Homer » Undergopher Central

And Fly, Not a Man of You Shall or The Odyssey by Homer

May 012010

I got done reading The Odyssey yesterday and I’m much more impressed with this than I was with the Iliad. The flow of the story was a lot smoother. There weren’t whole pages that were just lists of people who died and their entire life’s story, so it wins almost on that fact alone, but the story is actually interesting. Around the middle of the book Ulysses tells his tale of woe on the high sea, and then quickly makes it back to Ithaca, where the story grinds a little, but had a satisfying ending.

Overall I give The Odyssey my seal of recommendation.

Everyone Gets a Backstory or The Iliad by Homer

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Mar 292010

I just finished reading The Iliad by Homer and I want to get this down while it’s fresh in my mind. More than anything this book was a major let down. From the epic story of the seige of Troy I was expecting something, well, more epic.

The story is a long, detailed, account of the beginning of the war. How detailed, you may ask, and what’s this about the beginning of the war? Well, a lot of people die in this story (as befitting a story about a war) but most of these people are not important to the story as a whole. They’re what we who play RPGs call NPCs. Most of the time these characters wouldn’t even get a name if they didn’t have an impact on a story. Homer, however, gives everyone a backstory, usually giving it after the poor fellow has already suffered a gilling blow, making it almost completely unnecessary. Also, the book doesn’t cover the actual fall of troy.

That’s right, no horse, no heel, nothing!

In the end I’m going to have to recommend that people skip this entry in the “best books ever written.”