A review by sergeus
The Odyssey by Homer
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
You learn a few very specific things during The Odyssey:
- Odysseus is the son of Laertes
- Dawn has rose red fingers and a golden throne
- The sea is dark and the color of wine
- If you're going to trust anyone, trust the herder of your swine
It's tough to "review" a story like The Odyssey. It's a tale that has survived almost 3,000 years, so you read it differently to one that was released last week, or even last century.
I was surprised that (I guess spoilers) Odysseus actually gets back to Ithaca around half way through the book. Given the name of this book has become lowercase-o odyssey to mean a gauntlet of difficult challenges, I'd expected that to be the majority of it. But actually a lot of it is dealing with the fallout of the state of Ithaca when left without Odysseus's rule.
That's not to say there isn't some great adventuring - slaying of cyclopses and trips to the land of the dead. It was great to see the real story to go with Captain Flint's (Black Sails) monologue about oars and shovels. Ian McKellen does a fantastic job as the narrator.
The customs of the people involved are notably different to ours and can be at times confusing. The language, even translated, can be dense to parse for a modern reader. Still, overall this is a worthwhile read for the place it occupies in literary history.
- Odysseus is the son of Laertes
- Dawn has rose red fingers and a golden throne
- The sea is dark and the color of wine
- If you're going to trust anyone, trust the herder of your swine
It's tough to "review" a story like The Odyssey. It's a tale that has survived almost 3,000 years, so you read it differently to one that was released last week, or even last century.
I was surprised that (I guess spoilers) Odysseus actually gets back to Ithaca around half way through the book. Given the name of this book has become lowercase-o odyssey to mean a gauntlet of difficult challenges, I'd expected that to be the majority of it. But actually a lot of it is dealing with the fallout of the state of Ithaca when left without Odysseus's rule.
That's not to say there isn't some great adventuring - slaying of cyclopses and trips to the land of the dead. It was great to see the real story to go with Captain Flint's (Black Sails) monologue about oars and shovels. Ian McKellen does a fantastic job as the narrator.
The customs of the people involved are notably different to ours and can be at times confusing. The language, even translated, can be dense to parse for a modern reader. Still, overall this is a worthwhile read for the place it occupies in literary history.