Foreward:

I read Jim Bonner’s Interbellum for a second time the 2nd and 3rd week of this past March. Initially, I got his book (play) for free as PDF in a PM sometime last year when he offered the PDF for anyone who was hard done. Things recovered for me this year so I bought his book and wanted to offer thoughts, out of my gratitude towards Jim.Thoughts:I have to say – I was surprised I liked Bonner’s work as much as I did, given I’m not exactly among its intended audience. I normally not much one for plays and even less reading them. My distaste for them stems from AP English Class in high school. Despite the relatively unfertile ground of my preconceptionstowards reading plays, Bonner’s work struck a chord with me.I’d like to expand on three things mainly: Aphrodite’s curse, Kalyferes’ youthful folly and fury, and Aeneas as leader.

1) Aphrodite’s Curse:

A frequent theme I encounter in today’s literature including modern newspapers is the idea that we moderns are superior to our ancestors. We point to our advanced technology, war-making abilities, CGI in movies as proof that things are better. We fancy ourselves wiser than our ancestors, labeling many historical figures as small minded, bigoted, sexist, racist, et cetera. We see our ancestors and the idols they worshiped and laugh at their attempts to explain the workings of the natural world. We denigrate their (sometimes) blind faith and superstition as uneducated and insist that our Science ™ has all the facts. The hubris is so thick it makes one choke.

I see Aphrodite’s Curse as very similar to the propaganda force fed to the world through Zog-Controlled mediums (modern day Oracles, should I say?). The difference between now and then is that it was recognized that a people could be afflicted by a universal malaise, per an outside agenda. This is not to say that these people would know it or that many people would know it. Only that, intelligent men could recognize when a widely held sentiment didn’t get through normal means and therefore normal means could not easily dispel it. They intuitively understood that accursed people were often unaware of their malady and would resist attempts to dislodge it.This understanding seems to be lost to the sands of time today. Propaganda rebranded itself as ‘public relations’ after WW2 and seemingly paid off all the right people. For example, it boggles my mind how many people still think vaccines or masks are effective against coronavirus, two years plus after “14 days to flatten the curve”, and more still how many people think the government did the right thing and has ourinterests in mind. Perhaps Aphrodite or some other God has not yet lost the taste for interfering in the affairs of man after all.

2) Kalyferes’ youthful folly and fury:

I sympathize with Kalyferes’ mad determination to end Diomedes’ life even though I was yelling at him in my head as he nearly ruined everything at the end of the play. I sympathize because I’ve had many moments in life where my own body was screaming for me to act and the best course of action was to do nothing. When directed towards appropriate ends, there’s nothing wrong with this natural impulse. In fact, it may very well be among the reasons our race endures to this day. I realized at the end of the story that the reason why I didn’t like Kalyferes’ was because he was a mirror. I was looking at a younger version of myself, less able to control my own emotions. I was looking at a younger version of myself who was the author of many self-inflicted wounds because I insisted on learning things the hard way. I’vecome so far in the last 10 years that the sight of who I used to be can make me shudder. That said – there’s a time and place for everything. Perhaps the world as we know it today, exists in part because too many Kalyfereses were denied the ability to right very real wrongs?

3) Aeneas as a Leader:

I am jealous of the Greeks under Aeneas’ leadership. He had the balls to stand up to the crowd, as it bayed for blood, and insist that they hold true to Greek values and practices. He insisted that Diomedes beproperly tried through court when he would have won much favor with his own people if they had been allowed to string the unfortunate man up on the spot. He believed he owed it to his people to do the right thing despite having an obvious pass to trample over Greek customs to please the men and women under him. When Diomedes had his knife at Kalyferes’ throat and Silvius had an arrow at the ready, it was only because of Aeneas’ stature as a leader and Father that lowered Silvius’ bow and saved Kalyferes’ life. This stature and the respect it commanded was foreshadowed in the first half of the play in Aeneas’ treatment of Diomedes. See, Aeneas not only mastered the compulsions of his own emotions, but the emotions of his people. It’s very difficult to do both, but I think an unspoken lesson of the book is that if one can’t do the former one can never do the latter.

Final Thoughts:

I have to say, reading this play made me feel uneducated. I looked up a lot of the words and the way each character spoke seemed a foreign language even though everything was in English. I’d probably understand things more if I saw the actual play. Despite all this, it was an enjoyable read in the end and absolutely worth the price of a paltry $6.

Wald

P.S. You can get his book on Amazon here. I do not make any affiliate money off of this.