Travels With Odysseus
by Charlotte Reads Classics
There is no man living – there never will be – who could come in enmity to the Phaeacian land; we are loved too well by the immortals. We live apart, with the billowing sea all round us; we live at the world’s edge.
I can’t get over how different this was to what I was expecting. It is readable, for a start! I think formatting The Odyssey for today’s audience as prose rather than a poem helped a great deal – thanks very much, Oxford World’s Classics. When I originally signed up to read on Bloomsday all those months ago my plan was to read The Odyssey beforehand so I’d be ready for Ulysses. This didn’t happen as I’ve been totally sidetracked by my war books, but it seemed only right to read The Odyssey now because I have been looking into it so much for Ulysses. I didn’t do any more research whilst reading though because I just felt like enjoying the story. I think you can read the book on a lot of different levels – if I had done loads of research into every unfamiliar name and myth I’d have finished The Odyssey knowing so much more than when I started. BUT the story is such an iconic tale that is still recycled in so many plots today that I enjoyed it on this basic level without doing more than the briefest of research.
The Odyssey has everything – love, jealousy, family, home sickness, adventuring, journeys, gods and goddesses, battles, friendship, kings and beggars, hidden identities, disguises and tricks. Odysseus is a great main character, a mix of warrior king and Everyman. He makes some pretty questionable decisions, but his crew don’t always listen to him. The other part of the book I particularly enjoyed was the way the Gods were always meddling with human affairs. All the human characters were permanently questioning what was the luck of the Gods and who was worthy of favour.
All in all I’d recommend this, I was pleasantly surprised.
Then of a sudden the wind dropped and everything became hushed and still, because some divinity lulled the waters.
Charlotte Reads Classics 
You make me excited to read this one! I also want to read it before Ulysses. 🙂
Brilliant! I’d definitely recommend it before Ulysses, it added so much to my understanding.
I read this in school, and the required translation was in the poem format, but it still read easily. (It was a recent translation.) Unfortunately, I remember almost nothing of the story–and shall certainly be rereading it one of these days.
I think for me even just seeing it in the form of a poem would put me off! I feel like I should try to overcome this at some point :s !
How great to read the classics again! I agree that they have a bit of everything to offer.
I want at some point to read the original, but that will not be in the near future…
Yes I really enjoyed how much variety there was in it, and it was fun to read and pick out all the references that are used in books and films today.
What a book journey, thanks for sharing it all and inspiring us to venture forth too.
Thanks Claire, although I must confess I’m looking forward to doing some comfort reads next!
Not surprised, you so deserve that as a reward! 🙂
I do want to read The Odyssey but just find it so daunting!
I was expecting it to be much more daunting than it actually was – it was really readable once I started looking at it as the ultimate adventure story!