Classics Challenge - The Odyssey

So I just wrote a whole post about my experience reading The Odyssey only to get to the end and realize I didn't really talk about the actual poem at all. So that's this post's job.

It's not an easy job. I normally love talking about books and putting up my Back the the Classics mini-reviews. But it does feel a tad ridiculous at times when the book your are talking about is such a classic - like when I read a Shakespeare play or this poem and say "yep, it's good." The idea that my opinion of the quality of a piece of literature that has stood the test of time this long just makes me laugh. So I won't "review" it but I will talk about what I found surprising.

- The pacing was so different from what I expected! I knew some of the basics going in but it takes a while to even meet Odysseus. Then once we do, he gets home surprisingly quickly (in terms of pages of the book, not chronology of the poem!), then it slows down again. I actually loved this. I'm sure there were lots of deep reasons for it all and I will ponder that for a while but I just find it enjoyable when a book surprises me and I get to the point in the story where I'm expecting it to end but I know it can't because I'm holding it in my hand and I see there are more pages. It's a thrill. Like pulling up grubs in a cucumber patch!*

- The references to greek stuff that I'm starting to get because of my other readings. Understanding things that I know I wouldn't have recognized is another thrill. So anytime a name popped up that I recognized (mostly from the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths I read the kids last summer and the Age of Fable Lucy and I are reading now), I got pretty excited. Don't get me wrong, I got lost a lot and tried not to get too bogged down with exactly who all the individuals were but I was also pretty surprised at how often I  recognized a name!

- How the repetion of certain phrases starts to stick in your brain. I read the Fagles version because I happened to find it on our library's free shelf (and tried to read it but gave up before trying again this spring - hence putting this one in my Abandoned Classic catagory) but I've heard really good things about Emily Wilson's translations and I'd like to try my hand at that one but I've heard that she doesn't use the same phrases over and over again as much as other translations and I think I would find that sad. Those repetative ones are the parts that stick. I was reading something that suddenly had the word Dawn and immedietely my mind when to "rose red fingers" and it made me smile. Smiling over poetry, me? Who knew!

*catch the reference? Anyone?

The Odyssey is my Back to the Classic Challenge - Abandoned Classic selection.