Don't miss this: Paradise Lost

[likethebeer]

http://guy.com/2011/03/10/paradise-lost/

Damn. That entry no longer exists. So I got it from the Wayback Machine & put it here.

This is that rare exception where true complexity produces actual awe. Seriously, as much as I love Shakespeare, nothing has ever blown away my brain like Paradise Lost. Even the non-cosmic Adam and Eve parts build to a declaration of love which sufficiently proves humanity’s worth among gods and monsters. When John Milton played Alien Vs. Predator, he picked the marine, flaws and all. That’s some deep shit.

Remember that summer reading list in high school that you blew off? There were some pretty great titles you skipped and you’ve spent your adult life hearing references to them. What did you miss? And why are these titles still thrown around today? Are they really that good? Here’s your chance to redeem yourself: we’re taking a candid look at a lot of these books and building a case for finally picking up that book years later.

Paradise Lost
John Milton
Genre: Religious Epic
Length: Long enough
Difficulty Level: About as hard as it gets
Selling Point: Whether by accident or design, Paradise Lost is a card-carrying classic in which Satan is a hero and God’s a total dickhead.

The Gist:
Satan and his crew lose their war against God (a war containing fucking cannons and tossed mountains, by the way), and are now stuck in Hell. Meanwhile, God creates Earth and its first inhabitants, Adam and Eve. Satan decides that if he can’t defeat God, he can at least take a piss in His punchbowl. So he does. You know the story, I’m sure. You just didn’t know how awesome it was.

What are you getting into?
Look. This is maybe the hardest thing you’ll ever read. It’s about four hundred pages of very complicated verse, which means that if you don’t take it slow, you might as well be reading another language. It will bitch-slap you.

Get scared, but then get over it. I don’t normally appreciate literature that’s difficult on purpose, but this is on a whole different level. Milton, like Dante before him, labored to elevate Christianity to a mythological stage by fully realizing the Old Testament’s epic nature. The Greeks had The Iliad, the Romans had The Aeneid, and the Christians have Paradise Lost. To see a Satan aesthetically comparable to someone like Achilles offers incredible perspective.

Yes, the read is daunting. It sometimes dwarves you, but it should. This is that rare exception where true complexity produces actual awe. Seriously, as much as I love Shakespeare, nothing has ever blown away my brain like Paradise Lost. Even the non-cosmic Adam and Eve parts build to a declaration of love which sufficiently proves humanity’s worth among gods and monsters. When John Milton played Alien Vs. Predator, he picked the marine, flaws and all. That’s some deep shit.

Common Misconceptions:
It’s a boring, preachy bible book.

Nothing turns me off faster than religion. But I sure do love a well-told narrative. Paradise Lost is a story, first and foremost. Rather than prescribing a set of Christian morals and labeling good and evil depending on how each character adheres to those morals (boring you with a lesson), Milton fills the characters with human gray.

Eve eats the apple, but she’s also sort of set-up to do that. I mean, the devil is loose and he’s extremely convincing and God knows it. Adam doesn’t choose the fruit so much as he chooses Eve who is now on the other end of Santa’s “good” list. The Angels seem to genuinely care about Adam and Eve. They’re also susceptible to Satan’s tricks, which makes them relatable. Satan’s antagonism is hardly a simple evil. He’s jealous, feels abandoned, and struggles against what he views as a horrible injustice.

On the other hand there’s God, a cold, distant figure who knows everything that’s going to happen and, of course, lets it go. Milton’s God has no human characteristics because he’s above all that. As a result, he looks like a gigantic asshole. Jesus is even worse. After Satan’s clever MacGuyver-ness gains hopeful ground in the war, Jesus just wanders in and pretty much waves them away without breaking a sweat. You can’t help feeling bad for the rebels. I mean, it’s a fine narrative trick to display power by having your new badass easily wipe-out your already established badass, but a victory this effortless just looks unfair. Even in his dialog scenes, Jesus seems both spoiled and unbearably condescending.

So no, this isn’t a book about why you shouldn’t ogle your neighbor’s boobs through the window.

Is it still worth it?
Yes. I mean, Satan is the book’s main character, and you’ll never get a better Satan than this one. This isn’t a slimy, evil demon. He’s smart, motivated, creative, and sad. He leads a rebellion against this ultimate power, loses the battle, then says “Fuck you” and escapes prison to retaliate even though it’s hopeless. Also, he makes sex possible.

There’s something to be said about reading one of the hardest things out there. Milton mediates the difficult language by kicking ass at nearly every turn. I mentioned Dante earlier because he also tried to do this sort of thing with Christianity. But after three attempts–a prose translation and two verse–I still haven’t made it through The Divine Comedy because it’s boring and I fucking hate it. The pious characters don’t feel human, and the structure keeps it from growing into anything other than a didactic travelogue. Much like sleeping with Natalie Portman, Milton’s hard but worth it.

Where can I find it?
Among many other places, you can read it for free here. This particular version has a spiffy, though hard to see, instant annotation thing going on. With a book like this, annotations are invaluable.

Due to its length, however, you might want this one in print. I highly recommend the Norton version, found here. I’m a big fan of cheap Signet and Dover Thrift editions but their bare-bones presentation makes this one harder than necessary. Websites like sparknotes also help clear the fog, so long as they don’t replace actual reading.

Read more: http://web.archive.org/web/20121128012322/http://guy.com/2011/03/10/paradise-lost/#ixzz2P2LfI2vs