#42 - The Odyssey

What a long, strange trip it has been. Since starting the list, I've lived in 3 cities, visited 11 countries (do we count Wales?), and read 42 literary classics. Reading the Odyssey makes you think about the journeys in your own life, and I'm just so pleased that this list has managed to keep on growing through it all. I have continued to make an effort to work in books from off the list though. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is an excellent vision of the future in the vein of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (who warranted a shoutout in RP1), but I do wish that he had focused on the early 90s a little more than the straight 80s fare. Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris was hilarious and a quick read over the Christmas holidays, exactly what I would've imagined from him.

With this, I've completed the main Greek cycle - Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid. Couldn't be happier to be done - despite appreciating them, they were such a dry read compared to modern literature. I'm a 21st-century reader, what can I say? That's something that's even more apparent when the Odyssey is compared to Ulysses. Despite both of them being well beyond my full understanding on a first readthrough, I felt myself becoming attuned to the natural flow of Joyce's work much more readily than I did trying to reach back to Homer. The translation of this work certainly didn't help - picked out of the Norton anthologies that Amy has, it had some very strange spellings (Akhilleus instead of Achilles, for example) which always made it feel somewhat more stilted than it had to be.

That said, there were some interesting highlights! The ending was a "false close", much like the 19 Years Later epilogue closing Harry Potter. It may have been bolted on by later creators, and mostly deals with the gods running around settling scores. Wholly unnecessary, but ah well. They killed the dog off in XVII 370-375, so if you're sensitive I suggest avoiding that part. Finally, this raunchy passage made up part of my Valentine's card this year, because it was just that fantastic:

Now Penelope sank down, holding the weapon on her knees, and drew her husband's great bow out, and sobbed and bit her lip and let the salt tears flow. Then she went back to face the crowded hall, tremendous bow in hand, and on her shoulder hung the quiver spiked with coughing death. (XXI, 54-60)

7/10