Reviews: (by author)

Lester, Julius. Cupid. San Diego : Harcourt, 2007. ISBN 0-15-202056-X. $17.

Julius Lester is a gifted, multi-faceted author whose books range from the 2000 Pharoah's Daughter, an imaginative novelistic study of Moses and his life with the Egyptians and the Jews, to his brilliant retelling of the Uncle Remus stories. The latter is a standard on school reading lists and in university Folklore classes because Lester modernizes the language of the stories originally written down in the late 1800's and full of dialect most contemporary readers don't understand. Lester uses the voice of a contemporary narrative speaking the stories to an audience, and the narrator's asides, full of great charm and humor, appeal to young and older readers. By updating the language and making it accessible, Lester has kept these stories-Br'er Rabbit, etc.-alive and done considerable service to all who love these tales.

With Cupid, Lester does the same kind of translation into contemporary language, but here his source material is not African American, but Latin-as in the first century A.D. In The Golden Ass, the Roman author Apuleius included his telling of the myth of Eros (Cupid) and Psyche. It is one of the profoundest of myths and also one that deals with true love, a rare phenomenon in the world of the gods.

Psyche, the most beautiful mortal alive and a princess, is worshipped by her father's subjects as if she were the goddess of love herself. The real goddess of love, Venus, does not take kindly to being ignored for a mortal, so she commands her son Cupid to use his notorious arrows to make Psyche fall in love with the most repulsive creature he can find. Cupid, so powerful a force in cosmic affairs that he even manipulates Zeus, has never himself experienced love. But upon seeing Psyche, he is a goner.

The plot thickens. Like Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, Psyche finds herself in a glorious castle, her every need and wish anticipated by invisible attendants. And nightly now her unseen husband comes to her, fulfilling her every need and desire.

But that's hardly a story. Then Psyche's jealous sisters conspire to betray her. And there's still an angry mother out there, namely Venus. When the all-too-human Psyche breaks her vow to Cupid that she will never try to see his face, he leaves her bereft. Venus takes over, and the four tasks she gives Psyche to do have been discussed for centuries by philosophers. For example, Psyche must sort out mountains of grains in an impossibly short time-for a human. But since she is good, the forces of nature help her as they help so many others in stories; in this case, ants . Think of Cinderella who has to do the same sorting task and is helped in the same way in her story. Being able to sort things out is the virtue of Discrimination. With sorting the grains and the three other tasks, culminating in a trip to the Underworld, Psyche is being tested.

Cupid is being tested, too. So is his mother, Venus.

And to gather from the narrator's asides, he's been plenty tested, too.

His observations about human/divine behavior are part of a narrative voice that not only modernizes but personalizes this great myth. Lester's easy yet dramatic style is inimitable, and in this book he doesn't shy away from the sensual aspects of Eros and Psyche's story. Usually in myths divine/human intercourse is a matter of Slam, Bam, Don't Bother with Thank You, Ma'am. But this one myth, like that of Orpheus and Eurydice, is truly about love that outlasts lust. And as anyone married knows, that takes a lot of effort. Just ask Psyche.

I highly recommend this smart, sassy, funny, and profound retelling of an ageless story-read it for yourself to find out the ending.

A. Allison, December 2006

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