Mrff. Ask a hard question. It's an excellent fantasy. That we shall never argue over. But it is a fantasy, and it should never have been billed as historical, because even in 1958 enough was understood about chronology of the Bronze Age -> Iron Age transition, as I understand it, to make some of the connections Renault draws strongly implausible. It's a story she could have told within a Bronze Age setting, leaving aside Attic synoikismos, or left off non-Greek Cretans and told it in a Dark Age setting, but never the twain shall meet, see.
I mean, it's not that *either* the Cretan stuff or the mainland stuff is intrinsically implausible* (although I'm inclined to side-eye "matriarchy swept away by patriarchy" scenery), it's just putting them together leaves me scratching my head and saying, But... no... but... what?
ETA: *From a cultural/material culture POV. If that makes sense.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-08-14 12:07 am (UTC)Mrff. Ask a hard question. It's an excellent fantasy. That we shall never argue over. But it is a fantasy, and it should never have been billed as historical, because even in 1958 enough was understood about chronology of the Bronze Age -> Iron Age transition, as I understand it, to make some of the connections Renault draws strongly implausible. It's a story she could have told within a Bronze Age setting, leaving aside Attic synoikismos, or left off non-Greek Cretans and told it in a Dark Age setting, but never the twain shall meet, see.
I mean, it's not that *either* the Cretan stuff or the mainland stuff is intrinsically implausible* (although I'm inclined to side-eye "matriarchy swept away by patriarchy" scenery), it's just putting them together leaves me scratching my head and saying, But... no... but... what?
ETA: *From a cultural/material culture POV. If that makes sense.