Odysseus: A Life

From my Goodreads review...

It feels somewhat wrong to give the same number of stars to this book as The Iliad and The Odyssey; however, I've done just that because Charles Rowan Beye has made Odysseus extremely accessible without this book being overly scholarly, and thus, overly dry. The style of the work is good and reconstructs Odysseus' life and times that a neophyte Greek historian like myself can digest. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to understand either of Homer's works a little more clearly.

I had just finished up the aforementioned books before getting into this one and it was very good to get a recap at the end. I only wish I had read the Aeneid prior, but chest la vie? Now it's on to Ulysses (and if my previous encounter with Joyce is a harbinger of things to come, a commentary on that as well).

Assessment of the Odyssey

I finished The Odyssey earlier this month, but I've been slack on my digitization and compiling of my notes on this here blog. But, I'm trying to catch up. Here is what I wrote, in my Goodreads review.

What a slog! Going back to back on The Iliad and The Odyssey. Don't get me wrong, they are both great. They're just big, wordy books. I think that I prefer The Odyssey, but just slightly.

There are a number of great stories wrapped up into The Odyssey. Some are triumphant, others gory, others happy and some sad. The whole thing oozes emotion. One short little one stuck out to me thought. The little interaction between Argos, Odysseus' dog, was especially poignant. In that tiny bit of a minor passage you see how Homer can weave contradictory powerful emotions together into a unity.