I'll admit that I was one of those reader who initially disliked Wilson's use of the word "complicated," wishing for something more poetic. But after reading her explanations for that choice, I'm more sympathetic to her decision.
I’m on the fence about this. I’m about to get out my Fagels and read some for comparison. I did the read-along of the new translation of The Betrothed and in the end found I preferred the previous 50-year-old translation by quite a lot. I’m one of those, I guess, for whom not everything needs to be updated and modernized.
Having read the Wilson translation before, I am istening to Clare Danes read Wilson's translation on Audible. Includes her reading of Wilson's introduction. Well worth your time imo.
I just had time to read Book 1 today, and was immediately caught and pulled in by that phrase 'complicated man'. I am thoroughly enjoying reading this, chuckling at the suitors playing checkers, charmed by Telemachus seeking to make the 'stranger' comfortable and demonstrate he's been 'well brought up' by his mother even with his father's long absence.
Oooh that sounds so good! Before I broke up with Amazon for all things books, I listened to Anna Karenina with Maggie Gyllenhaal on Audible, which you might like as well--it's excellent
In a New Yorker article, Daniel Mendelsohn neatly summarizes Aeschylus' other side of the story and alternate version of Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus' murder of Agamemnon and (Aeschylus' addition) his Trojan concubine Cassandra. Aeschylus' fiddling with the plot has always for me been one of the most arresting and gripping episodes in Greek mythology, even alluded to by the great Lucretius some 500 years later as a cautionary tale about religious fanaticism. (I link the article to provide access to Mendelsohn's summary.)
"Three centuries later, Clytemnestra took center stage—literally. In the first part of the Oresteia (458 B.C.), a trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus, the queen fulsomely welcomes her husband home from Troy; then she lures him into a bathtub and hacks him and his Trojan concubine to death. Unlike Homer, Aeschylus gave Clytemnestra a powerful motivation for her treachery. At the beginning of the play, the chorus recalls how, at the outset of the Trojan War, Agamemnon sacrificed his and Clytemnestra’s daughter Iphigenia, in order to propitiate an angry god and win fair winds for his fleet to sail to Troy."
I would strongly recommend Daniel Mendelsohn's book, "A Father, A Son, and An Epic." His father attends Mendelsohn's class on The Odyssey at Bard College. The book intertwines the class content and Mendelsohn's interactions (and issues, of course) with his father. I think I will reread it after finishing the poem.
I saw the Michael Cacoyannis film "Iphigenia" at an art house theater in Boston in the 1980s. Irene Pappas played Clytemnestra. It appears to be available on various platforms for streaming - I highly recommend!
Reading, I hear a voice in my mind's ear and the familiar words recast go straight through me. It may make most everything else I'm reading now sound thin by comparison.
But no statement could be further from the truth. The Iliad and the Odyssey were the wellspring of Ancient Greek civilization and those poems alongside the Bible but for causes of European civilization and the same is true of the Quran and vast parts of the world today. Our myths and religious texts, poetry in a broad sense, are responsible for the way things are.
I think the 1.book already teaches us how socioeconomic/religious tendencies/ powers delimit the autonomy of 'poetry'. Kind of a meta reflection on the role of art.
I just read Octavio Paz’s Labyrinth of Solitude. And am currently reading Paul Fussell’s book on memories of WWI. Both are filled with the influence of poetry on how those societies viewed the past. It’s always interesting so see how poetry is more central to the culture zeitgeist than the US. I understand that Homer term poets is a general stand in for a whole range of arts. But taking the term narrowly, poetry doesn’t have the impact in the US it does in other places.
The intermingling of gods and mortals, as when Athena came to Telemachus, intrigues me.
I'm reading the Wilson and Fagle in parallel. Occasionally I read some aloud and what a difference that makes in my perception of the story. Wilson has some really useful appendices and I enjoyed her introduction.
It is all those moments that bring it to full life! It is too easy for this adventure, this tall tale, to be treated only as great literature or poetry. Yet Homer told it as entertainment. When I took a reading and discussion class to read Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, over a 9 month period, the leader started us off by saying something important: you can and should read it just a a novel, a story. Read this as an adventure tale.
I admire the crispness of this translation. For me, this increases the tension and makes the verbs have more power. At the start of Book 1, the demand was not just to “tell the old story for our modern times.,” it was also the ever impossible, “Find the beginning.”
I was struck by the repeated statement that Odysseus had no friends -- which I think meant no political allies. Nice that Athena stepped into the breach.
Question: I skipped the introduction, figuring I would approach the poem fresh and read it afterward. Any reason to read it first?
I am very anti Introductions, since most are spoilery and I don't want to be influenced. But for books I've read before, or know what happens, like this one, I'll risk it. I've started this one, and will continue. The stark difference of Wilson's first line compared to others makes me want to know why she made that decision!
The introduction is worth the price of admission. Almost book length itself. It will help you get the most out of the Odyssey, which is not just a story or a poem.
I didn't have time to read the introduction in advance and tend to wait until the end to avoid spoilers. But here, I will likely dip into it as I go along. I read this in college, have dipped into at times since, spent a lot of time seeing theater productions of the Greek plays and opera adaptations as well. Then there are the retellings - such as Madeline Miller's Circe where Odysseus is not portrayed too honorably - is a bad boy and rascal so to speak - someone no woman should trust. No way can this intro be a spoiler!
"Find the beginning"--line 11. I love how that reads next to Dylan Thomas's "To begin at the beginning" (Under Milk Wood, opening line). One feels like an exhortation; the other, decision-making.
But does even a goddess find it? The precrding exortation is also defining where to find it: "tell the old story for our modern times." Thus the beginning is to be found in modern times - what and how the old story is to be tweaked to meet modern needs.
Which of course is exactly what any new translation does.
APS readers, it's so good to hear from you again and read alongside you; I've missed you!
"Now goddess, child of Zeus,
tell the old story for our modern times.
Find the beginning."
I feel this is Wilson, channeling both Athena and Homer, their voices and choices intermingled. As a scholar she is a child of Athena. As a person, she is a child of a complicated man, the writer A.N.Wilson.
In one of our APS reads, The Posthumous Memoirs..., the translator said in our final session that there must always be new translations, that each generation needs a new one.
I am so excited to embark on this journey, this first translation into English by a woman translator. I'm making my way through the Introduction, though I usually avoid them, and am already impressed, and trusting Wilson as our guide--to the underworld and back!
I'll admit that I was one of those reader who initially disliked Wilson's use of the word "complicated," wishing for something more poetic. But after reading her explanations for that choice, I'm more sympathetic to her decision.
I’m on the fence about this. I’m about to get out my Fagels and read some for comparison. I did the read-along of the new translation of The Betrothed and in the end found I preferred the previous 50-year-old translation by quite a lot. I’m one of those, I guess, for whom not everything needs to be updated and modernized.
Hi
Is there a list of reading assignments somewhere? Thanks
Yes! Here: https://apstogether.substack.com/i/154077935/daily-reading
Thanks! I see it now!
Hi Janice! And, thank you, Jennifer. You can also find the reading list on our website in the APST section.
Thanks! Now I have it.
Having read the Wilson translation before, I am istening to Clare Danes read Wilson's translation on Audible. Includes her reading of Wilson's introduction. Well worth your time imo.
Will check that out, thanks. Was this text shared orally in Homer's day? It seems to beg to be read aloud.
Me to!
me too. I like her delivery. She is the everywoman. nothing highbrow here.
I just had time to read Book 1 today, and was immediately caught and pulled in by that phrase 'complicated man'. I am thoroughly enjoying reading this, chuckling at the suitors playing checkers, charmed by Telemachus seeking to make the 'stranger' comfortable and demonstrate he's been 'well brought up' by his mother even with his father's long absence.
What line are the suitors playing checkers? I missed that!
Oooh that sounds so good! Before I broke up with Amazon for all things books, I listened to Anna Karenina with Maggie Gyllenhaal on Audible, which you might like as well--it's excellent
Big MG fan here. I'll listen. Thx
I like Emily Wilson's first line best.
In a New Yorker article, Daniel Mendelsohn neatly summarizes Aeschylus' other side of the story and alternate version of Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus' murder of Agamemnon and (Aeschylus' addition) his Trojan concubine Cassandra. Aeschylus' fiddling with the plot has always for me been one of the most arresting and gripping episodes in Greek mythology, even alluded to by the great Lucretius some 500 years later as a cautionary tale about religious fanaticism. (I link the article to provide access to Mendelsohn's summary.)
"Three centuries later, Clytemnestra took center stage—literally. In the first part of the Oresteia (458 B.C.), a trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus, the queen fulsomely welcomes her husband home from Troy; then she lures him into a bathtub and hacks him and his Trojan concubine to death. Unlike Homer, Aeschylus gave Clytemnestra a powerful motivation for her treachery. At the beginning of the play, the chorus recalls how, at the outset of the Trojan War, Agamemnon sacrificed his and Clytemnestra’s daughter Iphigenia, in order to propitiate an angry god and win fair winds for his fleet to sail to Troy."
Novelizing Greek Mythhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/novelizing-greek-myth
Thanks for the source!
I would strongly recommend Daniel Mendelsohn's book, "A Father, A Son, and An Epic." His father attends Mendelsohn's class on The Odyssey at Bard College. The book intertwines the class content and Mendelsohn's interactions (and issues, of course) with his father. I think I will reread it after finishing the poem.
I reread the book too
This sounds like a book my mum would love - thank you!
I saw the Michael Cacoyannis film "Iphigenia" at an art house theater in Boston in the 1980s. Irene Pappas played Clytemnestra. It appears to be available on various platforms for streaming - I highly recommend!
I’m just now reading “Swerve,” Greenblatt’s book about the rediscovery of Lucretius during the Renaissance.
Yes! If you want a prime example of poets being responsible for the way things are--Lucretius.
De rerum natura, indeed!
Thanks for posting this - I knew I had heard a different version of this story, but I hadn’t tracked it down!
Reading, I hear a voice in my mind's ear and the familiar words recast go straight through me. It may make most everything else I'm reading now sound thin by comparison.
I felt the same!
I love the contagion/transfer of power around line 320:
“Watching her go, he was amazed and saw / she was a god. Then godlike, he went off / to meet the suitors.”
I love these lines, too. His perceiving her godliness fills him with purpose...you can feel the anticipation build by the end of that passage.
“Poets are not to blame for how things are” gives me great pleasure.
I love this line, too!
But no statement could be further from the truth. The Iliad and the Odyssey were the wellspring of Ancient Greek civilization and those poems alongside the Bible but for causes of European civilization and the same is true of the Quran and vast parts of the world today. Our myths and religious texts, poetry in a broad sense, are responsible for the way things are.
I think the 1.book already teaches us how socioeconomic/religious tendencies/ powers delimit the autonomy of 'poetry'. Kind of a meta reflection on the role of art.
The poets are always to blame for how things are if by "how" you mean "how" and if by "are" you mean "are."
I just read Octavio Paz’s Labyrinth of Solitude. And am currently reading Paul Fussell’s book on memories of WWI. Both are filled with the influence of poetry on how those societies viewed the past. It’s always interesting so see how poetry is more central to the culture zeitgeist than the US. I understand that Homer term poets is a general stand in for a whole range of arts. But taking the term narrowly, poetry doesn’t have the impact in the US it does in other places.
Zeus is!
The intermingling of gods and mortals, as when Athena came to Telemachus, intrigues me.
I'm reading the Wilson and Fagle in parallel. Occasionally I read some aloud and what a difference that makes in my perception of the story. Wilson has some really useful appendices and I enjoyed her introduction.
I have a read aloud group here in Australia. We read The Odyssey together. We all had different translations. It was great fun.
I live in Ithaca NY, but was born and raised in Germany.. will be reading with 'leaving home, coming home' in mind.
The gods "took pity," but one is indignant: "This is absurd, that mortals blame the gods!" I love the energy of this language.
It is all those moments that bring it to full life! It is too easy for this adventure, this tall tale, to be treated only as great literature or poetry. Yet Homer told it as entertainment. When I took a reading and discussion class to read Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, over a 9 month period, the leader started us off by saying something important: you can and should read it just a a novel, a story. Read this as an adventure tale.
I admire the crispness of this translation. For me, this increases the tension and makes the verbs have more power. At the start of Book 1, the demand was not just to “tell the old story for our modern times.,” it was also the ever impossible, “Find the beginning.”
I was struck by the repeated statement that Odysseus had no friends -- which I think meant no political allies. Nice that Athena stepped into the breach.
Question: I skipped the introduction, figuring I would approach the poem fresh and read it afterward. Any reason to read it first?
I am very anti Introductions, since most are spoilery and I don't want to be influenced. But for books I've read before, or know what happens, like this one, I'll risk it. I've started this one, and will continue. The stark difference of Wilson's first line compared to others makes me want to know why she made that decision!
The introduction is worth the price of admission. Almost book length itself. It will help you get the most out of the Odyssey, which is not just a story or a poem.
Thanks to both of you for your input. I will check out the intro. Hopefully, it is not too academic.
I didn't have time to read the introduction in advance and tend to wait until the end to avoid spoilers. But here, I will likely dip into it as I go along. I read this in college, have dipped into at times since, spent a lot of time seeing theater productions of the Greek plays and opera adaptations as well. Then there are the retellings - such as Madeline Miller's Circe where Odysseus is not portrayed too honorably - is a bad boy and rascal so to speak - someone no woman should trust. No way can this intro be a spoiler!
The first time I noticed there’s a coming-of-age story (Telemachus) inside this coming-home story.
Yes… we won’t see Odysseus for awhile!
same! It's been since high school since I read this and I doubt I ever noticed it the first go-round. so fascinating
"Find the beginning"--line 11. I love how that reads next to Dylan Thomas's "To begin at the beginning" (Under Milk Wood, opening line). One feels like an exhortation; the other, decision-making.
and I thought of TS Eliot's lines from East Coker (The Four Quartests) "In my beginning is my end.."
It read like exhortation, or a plea, to me. When and where does a story begin? We might need a goddess to find it.
But does even a goddess find it? The precrding exortation is also defining where to find it: "tell the old story for our modern times." Thus the beginning is to be found in modern times - what and how the old story is to be tweaked to meet modern needs.
Which of course is exactly what any new translation does.
'Find the beginning...' is so much better than 'Launch out on his story..' (from Fagles)
APS readers, it's so good to hear from you again and read alongside you; I've missed you!
"Now goddess, child of Zeus,
tell the old story for our modern times.
Find the beginning."
I feel this is Wilson, channeling both Athena and Homer, their voices and choices intermingled. As a scholar she is a child of Athena. As a person, she is a child of a complicated man, the writer A.N.Wilson.
In one of our APS reads, The Posthumous Memoirs..., the translator said in our final session that there must always be new translations, that each generation needs a new one.
I am so excited to embark on this journey, this first translation into English by a woman translator. I'm making my way through the Introduction, though I usually avoid them, and am already impressed, and trusting Wilson as our guide--to the underworld and back!
I was impressed by the introduction as well.
Polytropos. I love that word