The Odyssey
Homer (Penguin; trans. Robert Fagles, 1996)

541 pp.  First reading.
Posted 2 March 2006.
 

Lately I have been putting too much labour into these notes, such that they have become ever-so-slightly sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.  Tonight I haven't much time, so this note will, in its brevity and bold incompetence, serve as a corrective.

Why is it more difficult to write about the greatest works of literature?  Perhaps from a sense that nothing new can be said of them, most especially by me.  Perhaps because they are approached in a different spirit; as Chesterton once said, there are certain works of literature which one knows are great even before one knows they are good.  To approach such works humbly is, in my view, fitting, and to natter dimwittedly about them is correspondingly inappropriate.  Or perhaps a more metaphysical reason can be adduced: is not perfection supremely simple and undivided, and error manifold and multiform?  Little wonder it is easier to find things to say about lesser achievements.

Be that as it may, I have just finished reading Homer's Odyssey.  I am happy to find (to return to Chesterton's maxim) that, in addition to being great, it is good.  The famous tale of wily Odysseus, fated by the gods to sail the wine-dark sea for twenty long years, plagued by misfortune and troubles, is an excellent tale.  Certainly it is much easier to appreciate than The Iliad, that swarming, apparently shapeless book that I struggled through some years ago without any enjoyment.  Part of the appeal of The Odyssey, it seems to me, is the reduced scope; whereas The Iliad tried to follow a legion of men and a pantheon of gods, The Odyssey is essentially a family tale, restricted to the story of Odysseus, his son, his wife, and his father.  Even the roster of gods is manageable: Zeus, the benevolent Athena (she of the sea-gray eyes), and, lurking out of sight, the peevish Poseidon.

The plot, too, is more engaging and leaner - indeed, almost linear!  The famous episodes of the Sirens and the Cyclops are here, and much more besides.  Still, I was a little surprised by how little of the book was actually devoted to the journeys of Odysseus - only a quarter or so.  The remainder concerns his son Telemachus' search for his father and, after Odysseus returns home, the dramatic manner in which he 'cleans house'.  Homer certainly isn't shy about splattering some gory innards here and there when the story calls for it.

That glory in the heroic feats of war and of physical strength is one of the elements of the Homeric ethos that has grown foreign in the intervening years - mostly, I think, in the relatively recent past. For better or (more probably) worse, it is not easy for a full-fledged masculinity to flourish in our culture, and these courageous, violent, emotional Homeric heroes, who weep in sorrow at the death of their friends and fight bravely in the face of their own death, are too big for our time. They are great men, but they are emphatically not modern men. While I would not want to revive their brutality, I can't help thinking that we're missing out on something important. In this sense, Homer's poem comes as a breath of fresh air, even if one faintly salted with blood.

The translation of the poem I read is that of Robert Fagles, published about ten years ago.  I have no complaints: the verse is vivid and graceful.  Night after night it carried this reader surging, surging over the wine-dark sea.

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