Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: #Book review

  • Thursday, October 1, 2026 – A History of Crete by Chris Moorey (Reading Note)

    Before the Greeks came, there were the Minoans, with their Linear A, saffron gatherers, bull-leaping boys and girls, and dolphins jumping out of the Aegean Sea. The Minotaur in the Labyrinth was a creature of the island, and the islanders were vibrantly colorful in clothing and facial expression, as seen in the frescoes. The Snake Goddess danced before the klepsydra of civilization’s history, as if her sinewy body uncoiled to birth her children, first in her beloved Crete.

    A History of Crete unfolds the mystery of its people like Ariadne guiding Theseus through the Labyrinth with a ball of thread, allowing us to see the face of the mystical Minotaur: half man and half bull. Rather than producing a stuffy, academically inclined history of Crete, the author organizes each chapter and section chronologically, with Herodotus-like backstories about who the Cretans were, what they did, and how they did it. Crete was Zeus’s home—literally, at least in myth. It was where he was born and where he fathered children in its royal line. Perhaps this home-ground advantage affected Cretan society, whether the god intended it or not.

    One of the most remarkable claims I encountered in the book is that, compared with Sparta, slaves in Crete were not treated as harshly as their counterparts in Sparta. Moreover, the Hermaea festival at Cydonia was a Cretan equivalent of a carnival, in which masters served their slaves and endured their ridicule in a role-reversing psychological drama. Such a custom might have helped the slaves release their emotions and thus prevented them from plotting to subvert the status quo.

    Although I enjoyed reading this book, it was somewhat different from what I had expected; I wanted to know more about the people, such as what they wore, what they ate, how they spoke, and what they did at home or at work. My growing interest somehow stalled as the centuries passed because I wanted to remain in ancient Crete. Call me biased, but I would have been more delighted to read anything about the ancient Minoans than about Crete under its successive conquerors. But then, that is the author’s call, not mine.

    This book is a commanding introduction to more detailed studies of Crete’s mysterious peoples and their lives on the island. And I know that this is what the author wanted it to be. He serves as something of a cicerone, helping readers discover what they did not know. It is also a good coffee-table read to pick up when Netflix has nothing interesting to offer, or simply to dispel boredom.

    No matter where you read this book, you will not close it without a piece of ancient treasure from Crete.

  • On Reading “Student of Desire” — Adelle Waldman

    Saturday, August 22, 2026

    “Can intellectual recognition itself become desire?”

    Will an intellectual man fall in love with a woman of equal or greater intelligence? The question has become so entangled with sexism that it seems to invite textbook answers such as, “Beauty is only skin-deep.” But this is not about feminism or social activism. It is an intimate question: “Can you love me even if I am smart but not so pretty?” Waldman’s disappointmentpromptss her to ask about her existential value as a woman, not merely as a writer or intellectual, because the personal stakes are toohighg to ignore.

    Seeing her ex-boyfriend with a beautiful woman is painful enough to prick the pride of an intellectual woman who is supposed to believe that real love resides not in looks but in the mind. Or so it seems. Waldman extends the existential question into the erotic hedonism of The Professor of Desire, whose protagonist seems to vacillate between a whore and a virgin but never reconciles himself to the truth, always yielding to the pleasures of the senses. While I understand Waldman’s disappointment at seeing a smart man fall for a bimbo, she seems to explain his gorgeous new girlfriend as the result of animal instinct: Eros alone, without marrying Eros to Psyche.

    Call it the male subconscious urge to prove sexual prowess. Or immaturity. To me, a man’s intelligence or cultural refinement does not necessarily equate to his moral fitness. Think of the ancient Greek symposium and its beautiful and intelligent courtesans. Men, I think, are often more readily stimulated by the visual than women are. I remember reading that Updike had a voracious sexual appetite and engaged in sexual excesses. And that’s not the end. Arthur Miller’s marriage to Marilyn Monroe—even though she was herself intelligent, read books, and took literature classes at night—and his novella Plain Girl: A Life tell us that intellect does not necessarily determine physical attraction. After all, the plain girl finds her soulmate in a blind musician who loves her not with his eyes but with his mind.

    I know how Waldman felt when she saw him with such a beautiful woman. I think Waldman wants to believe that she is right: that a woman’s intellect can stand equal to beauty—par pari. I think Shakespeare is great because he recognized this human nature in everyone, including the rivalries of love:

    “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
    And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

    But remember: Cupid is blindfolded. He does not know whom his arrow will strike.