Tag: Ulysses

I’ve got some followers that I know are big readers. Myself, I am reading something all the time, but unfortunately I am rather slow under the best of circumstances, and since I read mostly at bedtime these days (thank you, internet), I often find myself pushing back against drooping eyelids. I used to read in the morning also, in the days before I had a laptop. Previously, what happened at work – where I kept my desktop – stayed at work. When you have two reading sessions built into your day, even short ones, at breakfast and bed, you do cover a lot of ground, more than you would think.

Anyway, last week I finally finished Robert Fagles’ translation of “The Odyssey,” in advance of Christopher Nolan’s movie, which I’m pretty sure I’m going to have issues with (and not because I’m a “culture warrior”). And since then, I knocked out Bernard Knox’s 60-page intro, which I found informative and essential, in order to more fully grasp the history and significance of this cornerstone of Western literature, which is so much more than simply an adventure story.

The edition – which I discover is inscribed by Fagles (who taught at Princeton University) – has been part of my library since I skimmed it off the inventory of one of my bookstores, but somehow I never got around to reading it until now. It’s been part of the Princeton High School curriculum. In my hometown, for some reason, we read “The Iliad.” Granted it was an AP course, but with all the cataloguing in which Homer indulges, so that we know all about the participating forces, the leaders’ lineages, their geographical origin and their weaponry, it was kind of a slog. It was a long time ago, but I don’t even know that I can blame the translation (by W.H.D. Rouse).

Fagles’ “Odyssey” is a much more enjoyable read. In fact, surprisingly so. I expected it to be heavy lifting, akin to the boulder Polyphemus uses to seal his cave. But it turned out to be far from it. (Incidentally, I see the audio book is read by Sir Ian McKellen!)

However, I am sure it is not the last word in “Odyssey” translations, acclaimed though it be. In fact, I can understand why there are so many “Odyssey” fanatics on YouTube, who seem to have a working familiarity of the finer points of all the various translations. Since I cannot read Greek myself, I would definitely be interested in checking out some of the other versions. I am especially curious to take a look at the much-lauded, and I’m sure more elevated, translation by Alexander Pope. Somewhat in common with its hero’s travails, one’s encounter with “The Odyssey” could expand into an epic journey of many years.

You have to admit, the story has had legs. Even if you’ve never read a word of it, you probably already know a lot of it. It’s been a crowd-pleaser for 2,800 years! Ralph Fiennes played a brooding (and surprisingly jacked) Odysseus only last year, in “The Return,” and I recently learned that Jerry Bruckheimer, of all people, is overseeing an animated musical (!) on the story, based on a recent internet series (?), for theatrical release. I remember watching a miniseries with Armand Assante, back in the ‘90s, but for me, the benchmark will probably always be Kirk Douglas in “Ulysses.” When men were men, and cyclopes were cyclopes!

By coincidence, I’ve got a ticket to see “Die ägyptische Helena” (“The Egyptian Helen”) at Bard College later this month. Richard Strauss’ rarely-heard opera about Helen of Troy sets a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal – whose source material is Euripides’ play “Helen,” as opposed to Homer’s “Iliad,” but hey…

Only yesterday, I bought a loaf of bread from a local bakery and the woman on the counter’s name was Penelope! I’m taking it as a sign.

Nolan’s movie opens tomorrow. Watch this space, because this weekend all three of my radio shows – “Picture Perfect,” “Sweetness and Light,” and “The Lost Chord” – will be on Classical mythological themes.

It seems Homer is everywhere these days. But really, has he ever gone away?

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IMAGE: Matt Damon tempted by the Sirens in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”

(Actually “Ulysses and the Sirens,” 1909, by Herbert James Draper)