Percy Jackson and The Olympians by Rick Riordan

21st September, 2009 4 Comments

A few weeks ago, Reagan and I decided to check out Book Court located in Brooklyn Heights (the store was recently featured in the New York Times). While there she picked up the final book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan while handing over earlier books from her collection for me to read. After varying schedules since then, I’ve finally managed to pick up and read the remaining books and have been itching to share with you my thoughts.

I totally loved this book series. In net-speak I guess you could say I *Heart* the books. In fact, I’ve already recommended them to a young cousin who isn’t a big reader–perfect books for reading aloud with the family. The story moves quickly and the story is tight. Adults can appreciate the plays on words and pop-culture nods that are still accessible to young readers. There are no magic swords suddenly appearing out of the blue from a hat–if a magical item is used, the set-up happened chapters before. And Deus Ex Machina? Yea, they’re Greek Gods and are supposed to randomly pop-up.

Ultimately, what I loved about these book is how true they are to the ancient stories of Greek Heroes. Not from a theatrical standpoint of having a chorus and all. No, I mean the fact that heroes have weaknesses and do get help from others. Sure Percy gets advice and gifts to aid him on his quests, but so did Theseus and Perseus and Hercules. And the Gods interfered with the great heroes of the past; getting in the way, offering help, and offering “help.”* Drawing on that older tradition means that there are similarities to the Harry Potter series. On his blog, Riordan acknowledges and responds with a well thought out post to the criticism of the series; JK Rowling was doing nothing new–she too drew off older examples of hero tales. Similarity are inevitable in stories of this sort.

When I was younger I went through a phase where I was obsessed with Greek mythology. The interweaving of modernized Gods living in today’s world works well and reminded me of some of my favorite tales. Apparently, the books are inspiring a new generations of mythology enthusiasts looking for books featuring the tales of Jason and Zeus and Apollo. Riordan goes further into the tales as well, while most compilations of Greek Mythology feature a few exploits of the Gods and hero stories (Arachne and Athena, Echo and Narcissus, the Heroes), he reaches back to the often forgotten tales of creation and the wars with the Titans. One quibble is that there are some more Roman takes on a few of the characters featured, but he later redeems himself by correcting the often mistaken idea of Pandora’s box.

Oh, second quibble, heroes shouldn’t have supernatural abilities like the gods. More strength than other humans? Fine. Mommy goddess dipped you in the River Styx? Okay. Can control the weather? Eh, not so much. Not all the children of the gods have such ability, so I can forgive the three that do based on the consistency and defining link that all three share.

Looking up the books online, I discovered what many have already found out at the theaters; the series is being turned into movies. Again, there are similarities to Harry Potter, including director, but the trailer is an exciting teaser and seems to fit the story. There seems to be a slightly darker mood to the often humorous telling in the book, but the philosophical bent of the books and the events that happen make me feel this interpretation will work out well.

It seems odd that completely separate themes (chick-lit mystery and young adult) should both reference back to the same material of antiquity. Between Tasha Alexander’s Emily trying to preserve Grecian works of art and Percy understanding the old myths as part of his heritage, my interest in the old mythologies has rekindled. I plan on making a trip up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see their Greek Sculptures–a location that makes an appearance early on in the series.

The five books in the series, in order: The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian.

*At one point a god offers a gift to a hero, after which the hero responds that it wasn’t a gift at all and rather a way for the god to claim credit for being helpful.

NOTE: Marcelo, before you go read these and complain about yet another kids’ fantasy book with a prophecy, IT’S GREEK MYTHOLOGY. Oracle of Delphi and all that–there had to be a prophocy. Riordan works some great magic on staying true to the obscure multi-meaning tradition. Read the series as a individual unit and not as a comparison to other books.

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Posted on: September 21, 2009 by Christina

Filed under: Book Reviews

4 Comments

Marcelo

September 21st, 2009 at 7:10 pm    


My wife LOVES this series. I imagine my first exposure will be the movie, my to-read list is so massive I probably won’t be able to fit these in anytime soon.

Re: prophecies and deus ex machina, it’s Riordan’s dumb luck that we live in a literary and artistic landscape where those devices are used over and over again by lazy storytellers. Its so saturated that even when it’s done well it comes across like a cliche. I was heartbroken when Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book, after treating everything else so carefully and elegantly, fell back on the prophecy angle. Yeah the Greeks invented it, and it’s not Riordan’s fault, but tough. It’s an overused lazy device, and you can’t justify it merely by citing Greek mythology. Same with the gods and deus ex machina. I like the way Homer used the gods – as individual actors who didn’t necessarily interfere or magically fix things, but rather acted as catalysts for the humans to overcome adversity. No god magically swept Odysseus home to solve his problem, even though the gods were present and active. Odysseus got home on his own gumption after survivng the tests the gods put out for him. That is a great use of god characters in Greek literature. The plays where a god comes in and fixes everything at the last minute are not as strong dramatically.

A lot of the classical Greek drama that invented these devices was pretty poor by our standards. We celebrate them for being one of the earliest forms of organized theater, for being so stylized, and for the architecture and design of their productions, with the masks and amphitheaters and so forth. But our modern concept of “good storytelling” is vastly different than what the Greeks admired in their theatre.

Like I said, I haven’t read the books, so I don’t know how things go down. But in general, having the series be based on Greek mythology doesn’t excuse anything.

Maria

September 21st, 2009 at 9:47 pm    


Dude it’s a kids book relax a little! They’re supposed to be fun not some over analysed piece of literature. My 11 year old son hates to read but he still likes to be read to. Our whole family read the books together, a chapter a night and they made him really excited to learn more about the minotaur and medusa and the heros, he wants to build a robot too all because of these books. We’ve spent so much time at the library this summer. That’s what a kids book should be rated by, it’s a good book if it makes kids want to learn more. Who cares if a bunch of other books used similar structures or had plot holes. These boooks made my son want to learn which makes them great boks in my mind.

Christina

September 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 am    


Marcelo – You’re generalizing. In any genre there are books that use the same devices and poorly while others use them well. I was being funny with my comment in regards to your long Harry Potter post and did state that you should judge the books on their individual merit and not compared to other books in the same genre. You might be surprized at how he uses some of those devises -like prophecy. As for an excuse – no. But he does have a legitimate right based on the parallels to Greek Mythology. He still had to write a good story with them. But that was a harsh attack seeing as how you have not read the books.

Maria – Good for your son! I’ve heard from librarians that a lot of kids are doing the samew because of these books. And it’s pretty cool your family still all reads together!

Marcelo

September 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm    


The only reason I harp on it so much is that it’s a really annoying pet peeve of mine. I can let it go though.

I will say that it being “just a kids book” doesn’t do much for me. These books (and books like HP) are being read by all ages. YA is the hottest section in the bookstore because adults are reading them too.

Randomly, I was reading an interesting article about whether the jump in YA popularity is because adults are tired of “literary fiction” and want books with more plot and adventure. Seems plausible.

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