Screenshot from my Kindle for Mac
Welcome to my first edition of This Week(ish) in Books: Reader’s Choice! I read this book at the request of subscriber Cassie Seiple. If you want to tell me something to read and review (plus get original crafting patterns and mental health essays), sign up for a paid subscription - just $5/month or $50/year.
Thanks so much for reading!
The Odyssey, by Homer (probably), translated by Emily Wilson (ebook):
When Cassie requested this for her Reader’s Choice, I was surprised and excited because it’s completely out of my usual wheelhouse. Plus I’ve been reading good stuff about this translation since it was published in 2017, and one way to get me to read epic poetry is to have it interpreted by someone other than an old white guy.
If you don’t know the general story of The Odyssey, I’ll time travel back to eighth grade for a minute and channel the English teacher who always just made us read the fun stuff and summarized the rest for us (the only way I got through Great Expectations was her imitation of Miss Havisham) (you’re the best, Mrs. L!):
Rich Greek dude leaves his wife and new son to go fight the Trojans. Rich dude becomes a war hero but gets hella lost on his way back home; while he’s fighting monsters and negotiating with gods and trying to keep his crew from pissing off entities that will eat them (not very successfully), his now-grown son and wife are trying to fend off the freeloading other rich dudes in town who are trying to get his wife to marry them because it’s been like twenty years and they want that sweet-ass throne. Then the original rich Greek dude finally gets home, disguises himself, and with the help of his son kills all the suitors and gets his life back. A literal hero’s journey.
And I really enjoyed it. I started this like a homework assignment, but Watson pulled me in with her clarity of language. She puts the story itself first, and her translation shows the details without getting in the way, which highlights the timelessness of stuff like poking a Cyclops in the eye so you and your boys can escape strapped underneath his favorite sheep. I mean, fighting one’s way out of difficult circumstances and the importance of home. Ahem.
But seriously, scraping all the unnecessary pomp off a translation of a Greek classic makes it accessible to a much bigger audience. A good story is a good story, and the tendency to use fancier language for older things just to make them seem more important kind of does the opposite for learning any sort of truth about the very foundations of art.
Watson does a great job explaining this in her introduction. She says she kept the lines in iambic pentameter, which, I’ll have to take her word on that because I’m not super schooled on the technical bits of poetry. But I did see and enjoy the variations she mentioned about the repetitive wording that’s in the original language. Those are in there because it was an oral performance piece for the longest time, so both the audience and performer needed them as sort of aural bookmarks. Watson gets around this by mixing up the adjectives each time - my favorite were her variations on “rosey-fingered Dawn,” which has always made me smile as an image anyway. I picture the Teletubies baby sun with a hipster flower crown and an adorable giggling laugh coming over the horizon, which makes me happy in ways that probably have to do with the fact that I tend to wear neutrals too much and my ovaries are past the age of 30.
ANYWAY. “Wine-dark sea” is another good one, made better by the fact that I read somewhere that in Homer’s time, they didn’t have a word for blue, and honestly, even if that’s not true I love how it influences the coloring of the water in this, because the ocean is actually blue like maybe 1% of the time, and these descriptions suit its true tumultuous nature better, I think.
And the intro is really helpful, too. It’s actually a much longer slog than the text itself, but worth it - it goes into the history and origins of The Odyssey, the probable geography, and the culture that informed the details of the story. That last part is especially helpful, since if you don’t know about the importance of hospitality and its etiquette for the ancient Greeks, you will spend too much of the story asking yourself, “Why is that rich guy so mad about that beggar’s chair situation, anyway?” And trust me, if a god lets you crash on his land but says, “Hey, don’t touch those cows or eat them or anything, cool?” you say “cool” and you STAY cool or he will smite you.
So this is a good read. I kind of hate how it was marketed, because although it’s being celebrated as an innovative translation (with good cause), it’s not being like touted outside classics circles, or those who are just into this kind of literature in the first place. I don’t know if they’ll appreciate its accessibility enough, whereas a kid who has to read The Odyssey for school would probably be pleasantly surprised at how easy it ends up being to understand and appreciate.
Reader’s Advisory: If you are into historical fiction or hard fantasy that are slightly more reliant on plot than character and you’re tired of your usual fair, go for this. It brings a classic into modern talk without losing any of its original meaning, plus there are sentient whirlpools and jealous gods. And when Odysseus gets back and is all disguised his dog still recognizes him and it made my reading day.
YEA! Wonderful service, constant reader. This is hilarious timing because I finally had a scrap of attention span last night to start reading it. I used to teach the Odyssey to middle schoolers. I loved it for some reason, despite the suitor and slave slaughtering...the trying to remember home. I finally watched Booksmart (did you mention that movie too, I think it was you) and started screaming part way through “THIS IS THE ODYSSEY, THE RICH STUDENT IS ATHENA, THEY ARE ODYSSEUS!” Thank you for a perfect take. I’ll go back and read more than the first and last pages of the introduction now. XO