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A review by spenkevich
The Odyssey by Homer
4.0
When you stop and think about it, much of classic literature is about how getting on a boat is a bad idea. This book is a litany on why boating is a bad idea. You can say it at least worked out for Odysseus but did it? Did it really? If that dude isn’t haunted by the screams of his crew forever it’s just because the horrors of having been on a boat are overriding it. The whole war could have been avoided if Helen had just stayed off one boat. So if you ever find yourself as a character in a novel (you’ll know by the sweet smell of freshly printed pages on the breeze) I beg you DO NOT GET ON A BOAT. You won’t get that ‘one fine day…’ on a boat Gatsby is hoping for in the famous line about the futility of boats (among other things). Look at Moby Dick—bet the crew of the Pequad were all wishing they stayed on land right before the whale drowned all their asses. You know what isn’t trying to drown you? Land. Ahab might have been a cool baker or candlestick maker but boats led him astray. More like Moby DEAD amirite?
The danger of literary boats is real, my friends, Poe’s only novel was about just that. Heart of Darkness? More like Boats are the Heart of the Problem. Look what happened to that old man in the sea, almost starved! 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was like but what if we go UNDER the water surely that’ll work out great? Wrong. Jim Hawkins and Robinson Curuso could have avoided all sorts of trouble if they stayed off boats. That movie with Jeff Bridges and his school boat was all fun and games until Ryan Phillippe ended up super dead. And watch out for Theseus’ ship, we don’t know if it even counts as the same ship! Boats are tricky like that. Ask the orcas, they know what’s up.
Now in sci fi, spaceships are basically just space boats. And look what happened to Paul Atreides when he took that space boat to Arrakis: literally fucking space genocide. Nobody wants that. Hell, the Death Star is just a really really big genocide boat and that ended poorly for everyone. 2001 A Space Odyssey has a space boat out for murder and blaming the crew.
So watch out for boats, ye land lubbers. Leave the pirating to me.
The danger of literary boats is real, my friends, Poe’s only novel was about just that. Heart of Darkness? More like Boats are the Heart of the Problem. Look what happened to that old man in the sea, almost starved! 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was like but what if we go UNDER the water surely that’ll work out great? Wrong. Jim Hawkins and Robinson Curuso could have avoided all sorts of trouble if they stayed off boats. That movie with Jeff Bridges and his school boat was all fun and games until Ryan Phillippe ended up super dead. And watch out for Theseus’ ship, we don’t know if it even counts as the same ship! Boats are tricky like that. Ask the orcas, they know what’s up.
Now in sci fi, spaceships are basically just space boats. And look what happened to Paul Atreides when he took that space boat to Arrakis: literally fucking space genocide. Nobody wants that. Hell, the Death Star is just a really really big genocide boat and that ended poorly for everyone. 2001 A Space Odyssey has a space boat out for murder and blaming the crew.
So watch out for boats, ye land lubbers. Leave the pirating to me.