Lots of Action, Laced with Blood and Gore
How timely: A 12,000-line poem, a little shy of 3,0000 years old, that has something for everyone. And guess what? Matt Damon, yes, that Matt Damon, stars as Odysseus, the beleaguered Bronze Age hero, a veteran of the Trojan War trying to get home to his wife, Penelope, and their son, Telemachus.
Odysseus must contend with raging storms, seductive sirens, an angry Cyclops, and a gaggle of local horndogs trashing his house and threatening his marriage. Penelope does what she can to hold off those suitors. Their son Telemachus tries to fill his dad’s shoes. Not easy to fill with the gods of Olympus working out their own family issues by meddling in the affairs of mortals.
And now this venerable masterpiece will play to audiences in theatres near you. Odysseus sails to a liminal zone where the living and the dead commingle. Columbus would be enthralled; it’s the edge of the ocean. AL Scott writes,
“In the liminal underworld Odysseus meets a blind seer, Tiresias, who foretells his future, after which Odysseus encounters the ghosts of his mother and some of his fallen comrades from the Trojan War. The mood in this section shifts back and forth between terror and pathos, a reminder that even in the ancient world supernatural horror was bound up with intense human emotions.”
Think of the Odyssey as an intense, episodic poem. After all, it’s a sequel to the Iliad. Odysseus is in full combat mode: sacrifice, honor, and betrayal set in the midst of the Trojan War.
By focusing on individual derring-do rather than clashing armies, readers will consider it more “Raiders of the Lost Ark” than “Saving Private Ryan.”
In it Odysseus outwits and outruns various threats, including an enraged Cyclops.
Wrecking Havoc
Odysseus returns to Ithaka, intent on violence. Suitors are defiling his house and bothering Penelope. Forget the slain oxen and vats of wine drunk.
Unbeknownst to these suitors, who believe Penelope is a widow, they are marked for death.
The climactic books of the poem show Odysseus and Telemachus preparing for slaughter and then carrying it out.
Ancient codes of honor may have dictated such brutality. Don’t forget, the world depicted in the poem was already ancient to the rhapsodes. Rhapsodes may have relished shocking their listeners with tales of the wild old days. What Homer understood then is what filmmakers and comic book artists know today: the appeal of graphic mayhem.
Boys Will Be Boys
There’s more than violence in this epic poem. Plenty of sex also. Homer reinforces the epic poem by having the recently reunited couple tell one another what has happened during their 20-year separation.
They re-establish their sexual intimacy by telling each other what has happened during their many years of separation.
The reunited couple fill a long night privately reciting their own versions of the poem we’ve been listening to.
If you’re ready to dive into the “Odyssey, here, in chronological order, are the translations cited in the NYT’s story:
The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald (Picador, paperback, $20)
The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson (Norton, paperback, $18.95)
The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics, paperback, $19)
The Odyssey, translated by Daniel Mendelsohn (University of Chicago Press, paperback, $18.95)
