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A review by millennial_dandy
The Odyssey by Homer
2.0
2.5 --> and the .5 is only because Dan Stevens was such a good narrator.
I don't have much to say about this reading experience, honestly. 'The Odyssey' is, of course, an epic classic, referenced in a million different things, and adapted into a million different plays and films and picture books. It's one of those foundation texts that any reader worth their salt should have under their belt--we all kind of get it.
This was an odyssey just to get through. I felt like it was I and not Odysseus who went on a 20 year journey just to finish it.
Like many epics like it (Beowulf, the Iliad, etc.) the pacing of 'The Odyssey' is, by 21st century standars, abysmal. Even listening to it as an audiobook, which I thought would make it more lively, every section dragged. And I'm not talking about the asides and little side stories; those were honestly some of the most interesting sections--I'm talking about everything else. None of the characters except maybe Odysseus's son, Telemachus, felt sufficiently fleshed out enough for me to care about them; they were just names on a page.
The timeline was a mess, and then the ending just kind of...happens.
All of the iconic episodes (the cyclops, the sirens, the Circe episode) are practically footnotes, and the bulk of the text is taken up with everyone building Odysseus up as the most amazing person who ever lived. And I hated him. I like a good arrogant character, but they have to be charming. I get hit over the head by other characters claiming Odysseus is this charming, charismatic person, but nothing that he ever does feels that way.
He just sort of wanders around for 20 years, completely at the whim of the gods, and gets told how clever he is and what a great warrior he is by everyone. And then he does something we're told is clever and pulls out some heroic feat and then moves on to the next location.
Achilles, of the Iliad, is a super arrogant character as well, but he has charisma and his motivations, while not always commendable, are at least interesting. And those faults are actually commented on in the story, and critiqued, and discussed. But Odysseus just moseys around without any criticism whatsoever. Thanks, I hate it.
'Other lands, other customs' as the Germans would say, but even so, I have a hard time imagining the Greeks justifying some of this guy's utter skeeviness, and some of it must surely trancend cultural acceptability.
A word with Homer, please.
I don't have much to say about this reading experience, honestly. 'The Odyssey' is, of course, an epic classic, referenced in a million different things, and adapted into a million different plays and films and picture books. It's one of those foundation texts that any reader worth their salt should have under their belt--we all kind of get it.
This was an odyssey just to get through. I felt like it was I and not Odysseus who went on a 20 year journey just to finish it.
Like many epics like it (Beowulf, the Iliad, etc.) the pacing of 'The Odyssey' is, by 21st century standars, abysmal. Even listening to it as an audiobook, which I thought would make it more lively, every section dragged. And I'm not talking about the asides and little side stories; those were honestly some of the most interesting sections--I'm talking about everything else. None of the characters except maybe Odysseus's son, Telemachus, felt sufficiently fleshed out enough for me to care about them; they were just names on a page.
The timeline was a mess, and then the ending just kind of...happens.
All of the iconic episodes (the cyclops, the sirens, the Circe episode) are practically footnotes, and the bulk of the text is taken up with everyone building Odysseus up as the most amazing person who ever lived. And I hated him. I like a good arrogant character, but they have to be charming. I get hit over the head by other characters claiming Odysseus is this charming, charismatic person, but nothing that he ever does feels that way.
He just sort of wanders around for 20 years, completely at the whim of the gods, and gets told how clever he is and what a great warrior he is by everyone. And then he does something we're told is clever and pulls out some heroic feat and then moves on to the next location.
Achilles, of the Iliad, is a super arrogant character as well, but he has charisma and his motivations, while not always commendable, are at least interesting. And those faults are actually commented on in the story, and critiqued, and discussed. But Odysseus just moseys around without any criticism whatsoever. Thanks, I hate it.
'Other lands, other customs' as the Germans would say, but even so, I have a hard time imagining the Greeks justifying some of this guy's utter skeeviness, and some of it must surely trancend cultural acceptability.
A word with Homer, please.