweighs the bad even if much of the book has a textbook-like tone to it.
"[W]e hear what we hope for and get what we fear" from oracles. But, what is an oracle? Definitions are non-specific. Oracles are "supposed to be" or "reputed to be."
Wood quotes Webster's as saying an oracle is "one who is considered or professes to be infallible." This concept is questioned repeatedly. "Prophecies are neither true nor false at the time of their utterances. They are awaiting confirmation;" Oracles only respond; they do not volunteer information.
The only certainty associated with oracles is ambiguity. "A straightforward response is not necessarily unambiguous; and, second, a reputation for knowing the truth…is not the same as a reputation for telling the truth." Compare the reputations of politicians, spies, and financial managers.
It is the possibility that the oracle's story could be wrong which draws us to it. Will Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane? Will the daily astrology column truly give us good guidance, or not? How much of literature can be explained within the context of the oracle?
The first eight chapters contain the strength of Wood's argument and the most compelling writing. "That is, we don't know whether [knowledge] is invented, and don't know whether knowledge is the right word for it. This is the realm this book seeks to explore."
The only certainty associated with oracles is ambiguity. "A straightforward response is not necessarily unambiguous; and, second, a reputation for knowing the truth…is not the same as a reputation for telling the truth." Compare the reputations of politicians, spies, and financial managers.
It is the possibility that the oracle's story could be wrong which draws us to it. Will Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane? Will the daily astrology column truly give us good guidance, or not? How much of literature can be explained within the context of the oracle?
The first eight chapters contain the strength of Wood's argument and the most compelling writing. "That is, we don't know whether [knowledge] is invented, and don't know whether knowledge is the right word for it. This is the realm this book seeks to explore."
Wood explores the depth and breadth of the ancient oracles, noting there were ten of them. The most famous, of course, were the oracle at Delphi and the Cumaean Sibyl. Nowhere have I found a better explication of the role of the oracle in the ancient world.
Ambiguity is explored at length in chapter 3, "So Much for Nero." "Amphibology" (doublespeak) means that words can be interpreted in more than one way. The danger lies in hearing the words and assigning meaning to the exclusion of any alternate meanings. Nero was told to beware "seventy-three" according to the after-the-fact legend. He thought the danger was in reaching that age; but the danger came from the seventy-three years old Galba who rebelled against him. Following the oracle's advice, Hesiod avoided the grove of Nemean Zeus, then was killed at another shrine to Zeus. I might add a contemporary quote: "I did not have sex with that woman." On its face, the statement was unambiguous, but, in the event, it was open to interpretation. And, it was interpreted.
In "The Death of the King," Wood brilliantly examines the story of Oedipus. This is the finest chapter in the book, eclectic, rambling, and yet somehow to the point.
Ambiguity is explored at length in chapter 3, "So Much for Nero." "Amphibology" (doublespeak) means that words can be interpreted in more than one way. The danger lies in hearing the words and assigning meaning to the exclusion of any alternate meanings. Nero was told to beware "seventy-three" according to the after-the-fact legend. He thought the danger was in reaching that age; but the danger came from the seventy-three years old Galba who rebelled against him. Following the oracle's advice, Hesiod avoided the grove of Nemean Zeus, then was killed at another shrine to Zeus. I might add a contemporary quote: "I did not have sex with that woman." On its face, the statement was unambiguous, but, in the event, it was open to interpretation. And, it was interpreted.
In "The Death of the King," Wood brilliantly examines the story of Oedipus. This is the finest chapter in the book, eclectic, rambling, and yet somehow to the point.
For example, there is an extensive discussion of the famous crossroads based on the word "trivial." However, it is not a crossroads (four roads coming together), but a place where three roads meet. That is, one road splits into two roads, thereby forming a "Y." This seems "trivial" Wood says. He uses the word with care, for the Oxford English Dictionary provides an obsolete and rare definition, "placed where three roads meet." What if Oedipus or Laius had arrived earlier, or later? There would have been no story, no drama.
Wood's subsequent discussions of Stravinsky's opera and Pasolini's film Oedipus Rex, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and The Oresteia of Aeschylus are elegant and superbly reasoned. Of particular interest is an extensive discussion of the role of the oracle in Shakespeare's Macbeth and in Akira Kurosawa's version, Throne of Blood.
Wood's subsequent discussions of Stravinsky's opera and Pasolini's film Oedipus Rex, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and The Oresteia of Aeschylus are elegant and superbly reasoned. Of particular interest is an extensive discussion of the role of the oracle in Shakespeare's Macbeth and in Akira Kurosawa's version, Throne of Blood.
