As social media and sound bites become ever more pervasive I began to wonder how to combat the mind numbing, attention span shortening, and time wasting distractions that are abundantly available. I grew tired of pundits telling me how to think and feel. I don’t want presidential debates where the most substantive back and forth revolves around the strength of the candidates golf game. In short I want more substance and less fluff.
I began to wonder about classical literature. Was it mere chance that some stories have lasted for centuries or millennia? Are there lessons to be learned from ancient literature? Do the stories told 2,500 years ago still have relevance today? Against that backdrop I decided to read some works that have been around since antiquity. The first selection I made was Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.
Two weeks ago I could not have told you who Aeschylus was. Now I know he has been labeled as the father of tragedy based on his writings. He has been credited with writing at least 70 plays, but only a handful of them survive today. I wonder if these surviving plays are his seminal works. Why did they survive while others did not? Perhaps it was just random chance or perhaps there was something that set these plays apart. Prometheus Bound would be my first exposure to Aeschylus.
It is a fairly short read. There is a free version on the Project Gutenberg website. Since this is an ancient text the version you read might have a different translation than the version I read.
Prometheus Bound shows the danger of acting against a tyrant. Against Zeus’s wishes Prometheus gave man fire. Even though Prometheus had helped Zeus in the past to secure his throne Zeus had Prometheus punished. For a good deed Prometheus suffered unjustly. Overall I think there is a lesson to be learned from this play. It took longer to read than a work of fiction written today but I feel like there is value in reading it.
I have enjoyed the previous books I read by Ben Macintyre. I picked this one up not knowing anything about Ursula Kuczynski. She grew up to be a very successful spy for the Soviet Union and received the code name Agent Sonya. I looked forward to reading this. Shortly after I began reading I was hoping I would read about when she would be caught.
Ursula lived a remarkable life. Born in Germany and coming of age in the 1920’s she was exposed to a world of turmoil. She became a committed communist early in life and would not be deterred from her ideology.
She traveled the world first leaving Germany for the United States partially to avoid marriage. She became a member of the Communist Party of the United States. After a stint in the USA she returned to Germany and married the man she had left behind. His career took them to China where her career as a spy began. From there she traveled to the Soviet Union for additional training and continued to work as a spy throughout Europe.
I found it ...
