Title Paradise Lost Series --- Author John Milton Cover Art Gustave Dore Publisher Arcturus Publishing Limited - 2013 First Printing 1667 Category Mythology Warnings None Main Characters Satan, God, Adam, Eve, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel and more Main Elements Angels

In this epic work, John Milton seeks “to justify the ways of God to men” through the familiar Christian myth of the fall from grace. The poem is imbued with Milton’s profoundly individual view of man’s place in the universe and his intellectual and spiritual quest for redemption in the face of despair. This unique clothbound edition includes its own slipcase and all fifty of the magnificent engravings produced by Gustave Dore especially for the work.

Before I start I want you to understand the context in which this review was written. I wanted this year to read books with gods, angels and demons in them, and where possible, to get to some of the "original" sources for their legends. So I've been reading Homer for the Greek Pantheon, and I've been reading the Norse Eddas and so forth. Now Angels are a Jewish/Christian construct, and while I could not bring myself to read the Bible as a "fantasy" I didn't feel the same restriction in reading say Dante, or here, Milton. These are not the word of God, but rather some mortal author's personal interpretation. Of course, they are far more religious in nature than say The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Claire, but I wanted to read something what was more likely to give me some of the original lore (and books like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials are very clearly using Paradise Lost as inspiration, Tolkien as well). So if I say something heretical or offensive to Christianity, it's not the religion but this particular book I'm commenting on.

Unlike Dante's Divine Comedy, which read like a museum tour where Dante was brought around to the different "exhibits" and got to speak with someone at each stop to learn more, Paradise Lost reads more like a novel. There is a story here, starting with the fallen angels waking up in Hell, slowly gathering together and trying to figure out what to do next. In fact, Satan is our protagonist here. While he is described as evil, and the term "fiend" applied to him, he is also made somewhat sympathetic though his evil grows as his incarceration in Hell pushes him to decide "Well, if I cannot be redeemed, I might as well be the most evil there ever was" kind of thing. In fact, this part of the poem was quite interesting, of course I enjoyed watching the TV series Lucifer too, and one would see that kind of Lord of Hell here as well. He's no saint, but he doesn't exactly come off as evil either. Remember at this point he still looks like an Angel, not bright red, no horns and hooves, but rather beautiful, though no longer quite as radiant as before.

In fact, God comes off as a bit of a tyrant really. I mean, it seems like you're not allowed to do anything in Heaven except sit around all day and sing hymns to His greatness and to praise His glory, and if you get tired of worshipping him, you can spend a little time going around saying how great his Son is, but not much else (got the same sense from Dante's poem). Frankly, it came off like a kind of Big Brother where everyone would have pictures of their great leader on the walls, and parade for him, and oh, if you happen to say anything bad (and not only is he watching but he's all seeing and all knowing), off to Hell with you. So can you really blame Satan for starting a revolt? In any human country with such a dictator we would encourage a revolution and put democracy in it's place. Freedom of speech and all that. It is interesting how we believe so strongly in democracy here, but that is not how we envision Heaven...and I'm not even sure what I think about that!

Contradictions abound. One of the first things the fallen angels do is mine Hell and build a glorious city of gold and jewels and extreme oppulence as we get Milton's speech about greedy and vanity. However...Heaven's streets are paved with gold, the Son sits on a throne made of emerald, etc. So in Heaven such things just add to the beauty of the world but on Earth and in Hell it is sinful?

Anyway, after a discussion of whether they should go back to Heaven and war some more, or just make a world for themselves out of Hell, it is decided that Satan would go find this new world that God was supposedly building with some new creature called Man. Satan figured that while they couldn't take a direct offense against God's power (honestly, if someone had the power to create you, he could just wipe you out with a thought) you could be sneaky and try to undermine his other works and corrupt his new creations. Now it was interesting, as off he flies to find Earth and the Garden of Eden, that God is aware of him, and one gets the impression (through Milton, no idea if this is in the Bible) that this is more or less how God wanted things to turn out. That he wanted Man to be tempted and challenged so that they could use their free will to prove they can overcome it. In fact, poor Satan that revolted against being controlled is now being manipulated.

He also does what the company where I work does all the time, see when there is some regulation we are supposed to follow, we have to take a training course, and most important of all, we need to check the box at the end that says we understand and take responsibility for our actions. We can't claim "well, we didn't know". So God sends the angel Raphael, exactly with that reasoning spelled out in the poem, to visit Adam and Eve to warn them of Satan's coming and to ignore his suggestions to eat of the Tree of Knowledge (and if they don't resist him, well, they can't claim they were deceived, they were WARNED). Mind you, Raphael then proceeds to tell the tale of the war in Heaven, clearly explaining the concepts of good and evil to Adam and Eve, so eating the fruit wouldn't have done much either way, they already knew what sin was...I did enjoy Adam wondering if Earth was the center of the universe, or if maybe it was the Sun and we just rotated around it, because why would those glorious stars in the sky just be for human enjoyment, they seem so much more than a pretty thing for little Earth, but Raphael tells him not to worry his lovely little head about such things. I guess Milton had a bit of a scientific side he wanted to slip in here. Or a warning that we shouldn't dig too deep into the workings of our world, that is for God to know alone.

Talking about pretty little heads...oooooh, Eve...she goes around saying things as, how Adam should worship God, so should I worship Adam *gack/gag/choke*. Ok, this is 1667 but while in one sentence Eve is described as Adam's equal in all ways, in the next you find out that only meant on the outside (you know, 2 arms, 2 legs...and there is an amusing moment where Adam is talking to God and saying, it's nice there are all these animals but there isn't anyone here for me, you know, to have conversations with...to *cough* mate with...) on the inside she's a ditz with the brain capacity of a turnip. She even leaves when Adam and Raphael start discussing astronomy so she can do some gardening. I'm a computer engineer who had considered astronomy as a potential career...so...yeah...But this is 1667 not 1997 one just has to accept the historical context.

Again showing my lack of Biblical knowledge, I never thought of Jesus as existing before he, well, was born on Earth, but apparently he was by his father's side all along and agreed to die for the sins of man (oddly that agreement came before we got to the part where God created man so was a bit weird). But that was another scene of God the narcissist, that it wasn't good enough for us to try as hard as we could to be redeemed, but he planned long in advance, I guess assuming there was no hope for Adam & Eve to resist the Tree, that nothing would be good enough if someone didn't die for us (all the angels remained silent till the Son spoke up) which I think says a lot of good things about the Son, not so sure about the Pride *cough* of the father that required this sacrifice in the first place...God also made sure Satan couldn't be overthrown until his Son rode in to save the day...because why should a lowly archangel like Michael get the credit? Mind, he only shows up on the third day after Satan has already been beaten down a bit, and then they mostly just run in fear.

Anyway, there were a lot of confusing bits, and objectionable bits, and even some unintentionally funny bits (when Satan and his followers are losing the war, Satan gets a few of his followers together and says, I have this great idea, and then overnight they invent gunpower and a canon!!! If this poem was written 2021 wonder if he would have a nuclear missile or something else considered state of the art at the time?)

Anyway, I've clearly poked a whole lot of holes in this, so you'd think I must have hated it, but in fact, not so. As a story about the fall of Satan it was actually very interesting. I had to drag myself a bit through the Divine Comedy, but Paradise Lost is at times full of action and adventure, other times times of beautiful landscapes, and of course, some thought provoking ethics. There are places where I ended up skimming a bit as Milton will at times go a little overboard with the obscure references (usually Greek/Roman mythology), and again found myself amused by how much Pagan lore gets into these Christian writings (Dante's guide in the Divine Comedy is Virgil, who isn't even allowed in Heaven, stuck in Limbo and all). Note that if you are not familiar with Christian lore you don't need to avoid this book, the Christian aspects are all explained, in fact the thing you are expected to know in advance is Greek/Roman myth since references are tossed out all over the place without any indication of it was a name of a person, a place, or maybe an event.

On the other hand, that reading Milton is not the Cliff Notes of the Bible (well except for the last part where you get a quick overview of everything that happens after the Garden of Eden until the resurrection of Jesus), it is his own personal take on things, so you can't learn about Christianity from this either, at least no more than you can learn Greek Mythology from Rick Riordan, or Norse mythology from Marvel Comics. Sure you get the general overview, you get the main players and their characteristics, but you also accept it as an interpretation. Admittedly, they can be a lot more fun that reading the originals (though after reading a saga about Thor crossdressing with Loki, I'm not sure Marvel could do worse! Guess it wasn't until monotheism that Gods were made perfect, before then they seemed to be an almagamation of all our worse attributes)

And the one thing I couldn't do with Homer and Dante and the Norse sagas - I can actually read this in it's original form. No loss of language in translation, especially problematic for a poem, and it was indeed pleasurable to read. It takes a little more effort for a modern reader, but I felt worth it. It is not a boring dusty old book!