/lit/ - Literature

>>20989613
I have a feeling you read Bakker with no knowledge whatsoever of the Epic Of Gilgamesh.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
It is not subtle, there is a city in his novel called "Nilnamesh" lol. The opening narrative corresponds closely to the ancient Sumerian tale. A major character, Achamian, is named Akka, which is reminiscent of Akkadian, a language alongside Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform in which Gilgamesh was retold and transcribed for a thousand years.

If you persevered you would see the parallels between the 4100 year old tale of hierodulic ziggurat prostitutes, a barbarian wild man, Iraqi outer space Noah Utnapishtim and various characters like Cnaiur, Esmenet, the nonmen underground cities. If you know the story of the Flood, of Joseph dreams of 7 lean years of famine, of Nebuchadnezzer eating grass, or of Orpheus descent into the Underworld, you alresdy know of Gilgamesh and his cosmic tale.

(NK Sandars 1960 prose translation. The Andrew George 1999 version is arguably better though)
***
Enkidu ate grass in the hills with the gazelle and lurked with wild beasts at the water-holes; he had joy of the water with the herds of wild game. But there was a trapper who met him one day face to face at the drinking-hole, for the wild game had entered his territory. On three days he met him face to face, and the trapper was frozen with fear.

***
The trapper’s sled dogs yelped and nosed through the snow. He pulled them away and fastened their harness to the base of a stunted pine. Astonished, he brushed the snow away from the limbs curling beneath. His first thought was to feed the dead man to his dogs. The wolves would have him otherwise, and meat was scarce in the abandoned north