pickEmily Wilson's translation gets a HUGE standing O from me, and Audra McDonald's audiobook narration is unbelievably moving and deeply emotional. It's a long listen (took me 4 weeks to get through), but it's worth the commitment. And the quote here from Wilson's introduction could not be more true. The loss throughout the story is staggering in scale, brutal and overwhelming- yet the grief described is so human and so cathartic. Bravo all around.
2024 Non-Fiction Favourites: Some stellar memoirs, great art collections, fantastic works on horror, and a whole, heaping helping of why prison should be abolished, as well as some other highly educational material on topics near and dear to me.
#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern
This is one of the many which I have, along with the Iliad: A New Translation by Peter Green. Before I had discovered these books, I did not know that they were around to make these old works an easier read. At first, they were tough but the extras that these books come with, really helped, it's been amazing, I'm reading books that I always thought would be out of my reach, I am truly grateful to these books.
pickA favourite of 2024, for sure. So many things about this just worked so well for me. A richer, more patient examination of the Odyssey than I've previously encountered in the flurry of four years of a Greek and Roman Studies BA; a focus on its language and its themes, occasionally dipping into the original Greek in a way I never had the chance to encounter; the significance of the original word choice. 1/?
This looks crazy. https://youtu.be/FuOQXSyFcP0?si=7bYvn4M7xSYp24Id
so-soThe gods made me do it! 🙄
How is it I never remember that the Iliad does not end with the fall of Ilium (Troy), not even the fall of Achilles, but rather the funeral rites for Patroclus and that poor bastard Hector? Kind of a let down from a narrative perspective. The whole thing feels like it's building not just to a showdown between Achilles and Hector, but also to whether Troy will be spared or destroyed, and the book ends before you have 1/?
He saved the horsies. 🥹 Though I do question the primary argument of leaving them behind because he thought they'd be hungry, when driving chariots into battle would arguably have been the more dangerous part of being present in a war/siege zone. 🤔 🐴
Sibling rivalry is too mild a phrase for what the Olympians have going on.
Very blockbuster action movie hero depiction:
'He's injured, but don't forget, he's hot.' 🤕🔥
'Spear didn't work, sword didn't work, I guess I'll grab you by the head and spin you, see if I can't choke you out with your own helmet strap.'
Menelaus gets points for improvisation. 🫣
(edited) 2mo