(Re)Read It: The Truce of the Games / A Crown of Wild Olive
You might not have heard, but there's this athletic competition opening today. . . which means, clearly, it's time to go and read a book, specifically Sutcliff's Olympic short story The Truce of the Games, or "A Crown of Wild Olive", which you can read here or get here. It's also included in the collection Heather, Oak, and Olive and various anthologies.
Truce/Crown is one of only two stories Sutcliff set in classical Greece (the other is the adult novel The Flowers of Adonis), but it's one of my favourites for its interesting ethical conflict and bittersweet resolution. Its odd friendship between a Spartan and an Athenian is also slightly reminiscent of the Isthmian Games episode of Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine.
What do you guys think of it? What do you want to happen afterwards?
Truce/Crown is one of only two stories Sutcliff set in classical Greece (the other is the adult novel The Flowers of Adonis), but it's one of my favourites for its interesting ethical conflict and bittersweet resolution. Its odd friendship between a Spartan and an Athenian is also slightly reminiscent of the Isthmian Games episode of Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine.
What do you guys think of it? What do you want to happen afterwards?