Odysseys, Then and Now

The version I sought in

 Montreal. Courtesy amazon.ca

After futile trips to Indigo and Chapters on Montreal's St Catherine St, I finally picked up The Odyssey by Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It was hidden, almost out of sight, at the back of the store with the rest of the poetry. Weighing in at about 270 pages, the book was nestled amongst the various translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey in the small Classical Poetry section. Why Armitage's was the only adaptation that rated being placed among the translations, I didn't bother to ask. After all, one odyssey's as good as another. Who reads that old stuff anyway?

Or, as one punster has put it, BBC Radio 4 commissioned the dramatization in 2004, and what is more classic to some than the Beeb?

What I found in Cambridge

 Courtesy amazon.com

Now, the classics, whatever their source are not inherent to my family. While I chose two classics courses as options during my undergrad days, my kids wouldn't be caught dead reading anything they'd consider even historical. And don't even mention poetry, even if Armitage has set the story as a series of dialogues.

Nor do I have the educational system to blame for my peculiarity. Although I can say that I read both The Iliad and The Odyssey as Penguin paperbacks almost 30 years ago, I never studied them at school. It was a purely voluntary act -- I read them to relax between bouts of studying for a 4-day, 16-hour marathon of a professional exam.

Fagles' new translation

Courtesy amazon.ca

When the new Fagles translations came out, of course I purchased them. I even have them on CD-ROM. And I have listened. To some. More like a bit.

I can't even say they gave me the motivation to visit Troy when I was in Turkey this past spring -- that came from reading about Schliemann's adventures as a child. I do admit that every time I see the Aegean, that wine-dark sea does make me think of Odysseus.

I wonder if many visitors to what's now left of fabled Ilium wonder how the city succumbed? The giant wooden horse, born of Odysseus' brilliant strategy, is depicted life-size, complete with windows. Although I cannot say for sure, The Rough Guide to Istanbul does not mention any ability to close the windows.

Troy is a day trip. 
Courtesy amazon.ca

I suppose the reproduction is great for climbing up and having your picture taken, but even Poseidon's one-eyed son wasn't that thick.

If you're planning to visit, make sure you bone up on your myths and legends about the place -- there's not a great deal to see, but there is plenty of atmosphere. So, no topless towers, no depictions of the face that launched the thousand ships nor of the boats themselves. It is, however, an excellent place to ponder how a woman hatched from an egg led Odysseus to lose 20 years of his life. A Spartan no less.

I wonder what Odysseus would make of historian Paul Cartledge's defence of the Spartans in Thermopylae and The Spartans: An Epic History and his insistence that they did indeed save Western civilization?

I've reached the point in Armitage's book where Odysseus has just been returned to Ithica. It won't be long now until Penelope's suitors get what's coming to them.

I have always wondered why someone possessing so many undesirable traits as the mendacious, scheming Odysseus was allowed see Ithica again. Armitage answered this recently on BBC TV. He was unsure as to whether he even liked the man, but after some thought, he decided that he had asked the wrong question. To Armitage, The Odyssey isn't about the man, it's about the trip.

Why not read the story, in whatever form, and decide for yourself?

And forget the white mice, Deep Thought, and the Vogons. That's a completely different wrong question asked.

Books mentioned

• The Odyssey (Simon Armitage)
• The Odyssey (E Rieu, translator)
• The Odyssey (Robert Fagles, translator)
• The Rough Guide to Istanbul by Terry Richardson. Rough Guides, July 2009.
• The Spartans: An Epic History (I have the British edition from Pan Books, new ed, 2003.)
• Thermopylae (I have the British edition from Pan Books)