good. not as good as the iliad.

--

Reread in February 2018.

3 stars for the story itself, which I still find a lot less narratively and thematically compelling than the Iliad.

5 stars for Emily Wilson's masterful and engaging translation, which astounded me for several reasons, including but not limited to: translating that rose-fingered Dawn line differently every single time; rendering the entire poem in iambic pentameter (which was not the meter of the original, but since dactylic hexameter isn't really a thing in English, the iambic pentameter serves to structure the verse into a musical rhythm); eradicating a lot of the misogynistic language that has been used up until now by contemporary male translators, but which was not present in the original Greek. If you haven't read the Odyssey, this is the translation you should read, and if you have, it's worth revisiting to experience the skill and artistry of Wilson's translation.

The salt-encrusted reader has completed his voyage.

He has met many mythical men and gods, some women also. The scheming killer Aegisthus, divine Calypso, the Sun God, the savage Cyclops who filled his belly with human meat; the enchantress Circe with her braided hair; the prophet Tiresias; Scylla, barking and howling, and Charybdis, who sucks black water down; Owl-eyed Athena; silver-bowed Apollo; Artemis, Aphrodite, the Harpies.

He has seen vernal dawn touch the sky with flowers; seen her fingers bloom; heard the sounding purple sea rush round the stern and pure Zephyr whistling on wine-dark sea. He has sailed over the watery waves; he has seen darkness drench the eyes of a suitor in desperate pain, an arrow piercing his liver; he has beheld a sky of bronze.

He has wondered at Odysseus, a complicated man – the man who can adapt to anything; the man who, alive, visited Hades; the master of plots and plans; lying Odysseus, the ruiner of his wife's suitors; the wanderer, come home after the War years and years later. Long-suffering Odysseus, crafty Odysseus; unflappable Odysseus; the strategist Odysseus, the master of deception, the trickster, the master liar, he who can smile in scornful rage. Lord Odysseus, weathered Odysseus. Warlike Odysseus.

He has marveled at Penelope, who speaks shrewdly, who speaks to test her husband, who melts the reader's heart.

He has read of much weeping. SO MUCH weeping. By MEN! Greece a land of weepers.

He, like Odysseus, has come home.







He wishes to thank Kris for the invitation to this perfectly paced group read; to thank the other readers who contributed such useful comments; and to thank especially Emily Wilson for her wonderful translation, her great summaries of the books, her informative notes, and her outstanding Introduction to The Odyssey.

If I review "2018 on Goodreads", this will certainly be a highlight.




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Previous review: The Waning of the Middle Ages
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Older review: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Previous library review: The Suppliants Aeschylus
Next library review: The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

Odysseus' decade-long voyage home through the unchartered seas was an uncertain, mystical, and prophetic journey comprised of divine revelations, natural temptations, and struggles that were overcome by Odysseus' unwavering perseverance, cleverness, and spiritual guidance; a pilgrimage of introspection and humans determination along with the power of imagination.

Homer's illustrations of Odysseus' adventurous voyage and Penelope's skillful handle of her suitors while maintaining an unswerving loyalty to her husband were a pleasure to read, where Odysseus' ultimate handling of his wife's suitors towards the end of the epic poem was excessively barbaric for my taste. Nevertheless, Odysseus' and Penelope's journey of progression and determination has left a strong impression on me.

3,5 aylık bir maceranın sonuna geldim. Okurluk hayatımın en büyük kırılmalarından biri oldu İlyada ve Odysseia. Bundan sonraki okurluk hayatım temelinden sarsıldı ve iyi ki de öyle oldu. Daha önce sanki karanlık bir yolda yönümü çok da bilemeden okuyormuşum da artık bir ışık yandı ve etrafımı görerek okuyor gibiyim.

Azra Erhat'ın her iki kitaba yazdığı önsözler ve Homeros -Gül ile Söyleşi- kitabını okumadan bu iki kitabın dünya sanat tarihinde nerede durduğunu ve kitapların anlattıklarını anlamam mümkün olmayacaktı, sayesinde okurluk hayatım aydınlandı.

Odysseia'yı okurken sık sık bölümleri farklı insanlar yazmış hissine kapıldım, bununla birlikte İlyada'ya göre daha kolay okunuyor, sürekli bir coğrafyadan ötekine doğru akan bir aksiyon olduğu için.
Bölümlerin farklı insanlar tarafından yazıldığını düşünmeme bir sebep de bölümler arasında bazı tutarsızlıklar olması. Bir bölümde okuduğum bir şey ilerleyen bölümde başka bir şekilde karşıma çıktı ya da ben öyle hissettim.

I knew the plot points of The Odyssey long before I read it. I knew the legendary names, the serial perils, the island-hopping adventures and Odysseus's ever-dwindling crew. And I knew about the shocking climax; the slaughter of the suitors, the violent capstone for the tale that defined danger and adventure in the western tradition. I thought I knew this vaunted tale, but having finally read it, it turns out I barely knew the focus of the book at all.
t
Because I always thought the sea adventures were the center stage; the prison of the cyclops cave, the deadly allure of the sirens, Circe and her transforming magic, the twin dooms of Scylla and Charybdis. I assumed the story was dominated by these memorable trials.
t
But it isn't; I estimate that series of Mediterranean perils accounts for less than one-third of the text. Some of these episodes are so brief (like the sirens and Scylla/Charybdis) I suffered a double take wondering if I'd missed something.
t
I'd also always assumed the slaughter of the suitors came as something of a shock; that the reader had little reason to expect such a violent finish. But that climax is heavily foreshadowed; Odysseus's loyal family and servants often say things like 'I wish Odysseus were here, he'd kill these jerks.' We spend far more time with Penelope, Telemachus and the greedy group exploiting them than I suspected; the primary setting is Odysseus's estate, not his ship.
t
This proves that even the most influential stories still have the capacity to surprise; especially if you've put off reading them for so long because you assume you know the whole tale.

3-3.5*
El primer texto clásico que leo y muy a mi pesar reconozco que me ha costado un poco. Tenía dos ediciones diferentes: una en prosa y otra en verso, y por cabezonería lo leí en verso cuando yo misma veía que en prosa lo entendía y podía seguir la historia mucho mejor, además de que la traducción me gustaba más.
Por un lado muy contenta de haberlo leído y recordando momentazos épicos de la trama pero por otro un poco apenada porque no ha tenido el impacto que esperaba.
¿Recomendaciones para seguir leyendo literatura clásica? Porque creo que dejaré la Ilíada para dentro de un buen tiempo...xD

how do you rate one of the oldest, greatest pieces known in literature. I'll just compt out and give it 5 stars. if for no other reason than respect. i hate that Penelope had to be pure while Odysseus went whoring around the Aegean Sea. my modern sensibilities were confounded. LOL! i have read this many times. this time i did audible read by Master actor Ian McKellen. he made up for the awful weird music. Very good tale worth a read if you have not read it.

i read this in school but i don't remember anything about it except the words "wine-dark sea" and that i hated it.

which seems like a good enough reason to reread it someday.

part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago, except in this case it's more of a to-read situation

3.5 stars.

As a lover of the Greek myths I've always thought it odd that I've never read The Odyssey. I think the sheer size of it, and the epic way it has always been written in the past has always put me off. Plus, surely by this point everyone knows the story of Odysseus and how he gets home after the Trojan War. What I didn't expect was a lot of talk of the sacred right of hospitality and how it is used both respectfully and also abused.

Strangers are sacred to Zeus, and as such are protected when asking for shelter. We all know what happened in Game of Thrones at the Red Wedding when this type of thing goes wrong, so it should come as no surprise that some things go down when Odysseus returns to Ithaca to find his home ruined by men looking to take his loyal wife Penelope as their new bride. Everyone believes him dead, but Odysseus is the prime example of a trickster, an intelligent man bent on scheming. It's one of the reasons Athena loves him so much after all. So taking on various disguises he sets about constructing his plan to take the men down with the help of his son, Telemachus.

I didn't expect this section of the story to be so long. I genuinely thought that the bulk of the story would consist of Odysseus's travels home facing the sirens and the cyclops and the sacred cows. It wasn't - and for that I felt a little let down as it was by the far the most interesting part of the story. Also, Odysseus at times just isn't that likeable. He's proud, with a quick temper, and he seems to think he's better than everyone else. Except his beloved Athena. He doesn't even seem to give Penelope any credit for remaing loyal for 20 years for a husband she thinks is dead.

I will give credit to this translation, which I found made the text incredibly accessible and easy to read. It flows in a way that makes it feel like it should be read aloud, and adds to the overall experience.

I immensely enjoyed reading The Iliad, and since everyone said that The Odyssey is even better, I was expecting to love it. That didn't happen. I liked The Odyssey, but I found it to be a lot less compelling than The Iliad, both narratively and thematically. This is strange, I usually prefer adventure tales to war stories, but The Odyssey didn't have the grandeur, the atmosphere of despair, the philosophical undertones, or even the literary beauty of The Iliad.

The Odyssey reads almost like a long folk tale, not an epic. Every translation of the Odyssey that I consulted was considerably simpler and less eloquent than the same translator's edition of The Iliad. I had highlighted many similes and beautiful lines in The Iliad, but my highlights in the Odyssey weren't that many at all.

Of course, I enjoyed parts of it. The adventures are fun to read and they reverberate interesting details about ancient myths of the Bronze Age Greek-speaking world and its surrounding lands. The parts about Odysseus' adventures (which are, sadly, only a very short section of the poem from books IX to XII, told in a flashback by Odysseus himself) are full of wonder, whimsy, and excitement. I would've enjoyed The Odyssey a lot more if those parts weren't washed over and occupied a larger portion. Everyone praises the mythical creatures and whimsy and wonder in the book but they forget to mention that those interesting creatures are present only in a very short section of the book. The second half only focuses on how Odysseus plans to kill all 118 of his wife's suitors and regain his “masculine prowess”.

Misogyny, Slavery, and the Necessity of Taking Context into Account:
This brings me back to my usual problem with ancient texts: I have to shut my whole system of moral judgment (with modern standards) to engage with these stories. This was much easier to do in the Iliad because the setting was a battlefield, and war is never "nice and moral", but Odyssey's most violent parts happen in Odysseus' own home, in times of peace, and at least partly out of sheer lust for vengeance (in contrast with the sense of duty in warriors). In this regard, the Odyssey was harder to put up with for me. Every problem I had with the Iliad is present here too, just harder to look past.
There's a scene where Telemachus hangs twelve slave women (who'd slept with the suitors, thus "dishonoring" Odysseus and his family). He says he doesn't want to grant them an easy death by stabbing them, but make them suffer to death. To me, this abhorrent devilry sounds excessive even within the context. Misogyny in the Odyssey is expressed in different ways than the Iliad, but it's still very much present, and it's even more unsettling. Slavery is also a lot more visible and taken for granted in the Odyssey. Even so, I won't make a hassle out of it because of the obvious reason of context. The Odyssey begs to be read, enjoyed, and understood within its ancient, alien context, and I acknowledge that.

Intricate Details
Now, that doesn't mean that I won't give the book the credit it deserves. Many parts of it are interesting, i.e. the delicate attention to detail: Fingers of women weaving carpets are described as "quick rustling poplar leaves". The scene where Odysseus suddenly aims his bow at Antinous describes the latter as "mindlessly twirling the wine in his goblet", ignorant of what's about to happen. There are many examples of meticulous attention to detail that make the book astonishing.

The Gods Are Missing
The less serious downside of the Odyssey is that the gods, comic, irreverent, and hilarious as they are, don't get the well-deserved spotlight they had in The Iliad. Athena is present throughout and we see glimpses of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes, but there are none of the stupid bickerings on top of Olympus that gave the Iliad a comical edge. The absence of the dear old ox-eyed Lady Hera and her hilarious scheming is quite unfortunate.

The Unreliable Narrator
Interestingly, Odysseus is an unreliable narrator. Contrary to what is assumed about ancient heroes, he's not black or white, but a complicated man, "a man of many ways" that is capable of bravery, resilience, and love as well as deceit, vengeance and pure evil. His quick wits allow him to lie to everyone and conjure up interesting stories (which are totally false). It looks like most people take it for granted that he's truthful when recounting his adventures, They may as well be fabrications like the rest of his lies. The 'narrator' never testifies for his stories. He says he encountered the Sirens and sea monsters Charybdis and Scylla, but when have we ever seen Odysseus tell the truth?
I think this bit about the unreliability of Odysseus makes the whole story a lot more intriguing. The whole story is open to interpretation, you take from it what you will.

*Originally rated 4.5 stars, but after rereading it multiple times and also having the chance to study it at university and still being endlessly fascinated by the story rather than growing bored by it, I'm bumping it up to the full 5 stars!

Thrilled to have finally read this!