The Odyssey

My first time in the wine-dark sea

This was my first time reading The Odyssey, or any Greek classic text for that matter. In preparation I had ordered the Emily Wilson translation in the Norton Critical Edition. I added the deluxe Norton edition later on, having just learned that Emily Wilson had given a talk at the main Waterstones branch in Glasgow the very night before I showed up. I was gutted to have missed it. And now, having read the book, I’m even more gutted!

I made up for it by getting signed copies of The Odyssey and The Iliad, but my main reading copy remained the Norton Critical Edition; I love a floppy paperback, and this edition had footnotes and chapter summaries where the deluxe edition did not.

On another trip to Glasgow, I saw that Stephen Fry had released his own retelling of the story as the fourth volume in his Greek Myths series. I got a copy of that and ended up reading both books in tandem. That turned out to be a good call. Fry’s edition was very different. I got the audiobook to listen to as I was reading the book and his narration was superb, but I already knew that from having listened to the full Harry Potter series that he narrated. It wasn’t long before I had ordered the other three books in the series, so taken was I with the way he told the story of Odysseus. I’m working my way through Troy right now, also with the audiobook. I recommend having the text as well as the audio as Fry skips some of the footnotes in the audio. And having the audio was also invaluable for learning how to pronounce the names. I’d been mispronouncing Telemachus in my head until I got Fry’s audiobook, more along the lines of Telly Savalas than TelEmachus!

Wilson’s translation was easy to read, although keeping track of all the names and relationships was tricky, as I’m sure it is for anyone reading this story for the first time. I made notes of the names and relationships as I went, something I’m also doing with Troy. It’s working, because as I read about Cassandra’s curse from Apollo this morning in Troy, I remembered having written it down as I was reading Odyssey. She was given the gift of prophecy, but when she wouldn’t indulge Apollo’s sexual desires in return, he spat in her mouth so that no one would ever believe her prophecies. I would probably have remembered that story, but possibly not the characters involved.

I also read all 79 pages of the introduction to Wilson’s translation before I started the book. I don’t think it was worthwhile and so don’t plan on doing that with the next books in the Humanities list.

I enjoyed The Odyssey a lot, but it was definitely enhanced by reading Fry’s book at the same time. And it’s being enhanced even more now by reading Troy. I would love to read The Iliad alongside, and might very well do that. It’s just the other reading, you know? Perhaps Troy this month, then The Iliad in December. Then maybe Heroes or Mythos. Part of what made Fry’s Odyssey so helpful was that he starts the retelling before The Odyssey starts, something which I found a lot more useful than 79 pages of introduction!

I was pleased at how easy Wilson’s translation was to read. I know that The Odyssey is a scholarly work that has been studied since time immemorial. That gave me the impression that it would be turgid and challenging, literary and, well… Greek. Wilson’s translation made it flow and my reading sessions in the mornings were enjoyable and fun. I loved all the ways in which the dawn was described so eloquently, for example the rosy fingered dawn, which I guess is a famous line from the story. This line on p446 also stood out to me as wonderful prose:

With that, the goddess drenched his eyes with sleep, then flew back to Olympus. Sleep took hold, relaxed him, and released him from his worries.

How good is drenched his eyes with sleep! I could use some of that from the gods myself sometimes.

As a complete newcomer to classic Greek texts, I’m very glad to have read this as my first. As I said, it was fun and enjoyable, made all the more so by having Fry’s text and audiobook alongside Wilson’s translation. The fact that I’ve continued with more ancient Greek stories tells you how much of good time I’m having! I’ve also added Circe and The Song of Achilles to my TBR!

Emily Wilson on Substack

Emily Wilson recently launched her own Substack and, in it, she goes into some of the intricacies of the translation process. This was interesting to me as an erstwhile translator myself and you may enjoy taking a look.

Next Up…

The next book on the Humanities list is The Analects by Confucius. I have the Annping Chin translation in the Penguin Classics blackspine edition.

Affiliate Link to buy this edition on Amazon, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Blackwell’s: The Analects

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