The Odyssey - Translated by Robert Fagles

It seems silly to put a star score on this book, or even to review it, but why not. The movie comes out tomorrow and I finished this just under the wire. My biggest takeaway was that despite never reading this I knew everything about it. A combination of Wishbone and all other media that is inspired by it meant that every story beat was familiar, but still exciting! This is the proto-epic, so obviously everything is inspired by it, but it was cool to feel the parts of Tolkien in this, and a bunch of my other favourite books. "There and Back Again" could easily be the title of this book! Even something like, finally getting back home and now having to fight a war on your own soil, the return not being what you want it to be immediately, a part of Return of the King I always liked and feels directly tied to this.

I can't say I am the world's biggest Nolan fan, despite loving several of his movies, and I thought the Odyssey was a strange fit for him until I read this. This is told out of order! He's on an island, basically his last stop before home, and he retells all the stops on his journey, the battle for Troy that proceeded this, and many of the chapters are jumping around in time. We get his family's perspective in present day, and I could totally imagine a black-and-white Memento or Oppenheimer-esque version of these scenes out of time. It made me very excited for the movie as a culmination of all the other movies he's made, using the time-based frameworks he loves to build on.

This did take me a while to read despite the excellent translation. When he finally gets to the Cyclops, or The Sirens, all the parts we all know, it was electric and compelling. When there is another 5-page toast to his cunning at another banquet help=d in his honour, I felt myself skimming. I won't get into the modern day politics (is he actually a good person?! What about female representation as something more than a longing wife?!), but as an epic hero's journey with a healthy dose of revenge at the end, I really loved it.

I've been listening to a podcast talking about the history of this story, how it was passed down, what it meant at the time of it being written, and that's been a really cool companion. As someone who reads almost exclusively fantasy it really is the core text, and the value of its many retellings and interpretations through generations is fascinating to me. It made me even more excited for the movie, which is getting some criticism for its "inaccuracies" (as if this is a true story), as a modern retelling that has something modern to say. That's what stories are all about, and finding new meaning in ancient works is something we try to do every Sunday.

I can't say I found this to be required reading, unless you are studying classics. I probably could have gotten as much out of a good summary of each chapter, or even the retelling the podcast I was listening to did. But I am glad I took my medicine, which was at many points delicious! I can't remember all the side characters or places, but it felt good to conquer this totemic work, to add colour to this myth that was already engrained in my head. Now to find time to see the movie...