Old Favorites Revisited

I kept seeing "Circe" touted. My oldest daughter (@ericaheinz) recommended it as well, but also recommended I read the new Emily Wilson translation of "The Odyssey" 1st. So I did, followed by "Circe", followed by "The Song of Achilles", by the author of "Circe". Note, it's hard to imagine anyone not knowing, at least in broad strokes, these stories, so I'm going to go on discuss them including possible spoilers. So,

******************* SPOILER ALERT *******************

1st up, "The Odyssey" by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, 2017, 592 pages.

This book got great reviews, and it is the 1st translation of "The Odyssey" by a woman. It is indeed well done, the iambic pentameter reads very nicely. Reading this book, I believe that I have never actually read "The Odyssey" - I have definitely watched the Kirk Douglas 1954 film Ulysses ~10x, and I probably read the Classics Illustrated comic book when I was a kid.

Some interesting stuff on life 3000 years ago. They liked to eat fat - indeed a great source of calories.

[A well known family story from my childhood. I was maybe 6-7 YO eating dinner with my maternal grandparents, George and Fidelia Boemker. We were having pork chops. I had trimmed the fat off and was eating the meat. My grandpa reached over, speared the fat, and popped it in his mouth. "You didn't want that, did you?" "Pop! I was saving that for last!" Like the ancients, people who lived through the Great Depression valued the caloric value of fat.]

At one point they are roasting "goat stomachs stuffed with fat and blood" - yum!

Two things I found interesting re TOOCITBOTBM

1. In TOOCITBOTBM, Jaynes characterized The Iliad as having humans running the old bicameral software, where stress caused gods to wake up in our brains and tell us what to do. In contrast, The Odyssey had humans running our current software, capable of lying and not subject to gods waking up. But there are several instances in The Odyssey where the gods pretty much plant ideas in human minds. For example, in Book 18, "Athena, with her gray eyes glinting, gave thoughtful Penelope a new idea:"
2. In TOOCITBOTBM, the wily Odysseus was Jaynes' archetype of the more modern brain software, which included the ability to lie. But Book 19 talks about Odysseus' "grandfather, noble Autolycus, who was the best of all mankind at telling lies and stealing." Ha ha, so apparently Odysseus wasn't the 1st liar - nor the greatest one, which seems to have been his grandfather.

1 thing totally new to me was that, after killing the suitors, Odysseus and his supporters had to fight the parents of all the eligible young bachelors that were slaughtered. Odysseus killed 1, then Athena broke the fight up.

Of course, I had to watch the Kirk Douglas "Ulysses" again. It is fairly true to the book. The main liberty it takes is in deciding to give Odysseus amnesia when he is in Phaecia - his last stop before finally making to Ithaca. I guess the screenwriters liked that better than Odysseus just lying, which was, of course, his speciality.

Next up, "Circe", by Madeline Miller, 2018, 353 pages.

This is a really enjoyable read. Circe and her 3 full siblings, children of the titan Helios and a naiad Perse, are the 1st sorcerers - they invent witchcraft and/or pharmacy, referred to as pharmaka. The book pulls in lots of figures of Greek mythology: Circe succors her uncle Prometheus; she creates the Scylla from a nymph she is jealous of; Hermes is her 1st lover; Medea of Jason and the Golden Fleece is her niece, as is Ariadne of the story of Theseus; the Minotaur is her nephew.

It is kind of a bummer, though, when the author recounts the tale of Odysseus after his return to Ithaca. He is a complete adrenaline junky, paranoid and bitter, and winds up killing himself while wresting a poison spear from his son by Circe. It was saddening to see the wily Odysseus come to such an end.

3rd up, "The Song of Achilles", also by Madeline Miller, 2012, 389 pages.

I enjoyed "Circe" enough that I decided to go for a trifecta and read Miller's tale of the godlike Achilles. I'm sure I had the Classics Illustrated comic book of "The Iliad". And I'm probably up to 6 or so watches of the recent Brad Pitt movie "Troy" - the 10 year Trojan War in only 3 weeks! I read parts of "The Iliad" (the Lattimore translation) trying to see if I agreed with Jaynes' characterization of mentation in TOOCITBOTBM.

The story is narrated by Patroclus, Achilles' lifelong lover. It is an easy read, but I didn't enjoy it near as much as the other two. The centaur Chiron, who tutors the 2 young men, is a high point. Ms. Miller definitely found her stride in "Circe".