~ The Odyssey-by Homer

"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman !"—Homer

Helpppp, I’m supposed to be on an exam hiatus, but here I am, drowning in The Odyssey. So This epic is a rollercoaster—on one hand, the wine-dark seas, the meddling gods, and Odysseus’s chaotic journey have this timeless vibe that pulls you in. But on the other hand, it’s so long. What can I say about The Odyssey that hasn’t been said already? This epic tale of adventure, loss, and triumph is a masterclass in storytelling. It’s not just a journey across lands and seas but a deep exploration of human strength, the will to survive, and the yearning to return home.

Homer’s language is poetic, rhythmic, and captivating. With every chapter, you are pulled deeper into a world where the line between the divine and the mortal is blurred. The pacing of the story, though long, never feels tedious. Every moment is earned, every challenge significant.

~ Standout Lines:

*“Longed for as the sun warmed earth is by the wayfaring man in autumn.” – This captures Odysseus’s yearning to return home after years of suffering.

*“Far in the west, the sun set on the sea, and the stars came out, shining like silver. Then, I lay on the ground and wept, with tears that were salty as the sea.” - A poignant and emotional moment that speaks to the loneliness and sorrow Odysseus feels in his exile, underscoring his yearning for home.

*“Nobly he fought, but in the end, we were left with nothing but ruin.” – A tragic line that echoes the theme of futility. Even the bravest warriors face inevitable decline, and no matter how hard you fight, some things are just beyond your control.

*“They [the gods] give and they take, and the mortal man must suffer or rejoice, depending on their whim.” – A chilling reminder of the capriciousness of fate and the unpredictable nature of the divine. It reinforces the role of the gods as both protectors and destroyers, depending on their will.

*“My home is where I can be true to myself, not a place, but a promise.” – This speaks to the deeper understanding that home isn’t just a physical place, but an emotional anchor. It’s a profound realization in Odysseus’s journey and mirrors our own quest for self-identity and belonging.

*“Endurance is the key to life.” – In Odysseus’s journey, there’s a consistent message: survive, persevere, and never give up, no matter how hard it gets.

*“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – This line encapsulates the theme of storytelling itself. Odysseus's journey, filled with triumphs and losses, is itself a story he must tell. The need to recount one's experiences becomes a form of catharsis.

*“Do not rage at the gods, my friend, for they are not to blame. They give, and they take, as they will." - This is a reflection on the role of the gods, reminding us of the randomness of divine favor and the nature of suffering—a key theme in the story.

These lines not only elevate the beauty of the epic but also capture its themes—longing, wisdom, struggle, and the search for home. They make The Odyssey a deeply reflective and timeless narrative that resonates far beyond its mythic elements.

This is a timeless classic, not just because it’s old, but because it speaks to the timeless aspects of the human experience. A story about longing, love, and survival that continues to feel as powerful today as it did centuries ago.


~The Verdict: It’s a cultural gem with moments that will make you stop and think, but it’s also a beast to get through. Still, I get why it’s a classic. The themes of resilience, wit, and human flaws are relatable even after centuries. It’s like a love letter to storytelling itself, but the pacing? Oof. It tested my patience big time. Three stars for its historical significance and for keeping me hooked even when I probably should’ve stopped. Pata pata, Homer, let’s agree I’ll save long epics for my post-exam life.

odysseus having a mental breakdown in every single chapter is truly the most relatable part of this epic poem

To this day, the most interesting research project that I’ve ever done was the very first. It was on the Homeric Question.

I was a sophomore in college—a student with (unfortunate) literary ambitions who had just decided to major in anthropology. By this point, I had at least tacitly decided that I wanted to be a professor. In my future lay the vast and unexplored ocean of academia. What was the safest vessel to travel into that forbidden wine-dark sea? Research.

I signed up for a reading project with an anthropology professor. Although I was too naïve to sense it at the time, he was a man thoroughly sick of his job. Lucky for him, he was on the cusp of retirement. So his world-weariness manifested itself as a total, guilt-free indifference to his teaching duties. Maybe that’s why I liked him so much. I envied a man that could apparently care so little about professional advancement. That’s what I wanted.

In any case, now I had to come up with a research topic. I had just switched into the major, and so had little idea what typical anthropology research projects were like. And because my advisor was so indifferent, I received no guidance from him. The onus lay entirely on me. One night, as I groped half-heartedly through Wikipedia pages, I stumbled on something fascinating, something that I hadn’t even considered before.

Who is Homer? Nobody knew. Nobody could know. The man—if man he was—was lost to the abyss of time. No trace of him existed. We can’t even pin down what century he lived. And yet, we have these glorious poems—poems at the center of our history, the roots of the Western literary canon. Stories of the Greek Gods had fascinated me since my childhood; Zues and Athena were as familiar as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. That the person (or persons) responsible could be so totally lost to history baffled me—intrigued me.

But I was not majoring in literature or the humanities. I was in anthropology, and so had to do a proper anthropological project. At the very least, I needed an angle.

Milman Parry and Albert Lord duly provided this angle. The two men were classicists—scholars of ancient Greece. But instead of staying in their musty offices reading dusty manuscripts, they did something no classicist had done before: they attempted to answer the Homeric question with field work.

At the time (and perhaps now?) a vibrant oral tradition existed in Serbo-Croatia. Oral poets (guslars, they’re called there) would tell massive stories at public gatherings, some stories even approaching the length of the Homeric poems. But what was most fascinating was that these stories were apparently improvised.

In our decadent culture, we have a warped idea of improvisation. Many of us believe improvisation to be the spontaneous outflowing of creative energies, manifesting themselves in something totally new. Like God shaping the Earth out of the infinite void, these imaginary improvisers shape their art from nothing whatsoever. Unfortunately, this never happens.

Whether you’re a jazz saxophonist playing on a Coltrane tune, a salesperson dealing with a new client, or an oral bard telling a tale, improvisation is done via a playful recombining of preexisting, formulaic elements. This was Milman and Parry’s great discovery. By carefully transcribing hundreds of these Serbo-Croation poems, they discovered that—although a single poem may vary from person to person, place to place, or performance to performance—the variation took place within predictable boundaries.

The poet’s brains were full of stock-phrases (“when dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more”), common epithets (“much-enduring Odysseus”), and otherwise formulaic verses that allowed them to quickly put together their poems. Individual scenes, in turn, also followed stereotypical outlines—feasts, banquets, catalogues of forces, battles, athletic contests, etc. Of course, this is not to say that the poet was not original. Rather, it is to say that they are just as original as John Coltrane or Charlie Parker—individuals working within a tradition. These formulas and stereotypical scenes were the raw material with which the poet worked. They allowed him to compose material quickly enough to keep up the performance, and not break his rhythm.

But could poems as long as The Odyssey and The Iliad come wholly from an oral tradition? It seems improbable: it would take multiple days to recite, and the bard would have to pick up where he left off. But Milman and Parry, during their fieldwork, managed to put our fears at rest. They found a singer that could (and did) compose poems equal in length to Homer’s. (I actually read one. It’s called The Wedding of Smailagic Meho, and was recited by a poet named Avdo. It’s no Odyssey, but still entertaining.)

All this is impressive, but one question remained: how could the oral poems get on paper? Did an oral poet—Homer, presumably—learn to write, and copy it down? Not possible, says Alfred Lord, in his book The Singer of Tales. According to him, once a person becomes literate, the frame of mind required to learn the art of oral poetry cannot be achieved. A literate person thinks of language in an entirely different way as a non-literate one, and so the poems couldn’t have been written by a literate poet who had learned from his oral predecessors.

According to Lord, this left only one option: Homer must have been a master oral poet, and his poems must have been transcribed by someone else. (This is how the aforementioned poem by Avdo was taken down by the researchers.) At the time, this struck me as perfectly likely—indeed, almost certain. But the more I think about it, the less I can imagine an oral poet submitting himself to sit with a scribe, writing in the cumbersome Linear B script, for the dozens and dozens of hours it would have taken to transcribe these poems. It’s possible, but seems unlikely.

But according to Ruth Finnegan, Alfred Lord’s insistence that literacy destroys the capacity to improvise poems is mistaken. An anthropologist, Finnegan found many cases in Africa of semi-literate or fully literate people who remained capable of improvising poetry. So it’s at least equally possible that Homer was an oral poet who learned to read, and then decided to commit the poems to paper (or whatever they were writing on back then).

I submit this longwinded overview of the Homeric Question because, despite my usual arrogance, I cannot even imagine writing a ‘review’ for this poem. I feel like that would be equivalent to ‘reviewing’ one’s own father and mother. For me, and everyone alive in the Western world today, The Odyssey is flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Marvelously sophisticated, fantastically exciting, it is the alpha and omega of our tradition. From Homer we sprang, and unto Homer shall we return.

[Note: I'd also like to add that this time, my third or forth time through the poem, I decided to go through it via audiobook. Lucky for me, the Fagles translation (a nice one if you're looking for readability) is available as an audiobook, narrated by the great Sir Ian McKellen. It was a wonderful experience, not only because Sir Ian has such a beautiful voice (he's Gandalf, after all), but because hearing it read rather than reading it recreated, however dimly, the original experience of the poem: as a performance. I highly recommend it.]

Il vantaggio di rileggere un classico? Poterne dire del più e del meno senza imbarcarsi in un commento- recensione grazie al senso del ridicolo, proporzionale agli anni che avanzano. In definitiva un racconto del rapporto sentimentale, con i suoi alti e bassi, tra il lettore e il capolavoro.
Nella fattispecie tra me e lui, Odisseo – la parte per il tutto: l’Odissea– non ci sono stati mai alti, ma solo bassi fin dove arriva il ricordo.

Il primo incontro? In terza elementare quando scambiavo il mito per storia. Lo scherzetto del cavallo ripieno di soldatacci invasori che bruciava un’intera città non mi andò giù.
Non so dire se già parteggiavo per Ilo, come mi è capitato tutta la vita, o fu quella notizia a dare il via all'avversione per gli Achei o Danai che dir si voglia e per il loro furbastro re. Personaggio secondario nell'Iliade, un nulla di fronte al divino Achille o all'amatissimo Ettore, sul cui cadavere piansi lacrime vere in seconda media, mandando a memoria tutto il canto VI, quello delle porte Scee e di Astianatte che giocava con il suo cimiero.

[Perché una bambina dovesse amare il poema guerriero e non quello avventuroso, un po' fru fru, non è tanto misterioso: Omero, o chi per lui, non si sognava né di parteggiare né di inneggiare alla violenza: cresciuta, nel secondo dopoguerra, con i racconti dei bombardamenti sui civili sfollati e dei soldatacci scorrazzanti in cerca di fräulein o segnorite, ero pacifista per imprinting.
Come ho scoperto più tardi (molto più tardi, con Simon Weil), gli aedi, vedendo un mondo scomparire sotto i loro occhi (l’immaginaria età dell’oro?) sostituito da uno aggressivo e armato fino ai denti, condannavano la forza bruta o solo psicologica che rende gli uomini cose, incapaci a difendere la loro stessa vita. Intuivo già la verità: la condanna della guerra, dei soprusi e delle ingiustizie di cui non c’era riscatto escatologico].

A tredici anni, invece, feci la conoscenza diretta di quello che viene chiamato il poema fondatore della letteratura moderna. Un solo personaggio, Odisseo il cui stesso nome è sospeso tra il nulla* e l’Odioso** ( significato per cui propendo).
Lo studiai pedissequamente verso per verso, libro per libro, assecondando i gusti della prof., una liberale di destra che non poteva vedere che di buon occhio quel personaggio tutto teso all'autoaffermazione, anche a costo di correre rischi inutili e soprattutto, penso col senno del poi, non approvare la sana vendetta contro chi gli aveva violato la proprietà privata (i decreti sicurezza stanno sanando il vulnus riportandoci ai bei tempi delle sane stragi dei Proci usurpatori).
[Fu quello l’anno, con quello della maturità, in cui assaporai l’ebrezza del primo della classe: in effetti una esperienza castrante che in nome del podio ti fa rinunciare a un sano giudizio critico, cosato da un liberatorio mavaffa…al libro e a chi lo scrisse].

Lo incocciai di nuovo alla seconda liceo, direttamente in greco, sui cui versi si consumavano interi pomeriggi domenicali fino alla scoperta del mai ringraziato abbastanza Bignamino che, però, mi causò una espulsione e una nota con relativo sei in condotta. Parigi va bene una messa.

Ed eccoci all’oggi.
Avevo il conto in sospeso: era la sensibilità preormonale di una bambina a farmelo antipatico o veramente quella di Odisseo, saggio e assetato di conoscenza a detta di tutti, è fama immeritata e nonostante le cosce muscolose che, secondo lo stesso Omero, erano irresistibili per le donne?
Certo sono partita col piede sbagliato, nel senso che il ritmo scandito dalla mia lettura era sul metro ironico, e non c’è stato verso di prendere Odisseo sul serio: provare un attimo di simpatia per lo sciupafemmine, il malaccorto, il furbastro, il calcolatore, l’anaffettivo eroe mi è stato impossibile. Sapendo come andava a finire non ho potuto sperare in un finale che rendesse giustizia alle sue innumerevoli vittime. L’ho letto come “Il conte di Montecristo”, mille e cento e più pagine divertentissime ma tutte finalizzate alla vendetta, tremenda vendetta, dove lo spessore psicologico ( per dire una banalità, ma serve a spiegarmi) era perso come l’ago nel pagliaio.

Ecco la novità: mi sono divertita un mondo a leggerlo perché non ho più la lettura moralistica, nel senso di corrispondenza del testo ai miei mores personali: ormai sono pronta ad apprezzare anche il demonio se l’autore è capace di fartelo apprezzare nelle sue diavolerie.
Mi sono liberata, anche, dal mito di Penelope come donna saggia, irreprensibile, insomma moglie auto-castrata: il suo scendere flessuosa, “donna bellissima” nel salone dove bivaccavano i Proci, il suo appoggiarsi mollemente alla colonna coprendo col velo il volto lasciando liberi gli occhi ammiccanti, la dicono lunga sui suoi veri desideri e comunque, per me Penelope è sempre stata la Marchesini per tutta l’abbastanza lunga rilettura (grazie alla Calzecchi Onesti, godibilissima anche se letterale o quasi).
Chissà, Anna, che facce avrebbe fatto nel rendere la meraviglia e il disgusto a sentire l’ultima “boutade” del marito appena ritrovato: “guarda, bellezza, che Tiresia mi ha predetto che non ho il tempo di arrivare e ricollaudare il letto con te che partirò: mi attendono altri mondi, e sicuramente altre femmine infoiate, e una dolce morte in mare. Sembra che non sia nato per “i legami terrestri”. Si sa, l’uomo è cacciatore, pescatore, scalatore, aviatore, astronauta (senza rima) e adorabile mascalzone…

E “mischiniedde” le tre donne buggerate dal coscione agli androgeni: Calipso, Circe e Nausica. Meno male che i tempi non erano maturi per i suicidi come quello di Didone per Enea il mollaccione, altrimenti avremmo avuto tre libri in più di esequie.
E poi, quanto mangiavano…tre banchetti al giorno a base di maiali, vitelli e pecore squartati, cotti e mangiati sul posto, con una predilezione per le stigghiola (interiora dalle mie parti).
Il tutto annaffiato da trinchetti con vinello d’annata da lasciarli su di giri per tutto il santo giorno. Uno schiaffo alla povertà e alla fame che a quei tempi doveva essere stata endemica.

In ultimo, ma non ultimo, la carneficina dei Proci, il prototipo di tutte le carneficine di là da venire: un’orgia tra sangue e fango con annesso l’eccitato entusiasmo della vecchia nutrice, tanto fuori posto che lo stesso macellaio Odisseo la rimprovera (diciamo che i buoni sentimenti, quelli cristiani del perdono sempre inevasi, erano di là da venire come riconoscono La Weill e la Arendt, studiosissime del fenomeno Omero).
Consigliatissimo per gli amanti dell’avventura e gli stanziali sedentari.


* “Odisseo infatti non è neppure un nome, solo un pronome personale indefinito, un Nessuno, Oudeis, una non entità che fluttua nello spazio pronominale come un’anima in attesa della prossima reincarnazione” Giuseppe Martella, da Nazione Indiana.
** Dal greco odyssomai, odiare, libro XIX.

AHAHAHAHA I FINISHED THIS IN ABOUT NINE COLLECTIVE HOURS OF READING
WITH AN HOUR TO SPARE BEFORE MY ENGLISH FINAL


UPDATE: I FAILED THE FINAL BUT IT'S OKAY

3 stars

n  "Take courage, my heart: you have been through worse than this. Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this."n

At this point, I feel like I should just stop having preconceptions about what a classic will be about. I have read many this month where I expected one thing, but encountered another and found myself quite confused. This once again happened while reading The Odyssey, however, I still enjoyed what I read. This is the tale of Odysseus... but it is more than that, and the journey he goes through is not even half of the page count. Instead we start off by following his son, Telemachus, who searches for news of his father, and later his (and his father's) struggles in reclaiming his homeland from the wretched suitors... I wanted more of the journey.

I was very intimidated by the prospect of reading a novel in verse, however I found that it wasn't at all as scary as I have thought it to be. Surprisingly, this classic was very approachable and I actually enjoyed myself, but if I have to read another "when Dawn, with her rose-red fingers, rose from the sea" or some such, I'll scream.



My main qualm with reviewing this book is that I don't have a lot to say because I found it to be fine. There were moments that I really liked, but some that I really didn't like or just ended up bored. The entire voyage sequence was fantastic. The Circe encounter was hilarious because of Hermes's interference and the moments with Helios's sheep were so frustrating (but in the best way possible). The rest however, I just felt an overall happy feeling, but not much more. The segments in which I was bored were the ones when Nestor and his son give us recounts of The Iliad. If you average all this together, I guess this ends up in an overall 3 star rating, but gosh is it hard to give a book a rating when you feel so many emotions...

Tl;Dr: don't have so many expectations for classics, because they probably aren't what I thought.

*book completed as part of the January Classics challenge

Οδύσσεια = The Odyssey, Homer

The Odyssey begins after the end of the ten-year Trojan War (the subject of the Iliad), and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war because he angered the god Poseidon.

Odysseus' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father's house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, "the Suitors", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while reveling in Odysseus' palace and eating up his wealth. ...

The Odyssey Characters: Odysseus, Penelope, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Agamemnon, Telemachus, Minerva, Polyphemus

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «ادیسه»؛ «اودیسه»؛ اثر: هومر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش سال 1973میلادی

عنوان: ادیسه؛ اثر: هومر؛ مترجم: سعید نفیسی؛ تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر، 1337؛ چاپ دوم 1344؛ چاپ سوم 1349؛ در 576ص؛ چاپ چهارم سال 1359؛ موضوع: اساطیر یونانی از نویسندگان یونان - سده هشتم پیش از میلاد

ترجمه روانشاد «سعید نفیسی» با عنوان «اودیسه» نیز چاپ شده است

یکی از دو کتاب کهنسال و اشعار حماسی «یونان»، اثر «هومر» در سده ی هشتم پیش از میلاد است؛ این کتاب همچون «ایلیاد»، به صورت مجموعه‌ ای از سرودها گردآوری شده، اما شیوه ی روایت آن با «ایلیاد» تفاوت دارد؛ «ادیسه»، سرگذشت بازگشت یکی از سران جنگ «تروآ»، «ادیسیوس» یا «الیس» فرمانروای «ایساکا» است؛ در آن سفر، که بیش از بیست سال، به درازا می‌انجامد، ماجراهای بسیاری، برای وی و همراهانش پیش میآید؛ در نهایت «ادیسیوس»، که همگان گمان می‌کردند کشته شده، به وطن خود باز گشته، و دست متجاوزان را از سرزمین، و زن و فرزند خود کوتاه می‌کند، «ادیسه» در این داستان ماجراهای بسیاری دارد؛ او در جنگ با «تروآ» تصمیم می‌گیرد، اسبی از جنس چوب، و بسیار بزرگ بسازد، و با حیله اسب را به عنوان هدیه ی صلح و آشتی، وارد قلعه «تروآ» بکند؛ او خود و افرادش، در داخل اسب پنهان میشوند، تا بتوانند قلعه را تصرف کند؛ اما یک پیشگو، پادشاه «تروآ» را، از بردن اسب به داخل قلعه منع می‌کند، و «پوسایدون» فرمانروای قدرتمند دریا، حیوان دست آموزش را می‌فرستد، تا پیشگو را هلاک کند؛ پادشاه «تروآ»، سرانجام اسب را داخل قلعه می‌آورد، و شب هنگام «ادیسه» شبیخون زده؛ و قلعه را تصرف می‌کند؛ او با غرور می‌اندیشد که به تنهایی قلعه را تصرف کرده؛ «پوسایدون» خشمگین میشود، و «ادیسه» را محکوم می‌کند، تا ابد در دریا سرگردان بماند؛ «ادیسه» در کشتی خود در دریای بی‌انتها، به نفرین «پوسایدون» دچار می‌شود؛ دیری نمی‌گذرد، که به جزیره‌ ای می‌رسد؛ در آن جزیره، غاری پیدا می‌کند، که در آن غار غذای فراوانی وجود دارد؛ در غار با افرادش به عیش و نوش دلمشغول می‌شود؛ غافل از آنکه، صاحب غار، غولی یک چشم؛ بنام «پولیتیموس»، فرزند «پوسایدون» است؛ «پولیتیموس» یکی از افراد «ادیسه» را می‌خورد؛ و «ادیسه» با نیرنگ، معجون خواب آوری به او می‌خوراند، و سپس با چوبی که انتهای آن تیز است، در خواب غول را کور می‌کند؛ غول در حالیکه از درد فریاد می‌زند، سنگ عظیمی که غار را پوشانده، کنار می‌زند؛ و «ادیسه» و همراهانش فرار می‌کنند؛ «ادیسه» دوباره راهی دریا می‌شود، و برای برداشتن آب، به جزیره‌ ای پا می‌گذارد، در آن جزیره، با «آنوس» فرمانروای باد و طوفان، و پسرعموی «پوسایدون» برمی‌خورد؛ و «آنوس» به باد فرمان می‌دهد، که «ادیسه» را ظرف نه روز، به «ایساکا» زادگاهش برساند؛ و باد را داخل کیسه کرده، و به «ادیسه» می‌دهد؛ در راه، در حالیکه به «ایساکا» رسیده بودند، و «ادیسه» در خواب بود؛ افرادش به او خیانت کرده، و در کیسه را به امید یافتن طلا باز می‌کنند؛ اما طوفان حاصل از باد داخل کیسه، آنها را دوباره در جزیره‌ ای ناشناخته در دریا می‌برد؛ داستان ده سال از مسافرت «ادیسئوس» در بازگشت از جنگ «تروا» است؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 14/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 11/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

After 10 years of fighting in the Trojan War it takes Odysseus 10 more years to return home to Ithaca to be reunited with his wife Penelope, son Telemachus, and father Laertes.

It is the latter 10 years that are covered in this legendary story from the 9th Century BC. During Odysseus's time away, countless suitors have moved into his home all of them hoping to win the hand of Penelope in marriage. They feast and carouse consuming vast amounts of wine and meat.

The causes of his delayed return home are the central part of the book, told in flashbacks, and include a consultation with the dead seer Teiresias in Hades, and interactions with The Sirens, Polyphemus the Cyclops, Circe, Calypso, Scylla, and Charybdis, plus the continued interventions of Poseidon.

Luckily, Odysseus has clear-eyed Athene on his side and after many rosy-fingered dawns he eventually returns to sea-girt Ithaca across the wine-dark sea to gain vengeance not only on the suitors of his wife but their relations too. A lot of people perish in this book in many interesting ways

Other famous figures make appearances such as Agamemnon, Achilles, Menelaus, Nestor, and Helen of Troy, but it's the persistence of Odysseus that shines through as he manages to return home against all the odds.

n  After many years of agony and absence from one’s home, a person can begin enjoying grief. n

This feels a little silly to rate given that it’s the Odyssey, but I did read it and I did enjoy myself.

Some notes on things I enjoy about this translation:

➽ Emily Wilson in her intro focuses on Xenia –hospitality. The villains in the Oddysey are villainous because they either pervert hospitality – by eating guests instead of feeding them – or fail to engage with pompe [sending] as defined by Menelaus’s declaration that “To force a visitor to stay / is just as bad as pushing him to go”. The suitors, too, pervert hospitality by eating too much; and ultimately, so does Odysseus in slaughtering them.

➽ There’s a similarly intriguing focus on the character of Odysseus as not good or bad but clever and cunning above all. As established as the chapter begins, Odysseus is not the favorite of Athena because he is good – he is the favorite because he is clever.

➽ Penelope is a very compelling character. I kind of enjoy the ambiguity as to whether she knows her husband is home – that being said, I think she definitely has an inkling.

➽ The translation’s focus on repeating Homer’s “smaller units of sense” and its simple language to convey that “stylistic pomposity is entirely un-Homeric” is very fun.

➽ Another conceit I really enjoyed: The focus on the doglike women’s face. “The idea that it is not the woman or goddess herself, but her [Helen’s] face, that is like a dog suggests that it might be male perceptions of women, rather than female desires themselves, that threaten the social fabric.”

➽ The penultimate book – Odysseus’s slaughter of the suitors – is brutal and animalistic, with gorgeous but oddly terrifying imagery. I enjoyed it quite a bit and may at some point have further thoughts about its use of violence.

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“It is generally understood that a modern-day book may honorably be based upon an older one, especially since, as Dr. Johnson observed, no man likes owing anything to his contemporaries. The repeated but irrelevant points of congruence between Joyce's Ulysses and Homer's Odyssey continue to attract (though I shall never understand why) the dazzled admiration of critics.” The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim by Jorge Luis Borges.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9.
Is The Odyssey where it all had begun? Or was it already based on the literary tradition? Whatever the answer is the number of allusions to The Odyssey in the world literature is impossible to count.
All starts here.
In this almost lifelong homecoming across seas, islands, dreams, visions and even the land of the dead there are no stops.

You will want no guide, raise your mast, set your white sails, sit quite still, and the North Wind will blow you there of itself. When your ship has traversed the waters of Oceanus, you will reach the fertile shore of Proserpine's country with its groves of tall poplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely; here beach your ship upon the shore of Oceanus, and go straight on to the dark abode of Hades. You will find it near the place where the rivers Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus (which is a branch of the river Styx) flow into Acheron, and you will see a rock near it, just where the two roaring rivers run into one another.
“When you have reached this spot, as I now tell you, dig a trench a cubit or so in length, breadth, and depth, and pour into it as a drink-offering to all the dead, first, honey mixed with milk, then wine, and in the third place water – sprinkling white barley meal over the whole. Moreover you must offer many prayers to the poor feeble ghosts, and promise them that when you get back to Ithaca you will sacrifice a barren heifer to them, the best you have, and will load the pyre with good things. More particularly you must promise that Teiresias shall have a black sheep all to himself, the finest in all your flocks.”

And all ends here.
It’s a circle…
“As the end approaches, there are no longer any images from memory – there are only words. It is not strange that time may have confused those that once portrayed me with those that were symbols of the fate of the person that accompanied me for so many centuries. I have been Homer; soon, like Ulysses, I shall be Nobody; soon, I shall be all men – I shall be dead.” The Immortal by Jorge Luis Borges.

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.

I first read The Odyssey when I was a freshman in high school. I think it might actually have been the very first assigned reading that year, and I remember being excited for it, and liking the story, but having suuuuuch a hard time getting through it, because the translation I was reading was so dense. Looking back (and now having read this translation) I don't actually think I liked it as much as I thought I did, and I have some definite opinions about the Greeks being huge jerks.

Mostly that they are huge jerks! I do NOT remember Odysseus and his crew being such brainless killers. Everywhere they go, they slaughter people, most of the time for no reason. They just raid a village (pillaging, raping, etc.) on their way home, just because they can. And the narrative clearly wants us to think this is normal and good. That really threw me.

The best thing about this particular edition is that Wilson wrote it so accessibly. There is an incredibly interesting foreword and section with translator's notes where she talks about the history and the context of the poem that you really shouldn't skip, and where she talks about why she chose to translate it in such accessible language, when most translators give it an intentionally elevated style to mimic the supposedly ancient feel. Wilson rightly points out that this is nonsense, because this poem comes directly from the oral tradition, where by necessity it was accessible, repetitive, and most often in plain language of the day. One of the aims of her translation was to try and mimic as closely as possible the style to recreate the experience for modern readers without any unnecessary constructed barriers.

I also did not remember that the parts that most people associate with The Odyssey (Circe, the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis) make up only about 25% of the book. Mostly it is Odysseus telling his story in somebody else's halls, then going home halfway through and pretending to be a dirty beggar there, and listening to other people's stories, before murdering all of his wife's suitors without remorse.

I probably wouldn't have picked this up without ElCicco's lovely review. She does a much better job of talking about it than I do, so I recommend clicking and reading if you would like something more comprehensive.

I would rate the actual poem three stars. The fourth star is entirely for this edition, which I thoroughly enjoyed.