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adventurous
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I don’t know you stranger, but you are so hot, and you speak so well. For that reason, I assume that you are rich and therefore a great person. Let’s order the slaves to prepare a feast. We will drink wine, eat bread/meat, make sacrifices to the gods, and then we will take turns talking for like 5 minutes each. Also, please marry my daughter.
I started reading after the announcement of the Nolan adaptation, the story is not told in chronological order so I understand why he likes it. They basically tell you exactly what is going to happen way before it happens, so there’s no narrative tension.
I had some personal history with the book. We studied it in primary school and a few students did a reading in front of the parents (we didn’t have proper plays, I don’t think our public schools had enough money for that). Anyway, at the end of the chapter about the cyclops the kid who was playing Ulysses said “I am not Ulysses, I am nobody” instead of the other way around. I never felt such second hand embarrassment. I have also watched the Simpsons parody a long time ago. And I’ve seen the film Troy, though I don’t like it.
En una había una mina estaba lavando ropa en un río con sus esclavas, y sale Odiseo del bosque desnudo y le dice que nunca había visto algo tan hermoso como ella, excepto por una palmera que vió una vez.
I’m so tired of these people eating a bunch of meat before having the slightest conversation.
There are a lot of strange things about the book. I like that the men are allowed to cry. I like the repetition in the writing as it gets easier to read. The morals of these people are completely different from ours. Being good-looking means you are rich and being rich means you are a good person. Opulence everywhere. They care more about their possessions than their servants and it’s totally OK to enslave entire populations. It is very capitalist. They say horrible shit about women and about slaves.
The book is actually praised for depicting domestic life and having lots of unprivileged main characters. Most of the women sucks, but Athena basically does everything. Most of the time she is disguised as an old man, and I wonder how filmmakers handled that for the adaptations. I like the scenes where she photoshops men to make them taller and broader, so that they get invited into parties and such.
The first half of the book is really fun, especially the adventures of Odysseus while he still had his old crew. The mermaid adventure is only like 3 paragraphs long, it is jam-packed. However, the narrative comes to a screeching halt once he arrives on his island. IDK why he keeps lying to people for no reason. The fake backstories are super boring to read.
I also think it's hilarious how they always interrupt the story to go on pointless tangents. They name a character and they say "oh btw he's the son of X who one time did X and he got the sword from X." And I love those animal metaphors ("like a lioness that comes back and all the babies got killed" or something).
Read on the 17th of April, 2025
Spanish translation by Luis Segalá y Estalella
I started reading after the announcement of the Nolan adaptation, the story is not told in chronological order so I understand why he likes it. They basically tell you exactly what is going to happen way before it happens, so there’s no narrative tension.
I had some personal history with the book. We studied it in primary school and a few students did a reading in front of the parents (we didn’t have proper plays, I don’t think our public schools had enough money for that). Anyway, at the end of the chapter about the cyclops the kid who was playing Ulysses said “I am not Ulysses, I am nobody” instead of the other way around. I never felt such second hand embarrassment. I have also watched the Simpsons parody a long time ago. And I’ve seen the film Troy, though I don’t like it.
En una había una mina estaba lavando ropa en un río con sus esclavas, y sale Odiseo del bosque desnudo y le dice que nunca había visto algo tan hermoso como ella, excepto por una palmera que vió una vez.
I’m so tired of these people eating a bunch of meat before having the slightest conversation.
There are a lot of strange things about the book. I like that the men are allowed to cry. I like the repetition in the writing as it gets easier to read. The morals of these people are completely different from ours. Being good-looking means you are rich and being rich means you are a good person. Opulence everywhere. They care more about their possessions than their servants and it’s totally OK to enslave entire populations. It is very capitalist. They say horrible shit about women and about slaves.
The book is actually praised for depicting domestic life and having lots of unprivileged main characters. Most of the women sucks, but Athena basically does everything. Most of the time she is disguised as an old man, and I wonder how filmmakers handled that for the adaptations. I like the scenes where she photoshops men to make them taller and broader, so that they get invited into parties and such.
The first half of the book is really fun, especially the adventures of Odysseus while he still had his old crew. The mermaid adventure is only like 3 paragraphs long, it is jam-packed. However, the narrative comes to a screeching halt once he arrives on his island. IDK why he keeps lying to people for no reason. The fake backstories are super boring to read.
I also think it's hilarious how they always interrupt the story to go on pointless tangents. They name a character and they say "oh btw he's the son of X who one time did X and he got the sword from X." And I love those animal metaphors ("like a lioness that comes back and all the babies got killed" or something).
Read on the 17th of April, 2025
Spanish translation by Luis Segalá y Estalella
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the iliads boring brother
dates are literally just a guess all i know is i read it freshman year
Haven't read since it was assigned in high school, and it holds up well. (Yes, after about 3000 years, another 20 doesn't age it much.) Mandelbaum's translation is nicely done; smooth-reading whlie still rhythmic and beautiful simply in the language itself. I had forgotten that nearly half is cleaning up at the end of the journey. Also amusing: all the iconic scenes are told in flashback by Odysseus, who, "man of many wiles," then proceeds to lie through his teeth about who he is and where he's been for pretty much the rest of the book. Entirely possible he just shacked up with Calypso until he got bored, then sailed home. The framing is brilliantly done — we get the concern on the homefront first so we care about this guy hauling himself across the seas.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is, of course, a classic—one of the pieces of literature that is most emblematic of that term. And it is so with good reason: Odysseus is an excellent hero, who overcomes so much with determination and human ingenuity, and his story ultimately moves on some of the deepest human bonds we have.
Wilson's translation is quite interesting, and I'm conflicted over whether or not I think it's the best interpretation of this text. While I am not a translation scholar, I do know a thing or two about poetics, and my concerns with this translation are, essentially, how it works as a poem. The idea to do it in iambic pentameter (though why not in alexandrines, I wonder) seemed to me a brilliant idea, and a way to be truthful to the epic poesis of the original.
That said, I think it may have been too restricted, and when the language is stale, this feels especially so. I believe I saw Wilson comment that our perceptions of the 'epicness' of the Odyssey is a fabrication of its translators, that Homer's version would have been written in a language contemporary to his time. While I find this somewhat compelling, I also must believe that Homer had a strong grasp of the poetic craft. There are some moments in this translation that are, unfortunately, ugly or unaesthetic, that do not feel like poetry whatsoever, something especially confusing considering the attention to detail Wilson paid in making the text metrical, a key aspect of traditional, formal poetry. Sometime soon I'm going to read her translation of The Iliar, a text I am less familiar with, and it will be interesting how the two compare. While I have some problems with this translation as a work of poetry, I'm glad that it offers unique aspects to the story in another sense. For those who have read other translations, I think this illuminates something in the text that others' lack (though the same could be said of others in relation to Wilson's).
Wilson's translation is quite interesting, and I'm conflicted over whether or not I think it's the best interpretation of this text. While I am not a translation scholar, I do know a thing or two about poetics, and my concerns with this translation are, essentially, how it works as a poem. The idea to do it in iambic pentameter (though why not in alexandrines, I wonder) seemed to me a brilliant idea, and a way to be truthful to the epic poesis of the original.
That said, I think it may have been too restricted, and when the language is stale, this feels especially so. I believe I saw Wilson comment that our perceptions of the 'epicness' of the Odyssey is a fabrication of its translators, that Homer's version would have been written in a language contemporary to his time. While I find this somewhat compelling, I also must believe that Homer had a strong grasp of the poetic craft. There are some moments in this translation that are, unfortunately, ugly or unaesthetic, that do not feel like poetry whatsoever, something especially confusing considering the attention to detail Wilson paid in making the text metrical, a key aspect of traditional, formal poetry. Sometime soon I'm going to read her translation of The Iliar, a text I am less familiar with, and it will be interesting how the two compare. While I have some problems with this translation as a work of poetry, I'm glad that it offers unique aspects to the story in another sense. For those who have read other translations, I think this illuminates something in the text that others' lack (though the same could be said of others in relation to Wilson's).
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced