The Golden Fleece by Robert Graves

(Book Review)
Also published as: Hercules, My Shipmate


Started: December 24, 2019
Finished: January 19, 2020

Why I Read This Book / Background Information

This is a re-telling of  the quest for the Golden Fleece (an  ancient Greek myth) written by famous classicist Robert Graves.  It was originally published in 1944.  It was then re-published in 1945 as Hercules, My Shipmate.  It has been (I believe) out of print for several years, but it was recently re-published by Seven Stories Press as part of their Robert Graves Project.  Which is how I happened to stumble upon it in the bookstore last month.

The Original Myth
 The original myth is a classic archetypal epic journey story in which Jason and his crew of Argonauts sail across the Greek world to recover the magical Golden Fleece. (*1) , (*2)

When I was in middle school, I was obsessed with Greek mythology (*3).
As far as I can remember, I never read any books that were specifically about Jason and the Argonauts, but I encountered the story many times in general collections of Greek myths.
Most of the re-tellings I encountered focused not on the epic voyage of the Argo, but on the twisted drama between Jason and Medea (*4).  But as twisted and bizarre as the story of Medea was, what always used to fascinate me the most was the collection of Greek heroes assembled for the voyage.  It was the first crossover story ever written.  And quite possibly the greatest (*5) , (*6).  I mean, just look at all the heroes who accompanied Jason on his quest: Hercules, Theseus, Atlanta, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Nestor, Peleus, and Telamon.  (*7) , (*8)
If you know who all of these heroes are, then give yourself one nerd point.  If you don't know, you can follow the links above to their Wikipedia pages.  Or you can just trust me that each of these heroes is famous in Greek mythology for their own separate stories, before they appeared as supporting characters in "The Golden Fleece."
How cool is that?  Comparisons between modern comic book superheros and Greek mythology can sometimes be overdone (*9), but it does seem that the desire to cram all of your favorite heroes into one story (the same desire that made Avengers: Infinity War so marketable) existed in the ancient world just as much as the modern world.
For example: Hercules.  He's the most famous hero in Greek mythology, and he usually takes center stage in whatever story he's in.  But here, he's just playing a supporting role as one of many crew-members on the voyage.  I always used to find that fascinating as a kid. (*10)

Robert Graves
Robert Graves was a prolific author and classicist writing in the mid-20th century. He was famous back in his own day for a number of different reasons (Wikipedia page HERE), but he is remembered nowadays for his historical fiction: I, Claudius and Claudius the God, which were turned into a famous BBC miniseries in the 1970s.
I read Claudius the God last year and reviewed it on this blog. While researching Robert Graves, at the time, I discovered he had written a book on Jason and the Golden Fleece.  I thought to myself, "I love the myth of the Golden Fleece. I love Robert Graves.  How cool would it be to combine them both."
Of course I didn't have much luck tracking down the book in Vietnam, but when I was back in America, I stumbled across it while browsing through a bookstore, and snatched it up.
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe this book has been out of print for several years, and is only now just being revived by a new publisher: Seven Stories Press. (*11)

The Review
Right, so there is a lot to unpack in this novel.  I'll try to put in headings above topics to keep this review organized.  Let's start with:

The Faithfulness to the Original Myth
The first thing to point out is that Robert Graves has (largely) demythologized the original myth. Gods, goddesses, and magical creatures are constantly referenced in this book, but never actually appear.  Instead, natural explanations are used to explain away the super-natural parts of the myth.

To give some examples:
Centaurs appear in this book, but they're not actually half-man, half-horse.  Instead they are ordinary men who are enrolled in a religious fraternity that takes the horse as its sacred animal.
Instead of flying away on a magical golden ram, Phrixus and Helle escape on a boat.  The golden fleece is merely a sacred object stolen from a shrine.
The harpies are also in this book, but they are not actually half-woman, half bird.  Instead they are normal vultures, and old blind king Phineus was simply lied to and told they were half-women.
There is no sleepless dragon guarding the fleece, only a sacred snake in the temple.

Et cetera, et cetera, etc.  All through the book.  Whenever there was some magical creature in the original myth, it is changed to some ordinary creature in Robert Graves' version.

This was not immediately apparent from page one of the book, but it gradually became apparent within the first 50 pages or so.
I was incredibly disappointed once I realized what Graves was doing.  Call me a philistine if you will, but I like my fantasy stories to be fantastical.  What fun is the story of the Golden Fleece stripped of all the strange and magical creatures?  Who would want to read that?

Exactly what Graves was up to, someone more knowledgeable than me will have to comment.  But I believe that there was a phase in academia when it was fashionable to try to tease out the historical origins behind the myths.
In the early 19th century, Greek myths were treated as simply campfire stories with no historical value whatsoever.  Then after Schliemann discovered Troy (W), the pendulum swung in the other direction, and for a while the fashion became to assume that every myth had an origin in a historical event. Possibly this was still the trend in the 1940s, and Graves is trying to tease out what might have been the original history behind the myth?

So, I was beginning to resign myself to the idea that this would be a joyless slog through a plausibly historically accurate account of prehistoric Greece.  But what saves this book (and makes it a fun reading experience) is that once the heroes assemble, they are every bit as colorful and quirky as they were in the original myth.  Hercules, for example, is still portrayed as an incredible strong man with an unpredictable violent temper.  Atlanta is still portrayed as the beautiful but imposing virgin huntress.  Et cetera.
And despite being demythologized, they are all still portrayed as larger than life.  Hercules is still incredibly strong, Atlanta is still an incredibly fast runner, Orpheus still creates spellbinding music, et cetera.
All the rivalries, personality conflicts and ironic tragic twists of fate from the original myth are recreated here as well.

I'm glad Graves included all this.  It's much more fun to read about than any story about ordinary people.  But it does make you wonder what he's trying to do.  Any story with characters this outlandish can't possibly be taken as a serious attempt to recreate a plausible history.  But if we're not going with a plausible recreation, then what are we doing? Why did we get rid of all the mythical creatures?

Indeed, what Graves is trying to do here is not at all clear to me.  And to complicate it more, there are hints of spirits and mysticism all the way through the story.  While all of the overt appearances of monsters and gods have been removed, there are definitely hints that the supernatural is operating behind the scenes.
It's hard to pin down exactly what the philosophy of this book is.  All of the characters themselves are incredibly religious, and are constantly referencing the will of the gods.  The gods themselves never appear, but various outcomes and coincidences are attributed to them.  The characters are also obsessed with ghosts, and believe that certain ghosts are responsible for certain events.  The narrator tells everything from the perspective of the characters, but the reader is left to wonder how many events attributed to the gods and ghosts have naturalistic explanations, and how many are truly supernatural in origin.
For many of the events attributed to the gods, it is obvious that a naturalistic explanation is more likely.  For example, a character will often have a dream in which they are visited by a god.  The god will tell the character what to do, but, coincidentally, this is usually what the character would have been predisposed to do anyway.  Thus the divine revelation quickly becomes a convenient justification for a course of action that was likely predetermined.

But, just as often, there are coincidence and occurrences in this book that are very difficult to explain away by naturalistic explanations.  Are there gods and goddesses silently working behind the scenes in this story?
If they are not, then how to explain a number of the amazing coincidences that happen throughout this story?
But if there are, then why did Robert Graves ditch the other mythical parts of this story?  (Why have a story that is only partly demythologized?  I mean, are we doing this thing or not?  Let's pick a philosophy and stick to it.) (*12)

I don't know.  I guess the ambiguity throughout the book is all part of the fun of it.  Or part of the frustration of it.  Depending on how you look at it. (*13)

Anyway, once you get past the fact that the various parts of this story are re-arranged to de-emphasize the presence of the supernatural, the actual beats of the story are pretty faithful to the original myth.
There were a few times when I thought Robert Graves was deviating from the original story, but then I looked it up on Wikipedia, and most of those times it turned out that there were various versions of the story. (*14)

Readability / Tone
A lot of patience is required with this book.  It starts out really slow.  We're at about 150 pages in before the Argo even launches.
Once the heroes assemble, and the Argo launches, then the pace of the book does pick up somewhat.  But throughout the book, there are a lot of digressions, and a lot of descriptions.  Robert Graves is intent on not only re-telling the myth, but he also wants to recreate a picture of all the different peoples and civilizations that populated prehistoric Greece. (*15)

The writing style is different than the previous Robert Graves' books I've read.  I, Claudius was written in a modern style, but this book is deliberately written in a style reminiscent of ancient stories. Robert Graves uses modern English vocabulary, but characters talk in stilted formal speeches rather than having real conversations. (Think, maybe, of the NIV translation of the Bible, and you have a fairly good idea of the general narration style and dialogue.)
But at the same time, the narration is subversive.  There's a slightly mocking tone running all the way through the narrator's commentary.  He's making fun of the story at the same time that he is telling it.

As for the heroes, they are not always sympathetic.  And so that prevents the reader from fully identifying with them.  But then, that's the point.
The heroes of this story have a code of ethics that is entirely different than our own.  I suppose that by their own lights, they can not be called immoral.  They have a code of religious observance that they are obsessed with.  (SO much of this book is taken up with discussion of what the correct religious rituals are.)  But they also have a callous disregard for the life of anyone who is not in their in-group.  (Most of this is inherited directly from the original source material of the myth.) It makes it very hard to sympathize with the heroes. But then, I don't believe we're supposed to sympathize with them.  The narration style is deliberately keeping us at arms length.  We're supposed to study this culture, but not identify with it.

It is also notable that most of the places these heroes go, they end up causing more trouble then they solve.  (This is another way in which the narration style is subtlety mocking them.  There is a contrast between the self-righteous speeches that the heroes give, and the callousness of their actions.)

The final chapter is entitled "What Became of the Argonauts" and serves as an epilogue, giving the final fates of all of the heroes of the Argo.  It is, as far as I can tell, mostly true to the original Greek mythology.  It's very noticeable that many of them end up getting killed by their former shipmates because of some petty quarrel.  The understated way in which the narrator reports all of this is another example of the irony running all the way through this book.  Throughout the whole book, the Argonauts repeatedly swear loyalty and friendship to each other, but then as soon as the voyage is over, they go right back to their petty quarrels.  You'd expect this to be a big deal, but the narrator just reports it matter-of-factly. (*16)

As characters:
The Argonauts themselves are interesting collectively as a motley crew of quirky heroes.  But taken individually, they are mostly one note characters.  Each of them has one talent, and maybe one personality quirk, and they don't get much characterization beyond that.  Euphemus is a gifted swimmer, Echion is a clever orator, et cetera.  I believe is also a limitation inherited from the original source material.
And yet, it works well enough.  I didn't really have a problem with the fact that the Argonauts were underdeveloped.  The story was still interesting. (*17)

The Matriarchy/ The Triple Goddess
Oh, right, so here I am, some 2,000 words into this review, and I haven't even gotten to the major theme of this book.  That's the problem with reviewing anything by Robert Graves.  There is always so much to talk about.
This is a book that is juggling a lot of themes, but the Triple Goddess (W) and the matriarchy is undoubtedly the main preoccupation.  In fact, the first 70 pages of this novel are about nothing but the Triple Goddess and the matriarchy.
For readers like me, who were primarily interested in the Argonauts, the good news is that if you can stick through the first 70 pages, the more traditional story of Jason and the Argonauts does finally start on page 71.  But even after this, Graves keeps coming back to the theme of the Triple Goddess throughout the book.
None of this was part of the original story (*18), but Graves was really interested in it, and so he makes it part of the story.
Robert Graves believes that in prehistoric Greece, before the Dorian invasion (W), the inhabitants worshiped The Triple Goddess and lived in a matriarchal society.  Then, when the invading tribes came in from the north (who Graves calls Ionians and Achaeans), there was a clash between the ancient Triple Goddess and the patriarchal gods of the invaders.  Eventually, this clash worked itself into a compromise, which is how we got the Olympian pantheon with 6 gods and 6 goddesses.
Exactly what Robert Graves is basing this on, I'm not sure (*12) , (*19), but Robert Graves is a guy who really knew his stuff, so I'm assuming he had pretty good evidence. Although the publisher's introduction says that the evidence for a prehistoric matriarchal Greece society goes back and forth, and that there are many scholars today who would disagree with Graves.
This book was, nonetheless, an interesting exploration of the logic behind matriarchal societies.  Before reading this book, I had thought, "Of course it makes sense that all ancient societies would be patriarchies.  After all, men are the strongest, and in the ancient world, strength was most important."
After reading this book, I can now think, "Of course it makes sense that the ancient world would venerate women.  After all, the women were the source of all new life."  And "Of course it makes sense for the ancient societies to trace their ancestry through their mother's line.  After all, there can always be doubt about paternity, but there's never any doubt about who a baby's mother is."

Complaining About the Publisher's Introduction 
I know I shouldn't waste too much time on the Publisher's introduction, because that will vary from edition to edition.
But, this got under my skin so I'm going to complain about it.  Plus, I've read a number of similarly themed essays on the classics and Greek myths, so I'm going to take this as an example of a general trend.

The publisher's introduction opens with the words:

Do we really need Greek myths? In 2018, we need justice more than anything else: racial justice, gender justice, economic justice....

And then it continues in this vein.
The writer (Dan-el Padilla Peralata) is of course setting up a rhetorical question for the purposes of answering in the affirmative. Yes, Greek myths can show us a path to racial, gender and economic justice, and are therefore valuable for the modern reader.  But the framing of the question still bugged me.
Look, I'm as interested in progressive politics as the next guy. (As regular readers of this blog no doubt know-- I've read and blogged about Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, Noam Chomsky, and the Paris Commune.)  But the most miserably boring people you'll ever meet are people who can't talk about anything in life except through a political lens.  Not everything has to be about justice.  Sometimes a story is just fun for its own sake.  Sometimes an ancient myth can be interesting just for a glimpse into a different civilization.

Secondly, notice how it's only ever Greek myths that have to justify their existence in this way.  No one ever says, "Do we really need Star Wars in 2018? What can Star Wars tell us about economic justice?"

Thirdly, that "in 2018" bit is a cheap trick.  The present always seems more visceral to us because we're experiencing it.  But every age has its own crises. (*20)
In the 1930s there was the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Fascism, and the great depression.
In the 1940s there was a world war, the holocaust, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the 1950s there was a nuclear arms race, Emmett Till, and McCarthyism.
In the 1960s there was the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.
In the 1970s there was Kent State and Watergate.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
You see, if you're going to play this game, then there's never a good time to read anything purely for pleasure.  Even in the ancient Greek world itself, they were constantly going from crisis to crisis.  The Persian invasion, Peloponnesian War, Alexander the Great, etc.

Footnotes (docs, pub)
(*1) You know, a month ago, I would have assumed that the myth of The Golden Fleece was just common cultural knowledge.  But as I was walking around with this book the past month, various friends and co-workers would ask me what I was reading, and I discovered that most people had no idea what The Golden Fleece even was.  I guess the lesson is: never assume the rest of the world is interested in the same stuff you are.
If you've never heard of The Golden Fleece before, don't feel bad, you're in good company.
If you are already familiar with The Golden Fleece, it may surprise you just how many people out there have never heard of it.

(*2) The Golden Fleece was also the basis for the Uncle Scrooge comic book: The Golden Fleecing by Carl Barks.

(*3) Although I'd guess you'd never know it from reading this blog.   Previous to this book, in my 14 years of book reviewing, I've only reviewed 2 books that were at all related to Greek mythology (namely: Ilium and Olympus), and no books that were solely about Greek mythology.  But this has largely been because I already knew all the Greek myths by the time I had reached adulthood, and so felt no need to re-read them.
Although, now that I'm no longer a child, maybe it's time to tackle some of the original ancient sources for these myths. New reading project?

(*4) A trend that, according to the publishers' introduction, started with the ancients in the Greek tragedy Medea (W).

(*5) And in fact, I've mentioned it before in my "My Greatest Crossovers Ever" post.

(*6) The only other great crossover event I can think of in Greek mythology was the Calydonian Boar Hunt (W), which also assembled a great collection of mythical heroes.
And those are the only two huge crossover events I can think of in Greek mythology.  Someone let me know in the comments if I'm missing something.  I know there were plenty of other individual crossovers in Greek mythology (Hercules meeting Theseus, et cetera), but that's not quite on the same scale as the huge roster of Argonauts or The Calydonian Boar hunt.  And I know the Trojan War also assembled a huge collection of heroes, but I tend not to count that as a crossover event because in this case the Trojan War was the main story, not a crossover event.
...actually speaking of the Calydonian Boar Hunt, does anyone out there know when it was supposed to have taken place in the original mythology?  Was it before or after the quest for the Golden Fleece?  In Robert Graves' book, the Calydonian Boar Hunt is frequently referenced by the heroes as an event in the past.  But then at the end of the story, Great Anceaus is killed by a wild boar.  Robert Graves doesn't identify the boar, but according to Wikipedia, this was the Calydonian Boar (W).  Also according to Wikipedia, Little Anceaus, another Argonnaut, was also killed in the Calydonian Boar Hunt (W).  So I'm guessing in the original mythology, the Calydonian Boar Hunt must have come after the voyage of the Argo.

(*7) Wikipedia has a complete list of all the Argonauts HERE.  I've only listed the ones that seemed notable to me because these were the ones I specifically recognized from other stories.  Depending on which Greek myths you're most familiar with, your mileage on which of the Argonauts are most notable may vary.

(*8) Also according to Wikipedia, the list of Argonauts varies from source to source.  Not all of these heroes were on the Argonaut in every iteration of the story.  And in fact, in Robert Graves's version, much to my disappointment, some of the heroes I was expecting to see on this quest like Theseus, Nestor, and Telamon were absent.  (Theseus and Telamon were in the book, but not part of the quest.)
According to Wikipedia, there's some controversy over whether Theseus being on this quest fits with the rest of his legend:

Apollonius claims that Theseus and Pirithous were trapped in underworld by Hades at the time and could not join.^[11] Theseus being on the list is inconsistent with accounts of his life usually including him encountering Medea at an early stage of his adventures, yet many years after the Argonauts completed their adventure (Medea, by that time, was not only abandoned by Jason, but also bore a child from Aegeus).^[12]

(*9) If you spend any time in geek culture, you've already heard ad nauseam the argument that modern super hero comic books are our culture's version of Greek mythology.  Whole books have been written about this comparison.  And while I'm obviously playing with that comparison by using anachronistic language like "crossover event", I'm not going to get fully into that argument today.  Another subject for another post.

(*10) And obviously it's exactly that absurdity that the publishers are playing off of with the alternate title for this book: Hercules, My Shipmate.
Although I prefer The Golden Fleece.  To call this book Hercules, My Shipmate is to bring too much attention to Hercules' role.  And by bringing too much attention to it, you spoil the conceit. The whole point is that Hercules is supposed to be just a supporting character, and this is mainly Jason's story.
That, plus in this book (as in the original ancient myth) Hercules is only on the Argo for the first part of the voyage.  So it really doesn't make any sense to name the book after him.
According to Wikipedia (W), this book was first published as The Golden Fleece in 1944, and then re-published in 1945 as Hercules, My Shipmate.  It's not clear from Wikipedia whose decision this was, but I'm guessing this title was chosen by the publishers, and not Robert Graves.  Fortunately, for the edition I have (2018, Seven Stories Press), the publishers have gone back to the original title: The Golden Fleece.

(*11) I didn't know anything about Seven Stories Press, but from their own blurb on the back pages (About Seven Stories Press), it's clear that they are highlighting the fact that they emphasize publishing progressive political voices.  Robert Graves seems to meet their criteria because of his depiction of matriarchal societies in prehistoric Greece.  (It's not entirely clear if this is the only reason that Seven Stories Press chose to reprint him, but this is definitely what they wanted to emphasize in their 2018 publisher's introduction.)

(*12) There may be an author's afterward or historical appendix that was originally attached to this book that would have explained some of this stuff, but it was not included in the edition I have.  I'm not 100% sure, but in my google searches, I've come across a couple reviews of earlier additions that reference the author's afterward.  And the publisher's introduction to the edition I have also references a historical appendix. (Quote: "Scholars of the Greek Late Bronze and Early Iron Age would gleefully take an ax to some of the arguments that Graves references in his historical appendix..." (p.8) ).  But then they don't include any historical appendix in my addition.

(*13) There are also some indications that the gods exist in this book, but that their form, personalities and power are shaped directly by the imagination of  their worshipers.  In other words, there's a symbiotic relationship between the gods and their worshipers that mirrors the world of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.  Makes you wonder if Neil Gaiman ever read this book.

(*14) As far as I can tell by cross-referencing Wikipedia, I think Graves is mostly following Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius.

(*15) I've never actually read Herodotus, but people often say of Herodotus that the most frustrating thing about him, and also the most interesting thing about him, is how he takes so many digressions away from his main story to talk about the customs and habits of different cultures.  People often say of Herodotus that you either have to learn to appreciate the digressions into anthropology, or just give up on him altogether.  Probably the same thing is true of The Golden Fleece.

(*16) And for us mythology nerds, it's fun to see how interconnected all of their stories are.  Most of these characters have their own adventure stories aside from The Golden Fleece.  But they almost always involve other heroes crossing in and out of their stories.  (I cross-referenced a lot of this on Wikipedia, and most of what Graves wrote seems to check out.)  For example, you can't possibly tell the story of Idas without getting into the story of Lynceus and Castor and Pollux and others.  What a fascinating tapestry of interconnected stories Greek mythology is!

(*17) Actually it's not just a problem with Greek mythology, is it?  A lot of the characters in a lot of our favorite stories aren't really fully developed.  I've got this theory that we don't mind one-dimensional portrayals so much because we as readers naturally assume that there's a three-dimensional character in there somewhere, even though we're just getting a small glimpse of them.  And so we fill in the rest of the gaps subconsciously, and imagine a three-dimensional character.

(*18) Caveat: As far as I know.  But keep in mind, Robert Graves knows a lot more than I do.

(*19) According to the publisher's introduction, Robert Graves was influenced by The Golden Bough by James Frazer (W), and in fact the very title The Golden Fleece is meant to evoke The Golden Bough.  Robert Graves would go on to publish more about the Triple Goddess in a subsequent book The White Goddess (W) published in 1948.  This apparently also continued to be a big theme in Robert Graves' 1955 The Greek Myths (W).

(*20) What's unique about our present age, of course, is the seriousness of the ecological disaster we are currently facing.  And that may well be unprecedented in history.  So maybe if Dan-el Padilla Peralata had gone that route, I might have cut him some slack.  But he is only talking about racial justice, gender justice, and economic justice.  And those are certainly problems not unique to 2018.

Video Review
Video review HERE and embedded below:



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