Title: The OdysseyAuthor: Homer
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Release Date: August 18, 2008
Genre/Age Group: Adventure, Adult, Mythology
Source: Gifted
Add it: Goodreads
Rating:
Hector bidding farewell to his wife and baby son. Odysseus bound to the mast listening to the Sirens. Penelope at the loom, Achilles dragging Hector's body round the walls of Troy--scenes from Homer have been reportrayed in every generation. The questions about mortality and identity that Homer's heroes ask, the bonds of love, respect, and fellowship that motivate them, have gripped audiences for three millennia. Chapman's Iliad and Odyssey are great English epic poems, but they are also two of the liveliest and most readable translations of Homer. Chapman's freshness makes the everyday world of nature and the craftsman as vivid as the battlefield and Mount Olympus. His poetry is driven by the excitement of the Renaissance discovery of classical civilization as at once vital and distance, and is enriched by the perspectives of humanist thought.
MY THOUGHTS
I hope you’re all ready for another instalment of Ellis Reacts to Classics, because you’re getting it anyway. Method and motivations are very similar to those you saw in my Iliad adventure. Why did I read this? Thesis reasons. In this case, that means that I’m occasionally going to compare it to The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood’s reworking of the material, which is very clever and enjoyable, but also rude and a little cruel because it told the naïvely hopeful part of me that wants to buy into the myth that Odysseus and Penelope genuinely loved each other and that their marriage was one between equals that it was wrong. (Madeline Miller is on my side in this, which is another reason why I’m genuinely shocked she hasn’t written that The Song of Achilles follow-up yet. But I digress.) Why am I reviewing this? Because the Greeks were a bunch of drama queens and I want to talk about it. As for method, let’s just say I’m very glad Judith decided to call this section “My Thoughts” and not “The Review”. So, what are my thoughts?
Well.
I enjoyed this less than The Iliad, which is surprising because often odysseys and physical journeys are much more my thing than 400 pages of battle and interestingly-timed flashbacks. Once again, a lot of what I expected to be in the story wasn’t there or was basically summarised. I’m mainly thinking of Odysseus’ adventures now because I was so pumped to read about Circe, Scylla, Charybdis, the Sirens, and Calypso. But noooo, instead of giving me pages and pages of backstory on those, Homer backgrounded them and decided to focus on the stupid suitors and Telemachus. And obviously I expected this to be male-POV central but I’m still unimpressed that even the soliloquies Penelope and Helen get are mostly about men because look at all these wasted opportunities.
Case in point: there are so many interesting parallels between Helen and Penelope, aside from the one where I pretend these cousins are the actual protagonists of The Iliad and The Odyssey, respectively. Both are separated from their husbands for a good 20 years. Both have an army of suitors fighting for them. In both cases, the perspectives and voices of suitors are favoured over theirs. (Blegh.) Both have small but impressive speeches and are mainly — and wrongfully — relegated to the background. At the same time, though, both characters are used to create the old madonna/whore dichotomy. Penelope has become the archetype of the faithful wife, while Helen’s most famous for her adultery that kickstarted the Trojan war. (I see you, Homer, putting the “I’m such a bad person for leaving my husband/possible getting kidnapped” speech in Helen’s mouth and I’m disappointed in you too.)
These supposed morals are also contrasted with their suitors. Penelope’s suitors are terrible (I agree) because they’re vultures. Helen’s, on the other hand, are honourable because they honour their pact, except for Achilles, who was never one of Helen’s suitors but is just there for Patroclus the fame and glory. I don’t know what any of these parallels and contrasts mean yet, so if anyone feels motivated to write a dissertation on this, I will legit pay you. In related news, I had no idea Helen had a daughter and I’m so sad she couldn’t/didn’t take her with her to Troy. And apparently Hermione (!!) is betrothed to Achilles’ son, who is very much not that Pyrrhus abomination Miller subjected us to, but what I really need from this is a good fit where Helen tries her hardest to get to her daughter at night, wake her up, and try to take her to Troy with her. I’m getting way too into the details of this story but I have needs.
You know what else I wasn’t a fan of? That literally every one of Penelope’s actions and decisions were framed as one of Athena’s machinations to ensure her personal hero Odysseus came out victorious. And I say that as someone who’s half-pledged herself to Athena’s worship. (The other half is meant for Artemis, naturally.) Luckily this is one of the things Atwood fixes in her retelling, along with the male POV controlling the narrative thing.
Speaking of gods and allegiances, however, I just want to mention that I’m becoming very fond of Poseidon. I will never forgive him for Medusa, but between regularly scheming with Hera against Zeus and very explicitly disapproving of the spectacle Hephaestus created by trapping his wife (Aphrodite) and her lover (Ares) in a net, he’s quickly becoming one of my favourites. And now that I’m talking about that background myth anyway, I know Homer claimed none of the goddesses came to look at Aphrodite’s humiliation because they were embarrassed by her and her blatant displays of lust and debauchery or whatever but I choose to see it as them refusing to participate in this travesty because they thought Hephaestus’ entire plan was pathetic and in bad taste. Fight the system, ladies. I’m with you. (I’m also immensely retconning all of this but just try and stop me. Myths are meant for reinterpretation and reapplication anyway I CAN DO WHAT I WANT.)
BUT THINK ABOUT IT. Even Hera, one of Aphrodite’s major opponents during The Iliad, the goddess who literally dragged her over the battlefield by her hair, and generally likes to yell that everything is Aphrodite’s fault, didn’t show up. She is Hephaestus’ MOTHER, who is powered by spite and fury 90% of the time (see also: Hephaestus’ “conception”) and would feel personally insulted if someone humiliated her son like this, and yet she wants to see none of it. Riddle me this, Homer. Riddle. me. this.
I know I said the coverage of Odysseus’ adventures was generally underwhelming, but there are two moments that made me burst out laughing, and they both illustrated my dramatic Greeks point really well. The first one involves Calypso which *praise hands emoji* *angels sing* Her island is used as the starting point for Odysseus’s story, with regular flashbacks filling in the blanks. Because Odysseus needs to get a move on and get back home, the gods order Calypso to release him from her island. The nymph isn’t having it, though, so while she reluctantly agrees to let him go, she also does the absolute most to keep Odysseus with her. Her first tactic is to go up to him and be like “ugh fine you can go back to your wife even though I’m much taller and prettier than her”, hoping Odysseus will confirm this so she can pretend she obeyed the gods’ commands but LOOK HE JUST WANTS TO STAY HERE AND HAVE NOCTURNAL SEX WITH ME I DON’T KNOW WHY I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING. I nearly cried. He really really wants to get back to Penelope though (good), so she even more reluctantly agrees to help him get off her island, but then on the day of his departure shows up looking like the goddess she is, dressed in a super thin golden gown. INCORRIGIBLE. I love her.
The other one is a little sadder but also so ridiculous that I just couldn’t. At one point, Odysseus decides to go visit the Underworld, where he runs into some of his old war buddies. I assume my fellow Patrochilles peeps would like to know that it is the firmest canon that even after death, these two are inseparable and hang out with each other 24/7. (Slightly anachronistic given the Greek way of telling time functioned differently but honestly what hasn’t been a major anachronism in this review so far.) Also hanging out with them? Ajax, one of the greatest heroes of their time, second only to Achilles himself. Or so he thought. Because turned out that this dude legit killed himself because Odysseus was awarded Achilles’ armour after the latter’s death instead of him and he felt both disrespected and humiliated by it. My question here is: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU AJAX. WHO THE HELL STAYS IN TROY FOR TEN YEARS AND THEN KILLS THEMSELVES OVER COMING IN SECOND PLACE. I swear, this Greek code of honour is ridiculous and someone needs to save these heroes from themselves and the brand of heroism they’ve been taught because they start wars and commit other supremely destructive acts over the worst things.
And that concludes my thoughts on the Homeric epics. No idea when I’ll next pick up a classic, but you’ll undoubtedly hear about it.
MEMORABLE QUOTES
Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this. “You gods,” she exclaimed, “ought to be ashamed of yourselves! You are always jealous, and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion, you precious gods were all of you furious till Artemis went and killed him in Ortygia. So again when Demeter fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to him in a thrice-ploughed fallow field, Zeus came to hear of it before so very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now you are angry with me too because I have a man here.”
I will always be here for goddesses calling out double standards, especially if they’re spitting on Zeus in the process.
“Never yet was any man able to stand so much as a taste of the herb I gave you; you must be spell-proof. Surely you can be none other than the bold hero Odysseus, who Hermes always said would come here someday with his ship while on his way home from Troy. So be it then; sheathe your sword and let us go to bed, that we may make friends and learn to trust each other.”
“And I answered: “Circe, how can you expect me to be friendly with you when you have just been turning all my men into pigs? And now that you have got me here myself, you mean me mischief when you ask me to go to bed with you, and will unman me and make me fit for nothing. I shall certainly not consent to go to bed with you unless you will first take your solemn oath to plot no further harm against me.”
“So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had completed her oath, then I went to bed with her.”
Truly, this is the moment soap operas were born. Someone give Rogelio de la Vega this script.