7/16: revising

...my thoughts about Zachary Mason's Metamorphica a little bit.  I read The Lost Books of the Odyssey with a student this past semester and really enjoyed the experience, so I was cautiously looking forward to the publication of Metamorphica this summer.  "Cautiously" because I worried that the book would be more of a perfunctory reprise (applying the same touch to Ovid) rather than something fresh.  And mostly I am disappointed (as a reader) and frustrated (as a researcher of classical reception).  But I found a few of the longer stories in the last half of the book more interesting.  I'm glad for them and for the chance to change my mind (but still wishing that ZM had held off on publishing the book until all the stories were equally strong).