I’m in the mood for what I’m calling the “Deucalion and Pyrrha” reading list.

The weather is inclement all over. There has been a drought here for two years. And suddenly it rains and storms every night. Now there is flooding.

I feel like Pyrrha in a feminist retelling of Ovid’s version of the flood myth. The gods select Deucalion and Pyrrha to survive a world-destroying flood. That’s because, in my version, charming Deucalion knows how to throw a party, and the gods enjoy their visit. At any rate, they claiim Deucalion and Pyrrha are the last good people on Earth.  After the flood, the happy couple must repopulate the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders. Great. Way to go, gods!

I imagine it this way:  one minute Pyrrha is reading poetry on a tablet and cooking greens for dinner, and then she is hustled outside with Deucalion while a wild rain falls.

“O my gods, Deucalion,” she exclaims as the neighbors drown in the flood. “What on earth did you say to those guys?” 

Those guys. or the gods, are not her favorite beings.  And it’s because of this kind of stuff. So extreme and pointless.

So let’s strive to be like Pyrrha:  Read and cook your greens! And here is what I call my Pyrrha list of books for August.

Anthony Trollope’s political novels, Phineas Finn, Phineas Finn Redux, and The Prime Minister.  I love the six-book Palliser series, which were the first Trollopes I read.  Edwin Frank, the author of Stranger Than Fiction:   Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel, is teaching a four-week NYR Seminar on three of Trollope’s political Palliser novels (the three aforementioned titles).  It sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? I also recommend a very long but excellent old BBC series, The Pallisers. which you can watch on YouTube.

Daniel Defoe’s Roxanna.  This 18th-century novel, written in the form of a first-person “history,” is the story of Roxanna, a deserted wife-and-mother-turned-courtesan. It is lively, funny, bawdy, boisterous, and sometimes tragic. She recalls her life with various lovers, including a jeweller and a prince of France, with wit and animation.  But there are also interjections of regret:  as she reviews her past, she warns us of the dangers of wealth attained by immorality and greed.  

Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Ovid’s brilliant epic poem, a collection of Greek myths, is linked by the theme of metamorphosis. The poem can be serious, funny, poignant, and occasionally horrific, depending on the myth. There are many critically-acclaimed translators of Metamorphoses, including Rolfe Humphries, Horace Gregory, and David Raeburn.  Or perhaps you might want to go with Dryden and Alexander Pope. And there are also new translations.

So read on! Are you, too, reading to lift your mood this tumultous summer? What are your recommendations for solace?