i got into a reading slump for the month of june and decided to get back to reading again this day — and my god, i couldn't have chosen a better book to rekindle my love for reading than this choice fare that i've managed to chance on.

the story is lush; the setting, vivid. the titular character is charismatic and magnetic, and there is something almost like the touch of a divine in him. i will make no secret that i am so very deeply interested in the theseus myth and this is such a good vivification of the story that it feels really real, as if it happened in actual human history, as if these were people who could step out of the pages and come to life and act and talk like actual human beings.

genuinely speaking, it is a story of a hero par excellence. this is the building of a myth well before the first words about his cult even spreads. we catch the hero at his idyllic, pastoral beginnings; we follow him through all his hardships and exploits and his troubles and his feats. we see his story get embellished; we see how fact turns to tall tale to legend to myth. we see stories forming, being constructed right before our eyes.

these pages have in them something so very important to say about the very human need to tell stories, about the cloying need to be the one to be made stories about.

theseus has perhaps never existed. if he did, it is only as a king of a small kingdom thousands of years ago that we wouldn't be sure of it even if we dig up his bones tomorrow, the probable time of his existence here on earth too far back for us to know with any certainty one way or another. yet, despite knowing this, i feel someone reaching out for me within the words of this narrative. i feel a connection to a pseudo-mythical king who was, even to ancient greeks, already ancient. i saw the arc of his life, bending towards its inevitable culmination. i see a human figure, just as human as i am: thinking, feeling, existing.

and there is a hand, reaching out, asking won't you hear my story?