The Odyssey

I've definitely read The Odyssey before. It was an assignment in the Classical Mythology class I took in college. But I think I fought my way through it in high school, too. I think it might have been half the reason I signed up for that course. But even in taking that course I had a hard time keeping all the different gods and heroes and stories straight, and over the years it's all become a muddled mess in my brain. I knew the key points: Calypso, Cyclops, the shroud Penelope was pretending to weave. Most of it had fallen out of my memory, though.

And then Emily Wilson released a new translation last year that everyone got really excited about. The first translation to English by a woman! A newly readable version! I had to give this epic poem another try.

I'm glad I read it. Particularly because I had forgotten over half of what happened. All the exciting bits of Odysseus' journey are confined to about 4 chapters. The remaining 21 chapters are taken up by lots of feasting and scheming and testing everyone's loyalty. It was a whole lot of stuff I didn't remember. I read Wilson's ~100 page introduction before I dove into the text, which really helped contextualize a lot of what happened and prepared me for what would otherwise have been a massive disappointment. Seriously, this poem needs like 200% more mythical monsters.

But it was definitely easy to read in a way that no other translation I've attempted has been. Wilson uses plain English as much as she can to make it more accessible. And having an actual meter allowed me to clip right through sections that would have otherwise bored me.

As far as I'm concerned, this is now the definitive translation. Which is good news for my brother. We've spent the last few years arguing over which one of us will inherit my grandfather's copy of The Odyssey. Now I'm more than happy to let him have it, so long as I can hang on to this version.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Crown of Swords

Image
The seventh book of the  Wheel of Time  series is where many people agree that the series takes a dive in quality. Although I think it's less that anything changes significantly and more that people get tired of how stagnant the books are becoming. Nearly nothing happens in this book. Jordan still has serious issues writing female characters and romantic relationships. The world is continuing to be expanded on, and the rules of the magic system are slowly (so slowly) becoming more clear. But this is also a step down in terms of length. We go from a few 1000 page books in a row to one that's only 850 pages (and the next is less than 700!). Combine that with my brilliant idea to read  A Tale of Two Cities  right before this book, and I positively flew through it. I think you have to reach a sort of zen state to get through this series. There are a lot of side plots, a lot of world building, a lot of descriptions of clothing. Rather than just hating certain characters, you hav
Read more

The People We Keep

This was a really sweet coming of age tale about finding your way and finding your family. Aprils' mother walked out when she was little and her father wasn't much more present. By the time she's sixteen, April is basically on her own, stuck in a small town where everyone looks down on her and even her father mostly pretends that she doesn't exist. And then she realizes that she can leave, too. So April heads out for life on the road, working odd jobs, writing and singing songs, making friends and fleeing before anyone can get too close. And through it all her music sustains her. My favorite part of this book, hands-down, was the soundtrack. April's love of music, and the way the author uses it to set the scene and drill right into her emotional state was fantastic. I kept having to put the book down so I could bring up songs on youtube and listen to them while I read certain passages. This was just an overall enjoyable book. I had a lot of sympathy for April being
Read more

Parable of the Sower: The Graphic Novel

This is one of my favorite books, so I clearly had to read the graphic novel version. It's a good story to revisit every now and then, and this edition makes that a lot easier. Since so much of the information is conveyed through images, reading it is a lot quicker. Of course, this being an adaptation, a lot of things got left out. I know the story well enough to have recognized all the omissions. The story still works well, but I'll always think the original has more depth.   Overall, it's a good adaptation of a really important novel. And if the new format helps it reach new audiences, that can only be a good thing.
Read more