first time i read odysseyI was sixteen years old. The fantastical creatures, alien cultures, and clever protagonist’s desperate search for home were all thrilling to me. I felt an uncanny kinship: with the characters, yes, but with the way the story was told, and what it seemed to be about. Although I didn’t know it at the time, many of my favorite books were based on Homer’s stories. I had read odyssey Several times since then, and I learn something new every time – about the world, about myself. Now that I’m about the same age as Odysseus was when he returned to Ithaca, I realize that the gravitational pull of this story has been this idea. nostosThe ancient Greek concept of homecoming.
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I’m not really from the same place as Odysseus. He is the son of a king, who is the son of a king, who is the son of a king and likewise the son of a small and stubborn island in the Ionian Sea. He may claim a home, and especially yearn for it. By the time I became an adult, I had lived in a dozen places. One thing I do know is that you can find metaphorical Lotus Eaters and Sirens and Phaeacians and Cyclops in all kinds of places.
As I traveled from place to place, I too was searching for clues about how to live, how to become a fully realized person, wherever I went. I was searching for my idea of home.
The first book I liked was D’Olleres book of Greek myths. These stories entrenched themselves in my understanding of what a story is – the pressure of beauty and danger on every side, bad behavior and heroism, the drive to make meaning out of the disembodied chaos of human existence. All this made sense to my young mind. Up to that point, my childhood was a mess; We lived in a commune, a van, a tent, an abandoned barracks, on the floor of a friend’s living room, and in my grandparents’ basement. It seemed as if there was immense beauty and danger lurking around every corner. I received this book as a gift when I was about four years old. My mother and I were living in an artists’ commune—my father was a poet who was always in and out of our lives—when his friend Michael presented me with the book. There, on the first page, is a picture of Cronus holding a baby in his mouth. In the picture, the faces of five small children are together in her stomach. The front page depicts a mother who is frightened and running away to hide her newborn child.
Shortly after giving me the book, Michael walked into the bedroom where my mother, my father, and I all slept. He entered inside with a knife in his hand. When he brought it down in a swinging arc, my father moved out of the way, pulling us off the bed with him. While we were crouching in the corner, Michael tore the bed into pieces. Then he ran out of the building. Everyone said they had a bad trip. Once I learned to read, those pictures took on more meaning, stories began to take shape, began to become something beyond my own experience, but the awe and allure of the pictures remained.
Since then I have continued to read Greek myths in various forms, but I read Homer first. odyssey In high school, using the Fitzgerald translation. I have a theory that most people will be loyal to the first odyssey They read the translation. I will always compare other renditions to Fitzgerald’s. My friend is biased towards Sylvie Latimore – like me she first read it as a teenager and so while new and wonderful translations are making their way into the world (Emily Wilson’s, Daniel Mendelssohn’s), we remain most comfortable with our first loves. At sixteen, much of the poem passed through my mind, but I was really struck by the teenage angst and confusion of Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. By then I had not seen my biological father for over a decade. Whenever we met anyone who knew him, this is what he said: “I’m a friend of your father, you know. He’s a brilliant, misunderstood genius. He’s a mystic. He’s special. He should be famous. I met him on the astral plane last week.” When Telemachus meets someone who knew his father, this is what they say: “As far as tactics are concerned, no man will claim Odysseus’s gifts for them. In tricks of war he had no rival, your father… Rare is the son who keeps pace with his father, and one in a thousand is a better man.”
i read it again odyssey Again in my twenties, Fagle’s translation. This time, I was mesmerized by the adventures of Odysseus. I spent most of my time traveling abroad – Central and South America, Spain, Morocco, London. As Odysseus wanders from place to place, exploring the foreign customs and attitudes of each, the story explores the concept of home, asking what kind of civilization is appropriate for an authentic human being. If iliad This story is about war, about finding glory in death, about making death meaningful odysseySo, it is a story about life, about survival, about making life meaningful. I also wanted a meaningful life. As I traveled from place to place, I too was searching for clues about how to live, how to become a fully realized person, wherever I went. I was searching for my idea of home.
This is what it means to me nostosHomecoming – It is the restoration of humanity, community and relationship after enduring hardship.
Once I became a wife and mother, it was Penelope’s struggle that gripped me. Then I read Emily Wilson’s translation. Her extraordinary introduction alone is worth the price of the book: “The poem focuses on what women may be capable of, and the extent to which their potential can or should be suppressed.” Penelope’s story is asking the same questions I was asking at the time: What makes a good marriage? In ancient Greek this word is homophrosin-A kind of similar ideology. In cunning, in stubbornness, in cunning, Penelope is the equal of Odysseus. How do you deal with your partner’s meanness, deception, wrong mentality? How do you navigate yourself? And how do you parent a growing son (especially when he’s taller than you)? Here is Wilson’s explicit translation of Telemachus’s famous insolence: “Talking is man’s work, especially mine. I am the master. It startled him.” I saw Penelope’s doubts, her convictions, and the distress the stress caused her.
Reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s brilliant new translation last year, firmly in my middle years, I became fascinated with what it takes to reconnect with your people, to show up, to finally drop the lies and masks and tricks and see who you really are. Odysseus must do this for his son, for his father, for his people, and ultimately for Penelope, otherwise she will not accept him into her home. In Mendelssohn’s translation, Penelope’s objections and prudence are clear: “But if it is really true that he is Odysseus and has come home, we will both be able to recognize each other with greater confidence, because we have signs that we both know, kept secret from other people.” When he takes his revenge by disguising himself as a beggar, it is barbaric. This is horrifying. I want to look the other way every time. In the end, Penelope is the one with the power to do it Identify That, or not. This is what it means to me nostosHomecoming – It is the restoration of humanity, community and relationship after enduring hardship.
my novel, Egan and Lucien’s shared life, Set on an island off the coast of Maine. This is the story of identical twin brothers. One of them goes and one stays, as is often the case. Finally, there is homecoming; In this case, it feels like it’s too late. While writing about a family living their life on an island, I couldn’t help but think about odyssey: returning home after a long absence, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, long marriages, craftsmanship in the arts and sports, the way the natural world shapes a person’s experience. In my novel, I gave that passion to the character of Ian, Egan and Lucian’s father. Every day Ian checks the tide gauge at the eastern end of his island home, measuring and charting rising sea levels. He also spends time every day working at his kitchen table, slowly and painstakingly writing his book about odyssey. He is trying to figure out how the two are related in his mind. The warming sea and the lovers feasting in the hall. Then a severe storm and now a severe storm. odyssey It is as relevant as ever. And I, for one thing, can’t wait for the next rendition of this story.
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Egan and Lucien’s shared life by Rose Smith is available from Hawthorne Books.
