Latest news with #myth
Irish Times
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Fiction in translation: The strange workings of myth and history, a work of limpid beauty set in the Bosnian countryside, and more
Commenting on the 11 short stories that make up his stunning collection Hunter (Granta Magazine Editions, £12.99, in a vivid translation by Jeremy Tiang), Chinese author Shuang Xuetao has said: 'I tried to write about things historical as well as contemporary, realistic as well as not quite realistic'. In Shuang's work, ostensibly about the harsh, often callously wrought facts of life, there is a bold contention with the strange workings of myth and history. In Premonition, science-fiction writer Xiaobing, happily married with a young son, makes an unusual request to his wife that they sleep separately; what he does not tell her is that he has been subject since childhood to dark, shadowy premonitions that ultimately come true. To slake his insomnia, he drives to his favourite night fishing spot, where he meets a screwdriver-wielding nemesis from outer space, a man somewhat prosaically named Andrew, who accuses Xiaobing and his ancestors of 'stealing a sentence': an encounter replete with wit and pathos. An ambulance rushes through the night in Heart, one of the collection's most powerful stories, and its opener: an old man in a family with a history of hereditary heart problems is rushed to a hospital in Beijing, accompanied by his adult son and a young female doctor. As the surreal journey unfolds, the son relays his father's history to the doctor, but the occupants of the ambulance, including the driver, intermittently fall asleep, while the patient blooms once more into a vivid, pre-death life. READ MORE At the centre of the story is the woodworker ancestor 'who could make anything from a coffin to a comb'. On his unexpected death he is found to have 'a heart full of tiny wood-shavings, enough to build a foot-high pagoda'. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara. Photograph: Alejandra López 'The first day in the jungle, the day he fled, he still didn't know how to see. Now he does. It's nearly impossible in this world of plants. But he sees it. A tender vine-shoot veers around itself until it meets another, intertwining myriad.' Although set in the 17th century, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara's rich, baroque We Are Green and Trembling (Harvill Secker, £18.99, sumptuously translated by Robin Myers) is strikingly relevant to the present day. Cabezón Cámara uses history to illuminate and interrogate current threats to trans representation and, in parallel, to interrogate the enduring, dehumanising effects of colonisation. Her epic in miniature is that of Antonio de Erauso, born a woman, Catalina, in Spain around 1592. Wikipedia lists him as 'Basque nun and explorer', a mere indication of de Erauso's extraordinary life. Escaping, aged 15, from the convent in which he was virtually jailed by his aunt, its prioress (to whom, in the novel, Antonio addresses letters) Catalina adopted men's attire as disguise, eventually journeying to the New World, first as a cabin boy, then as secretary to a particularly unpleasant conquistador, becoming part pf the violent, buccaneering conquest of Peru, Chile and Bolivia by Spain. But as told here, he also protected and championed two young indigenous girls, rescuing them from enslavement. De Erauso's shape-shifting is a mercurial tale for all time. The image of death hangs over all in the shape of a buzzard: an unforgettable image of perpetuated abominations. Heuijung Hur; Photograph: Studio mulight Summer is the perfect time for discovery, drama and unexpectedness. Heuijung Hur's deliciously unsettling Failed Summer Vacation (Scratch Books, £10.99, nimbly translated by Paige Aniyah Morris) crosses genres in a collection riddled with unsentimental yearning and emptiness. 'I've long been obsessed with the idea that I was pretending to be someone else,' confides the title story's anonymous narrator. In a small room at a beach resort, the speaker addresses a 'you' who may or may not be present. 'The cramped room. My alibi. Our freshly made beds'. What is actually going on? Has a crime been committed, or is it all in the mind? The prose is chilling and sensuous, the denouement ominous. This theme of entrapment haunts the collection. 'Paper Cut' begins simply: 'A wanted to run away.' A is stuck in his room, with an omnipresent feeling of guilt for a crime he cannot remember committing – or is he about to carry one out? He is awaiting his regular visit from a person he describes simply as 'that man. The visit had been prearranged.' The man, who is made entirely from paper, each time demands 'a statement' from A. What ensues is a wildly funny, Kafkaesque battle of wills – either bureaucracy gone mad, or perhaps just A's own frantic imagination. Each one of these breezily disturbing short fictions is a small marvel of originality. Compared by its publisher to Elena Ferrante, but more in debt to the simplicity of Georges Simenon (alluded to in the author's afterword), Charia Valerio's The Little I knew (Foundry Editions, £13.99, with a cool, confident translation by Ailsa Wood complementing Valerio's style) is no crime procedural, though it revolves around the hushed-up death of a woman at home inher bath. A bestseller in Italy, it was shortlisted for the Strega Prize. The setting is Scauri, an out-of-the-way seaside town between Rome and Naples. Vittoria, who had mysteriously arrived there some 30 years before, and whom everyone knows but yet does not know, has an 'accident' in her bath at the home she shares with her partner Mara. A veil of silence falls over the townspeople as Lea, the local lawyer, fed up with dealing with the petty crimes and disputes that are the routine of her work, decides to investigate the woman she had always been fascinated by, the first woman to have her own boat space at a club dominated by men. 'The hatred I'd always felt for Scauri as a girl was back. The feeling of airlessness.' What follows is a thrilling examination of the black hole of society and the secrets people keep from each other and themselves. [ Fiction in translation (May 2025): The Deserters traverses 20th century and brims with interesting ideas Opens in new window ] In Late Summer , by Croatian writer Magdalena Blaźević (Linden Editions, £12, translated with verve and sensitivity by Andelka Raguž), is a work of limpid beauty drenched in sorrow. A massacre takes place in a quiet village in the Bosnian countryside one hot August day; the events leading up to that and after are narrated by a chatty, confiding young girl, Ivana, aged 14. 'Old, hanging faces are already lined up on the road, their hands behind their heads.' Yet Ivana is also dead, shot in front of her mother and brother outside their house. Ivana should be hanging out with her cousin Dunja, picking blackberries for jam, helping her mother. But she is 'hit by one spark ... my camomile hair spread out on the road, its light extinguished ... the sky is the last thing I see, poisoned by smoke and unknown voices'. The figure of Death (in Ivana's capitals) stalks the book, and yet it is also a work of grace and joy, a testament to the lives of generations of Bosnians until the horrific genocide of the early 1990s. Above all it stands as a memorial to, as Blaźević's dedication states, 'the citizens of Kiseljak, in memory of 16 August 1993'. War dominates The World We Saw Burning , an uncompromising novel from Peruvian journalist and writer Renato Cisneros (Charco Press, £11.99, in a fine translation by Fionn Petch). Cisneros pulls together differing, stirring strands, effortlessly switching between the past and present day, yet never loses sight of his goal or his grip on the story. 'Certain tragedies devour the memories of their victims, imposing a point zero from which everything has to begin again. The mistake ... is to look back.' Matías Roeder, son of an Italian father and German mother, immigrates at the age of 19 from Peru to New York. It is 1939. Eventually he will join the US Air Force, his whole raison d'être called into question when he finds himself involved in the bombing of Hamburg, his grandfather's city. Cisneros skilfully intersperses his narrative with that of two Peruvians living in contemporary Madrid, in a rousing story of migration and identity.
Washington Post
17-06-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
No, you don't have to wait 30 minutes after eating before swimming
Is it true that you should wait to swim after eating? As children, too many of us were forced to face that dreaded dilemma — eat a summer treat and wait 30 minutes before joining our friends in the pool, or go without it to avoid missing any swim time. The rule — passed down from our mothers and grandmothers and intended to keep us safe from drowning — is, however, a common myth, experts said.
ABC News
13-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Dismayed buyers surrendering 'teacup' pigs weighing up to 300kg
Q: What do "teacup" pigs and unicorns have in common? A: Neither exist, even if we really want them pigs are promoted as perfect for kids and suburban these little pets can become a big problem, as Tayla Anderson knows all too well. Ms Anderson admits she may have naively bought into the mini-pig fallacy when her mother surprised her with two piglets. She said they were told the pigs would stay miniature for their whole lives. "They grew to about thigh height, and I could almost ride them like a horse." Ms Anderson said it was lucky she lived on a small farm in Victoria at the time and was able to give her bigger-than-expected pigs a home. "I've been to a lot of properties and I've never seen a small pig," she said. University of Queensland pig health expert Dakota Leschke, who works with large animals on farms and sanctuaries, said he regularly heard from owners who thought they had bought a miniature pig. "Mini pigs are an umbrella term and they are generally smaller than a commercial pig," Dr Leschke said. "The smallest pig I have ever seen is 100 kilograms, but I have seen mini pigs up to 250kg. "Teacup pigs are more of a myth, not everything is truthful online." RSPCA senior manager of animal care Georgie Casper said miniature pigs were not a recognised breed in Australia. Kathy Anderson, who is not related to Tayla, has more than 120 pigs on her rural property, just outside Tenterfield in North West NSW. The Contented Pig Inn has become a haven for pigs of all shapes and sizes. Some arrived sick or injured, others had nowhere else to go. Ms Anderson said some owners surrendered their pets after what they thought was a tiny pig turned into a 300kg hog. "I don't know what the thought process is. There are breeds of dogs like little terriers that stay small, but that's not pigs." Belly was sold as a mini pig but ended up at Ms Anderson's property after its owners realised they were drastically unprepared. "She was so skeletal, she was in pain, so thin," she said. "Belly was kept on an odd diet to keep her small, probably chicken feed. "Breeders do that to keep the pigs small." Belly now weighs in at 200kg. South Australian pig breeders Rachel and Joel Redford said they were approached regularly by buyers looking for teacup pigs. "Teacup pigs are completely false, the term shouldn't be used," Ms Redford said. Despite the breed not being recognised in Australia, the Redfords do advertise miniature pigs for sale. Ms Redford said 15to 20 years of breeding had allowed them to produce a pig that might only grow to weigh 70kg. "These pigs have been chosen for their characteristics," she said. "Some of them are 30-centimetres tall. "We don't feel there are many reputable local breeders." RSPCA NSW said its inspector had not reported any major issues from pig owners recently. But Ms Casper said misinformation about pigs was common. "You need to understand what their needs are," she said. "They are very sensitive, intelligent and curious animals. "If you're interested in owning a pig, you need to be able to provide them with adequate nutrition, shelter, transportation [and] veterinary care." According to the NSW DPI, keeping pigs — including free-range pigs — is classified as intensive livestock agriculture and is prohibited in some land-use zones.
New York Times
13-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
When Myth Is the Message
This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page. We in the modern world tend to understand the word 'myth' as a synonym for 'falsehood.' But that is not how our ancestors understood it. Indeed, the ancient mind did not draw the same line between myth and fact that we do. Whether we are speaking of Zeus forcing his father to vomit up his siblings or Jesus being born in a manger, these tales were never meant to be read as factual reports. They were meant to fire the imagination, to illuminate hidden truths and, most of all, to bring about transformation. The power of myth lies in its capacity to move a listener from one state of being to another — from confusion to clarity, from despair to hope, from disorientation to meaning. Myths are the packaging for truth. They are the language of religion. Scripture deals in what might be called 'sacred history,' a narrative realm that blends fact and fiction to convey timeless truths. The authors and transmitters of these sacred texts were not seeking facts; they were seeking meaning. Our modern conception of history — the critical analysis of observable and verifiable past events — is only a handful of centuries old. It arose alongside the Enlightenment and the scientific method in the 1600s, and while immensely valuable, it is not the lens through which sacred texts were written. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
