Homer

I enjoyed this very much. This story is one of those ubiquitous works of art that are commonly known before they've even been read. The story of this war has been adapted in many films, referenced for centuries in other works and spawned retellings as well, so that by the time I came to read it I already had certain ideas (true and false) about the book.

It's a story of two warring factions and one of the preconceived ideas I had about this book was that it's mostly glorification of war, and while there is some glorifying of certain heros and passages of war, it mostly deplores the murder and slaughtering and loss caused by war. The humanizing of both warring parties (Achaians and Trojans, and their supporters among them gods) was incredible to read and unexpected on my part. For instance in a certain passage Hektor goes back to his city and meets his wife and child to bid them farewell, the child, still a baby, doesn't recognize his father because of the war gear and begins to cry while his father laughs. Such touching passages between all that murder and killing gave a deeper effect to the story.

Also, as mentioned there's lots of warring. The meticulous descriptions of the weapons of the age this story happens in was fascinating and the people here kill each other with arrows, spears and stones in ways I never thought possible. Think of any way a person might die of these weapons and they most likely did in the story. And in all this the exploration of the human experience, and the contradictions that occur in life, the stories of adventure and courage, and no wonder this story has endured and enthralled readers for centuries as it has.… (more)

Translation by Emily R. Wilson

Halfway through an endless war over a dispute everyone hardly remembers, two powerful men (on the same side) are squabbling. Agamemnon has taken Achilles’ favorite slavewoman, and so Achilles gets pissy about it and refuses to fight in the war. As the best fighter on the Greek side, things don’t go well without him. To inspire the troops, Achilles’ best friend and lover Patroclus dresses up in his armor to fight, but is slain by Hector, golden child of the Trojans. Achilles takes his rage out on Hector, and then on Hector’s corpse.

Wilson is a great translator, and I definitely appreciated this more than the other times I have tried to read it. However, it is not my thing. I found the lists of guys dying boring, and the misogyny was grating. I know this is supposed to be a meaningful poem about how bad war is, but most of the main characters are the ones who could be stopping the horrible war, so it’s hard to have sympathy for them. Women and poor people are the victims, as they always are in war, but we don’t get their perspective. The 24th and last book of the poem is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful pieces about grief ever written, but it’s too hard to get there.… (more)