Sitting down to lunch in P.F. Changs with a friend a few months ago, I set my copy of The Odyssey on the table. The server promptly told me it was one of her favorite books in high school. She gushed about her favorite parts. This book does that to people. Though it’s been awhile, reading the story of Odysseus and Telemachus is like sitting down with an old friend. At first my students tend to grimace, like teens might when an old friend comes to visit their parents with cries of “I knew you when you were in diapers.” Eventually, students recognize the Cyclops, perhaps Circe, the Trojan War (though that’s the main feature of The Iliad) and the Sirens–from movies and tales they’ve heard. Finally, my student readers feel proud– they’ve made it through a piece of literature so revered, once so daunting in its epic-ness, and then, if we’re lucky, they tell others about the journey of Odysseus.
Conflict and Kindness
Though I still enjoy my reunion with the Cyclops and such, there’s so much more. Id’ have to say it might be the troubles with gods and the loathsome suitors that interest me, but then there’s the run-ins with pride, and I can’t forget the love of tradition. Yes, a respect for tradition is the groundwork for my love affair with this book. Like Nestor, Menelaus, and the Phaeacians, my grandmother followed traditions as if they were handed down from god. She served men first (much to my modern sensibility’s dismay, and she never left a guest leave her home hungry. Hospitality was ingrained in me at a very young age, though I confess I find it difficult to come out of the shell of my sacred retreat to invite guests. Yet I love reading about the people who follow long-standing customs, especially the one about helping all those who cross their thresholds. This speaks of some different world where people could reach out to each other.
Action
Ironically, my favorite part in the epic by far is the extreme act of anti-hospitality at the end when Odysseus, in modern terms, kicks butt. Of course, taking up the bow isn’t simply a reaction to being kicked about by moochers in his own home, and it’s not just about the flagrant way the suitors treat guests. He takes the sadness he’s long felt, the anger of hopelessness, the desperation of humanity’s cry for all that’s right and channels it into the force behind the bow. As I tell my students that modern day Hollywood has nothing on Homer, we look at the blood and guts, courage and might that is the backbone of this story. Who wouldn’t love to aim an arrow against all that troubles each of us.
Women
Wouldn’t any one of the women in this epic adventure like to do the same? I guess Circe has her own power–she who seems to want to dominate men is surely an interesting character. What provokes her to change men into swine and animals? Is it their true nature or hers? I love the scene when she expresses surprise at Odysseus’ forceful reaction countering her bewitching. She’s been discovered, been bested by a mere mortal. Of course, he’s no mere mortal; he’s a legend.
Then there’s Calypso who utters one of my favorite lines. When Hermes gives her the message from Zeus to give up Odysseus, she says the gods are so unfair. She’s kept this man for many long years. Her anger recalls Clytemnestra who cheats–the root of her anger in the sacrifice of her daughter isn’t disclosed–but the fact that her lover kills her husband upon his return from war is. While Calypso softens and gives Odysseus his freedom, complex Clytemnestra strikes out against the man she once loved.
Finally, there’s long suffering Penelope, who could have had any one of the lordly suitors but elects to stay faithful to her husband. We would have forgiven her despite a disappearance so long that any one of us would have surrendered completely to our despair. By our modern pro feminist standards, she doesn’t seem the picture of strength with all these men in her home harassing her and her household. But I do believe her position is one of strength and I admire her for what I imagine is the regal way she holds herself, the grace she exudes, despite all of her tears and her fears.
This last time my students read Homer’s story, we compared Odysseus to the heroes in other classics, Sir Gawain for one, and pondered what they all could teach us about manhood and the transition to adulthood. As always, it was enlightening.
If the last time you picked up this classic was in high school, it’s time to read it again.
One Good Mentor is all you need 