Talk:The Second Invasion from Mars

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A few comments on Greek…

“All characters and few places mentioned have characteristically Greek names, but there is nothing specific to Greek culture in the plot” — Nothing in the plot, but there is something in the work as a whole. There is a stylistic reference to “Odyssey” in the novella. One character, Polyphemus, is consistently referred to as “one-legged” throughout the novella, whether that attribute is important at the moment or not (usually not, of course). That is a reference both to the manner of “Odyssey” to repeat the same attributes over and over again in reference to the same characters, and to the fact that the original Polyphemus is consistently called “one-eyed” throughout the epic, at least in its Russian translation for sure. A joke, of course. Other than that, I can see no reference indeed.

As Boris Strugatsky wrote in his “Comments on the Past Work” on another occasion, Strugatsky brothers were acquainted with the works by Rex Stout. So they probably had read “The Great Legend”, too. That may of course have been an influence that made them use Greek names in their novella. The manner, scathingly ironic, is much the same: the narrator, who does have noble ideas, but is cynical, simple-minded, and very practical, contradicts himself just every now and then, declaring how sane his thinking is on every occasion, yet making very funny slips about his true motives that have nothing to do with what he thinks his motives are. - 37.9.29.40 (talk) 00:11, 26 January 2017 (UTC)