The Odyssey-book of the week

This week, I tried audiobooks. It hasn't really worked for me in the past and as I found for this book, audiobooks, for me at least, are only good when I know the story inside and out and want background noise. Those books I need/want to concentrate on, I find it hard to do, as the way I read, I am usually faster than the speaker of the book as well as I would have to be shut in with no distractions of any kind...and that is just not practical.  In any case, the Odyssey (By Homer-though some histories say probably by multiple people) is an epic (a long poem usually memorized and performed with musical accompaniment) and tells the tale of Odysseus's 10-year journey home, with a side story of how his family is fairing without him. It is a classic, which I am sure has been at least heard of before. I will say, if you can get through the writing style it is a fun adventure of a story. With all the components of an adventure story, a journey, romance, vengeance, a sense of hope and folly, trickery, and a happy(ish) ending- this story has got it all. If you chunk it down by the theme of its books I found it to be easier to read: Telemachus's coming of age story starts the epic off in the first chunk (books1-4). Then it swings back to his father's journey home (books5-8). The next chunk, books 9-12-one learns of how Odysseus came to be journeying in the first place (he was coming home from the Trojan War). This piece shows how clever he is (with and without the help of the gods) and how greedy and just plain dumb his crewmen are. The longest chunk (which I split into 3 chunks of 4 books) is the rest of Odysseus's trek home where he meets up his son (who's had his own adventure) and defeats the hundreds of suitors clamoring for his wife and (probably more accurately) his throne. 

As I said a pretty good story but as it's a historical epic of literature...you might want to get an Old-English (or Greek/Latin) dictionary for all the wordage there use... 


Popular posts from this blog

Building a metaphor

Image
The woman stares at the photo album of her kid’s block builds. Should she post them anywhere to share? She and her daughter are so proud of them. They had so much fun doing it, too. However... However, they are all fairly similar. The foundation and framework, as well as the appearance are similar enough that, while she names them differently (sometimes), one would or could think all the photos being viewed are just one build multiplied by however many photos there are. Are there people out there wanting to see them? Does it really matter? Her and her daughter are so proud of them… I find myself metaphorically using building blocks as verbage for a lot of things in life. While the scene above was a concern for showing off literal building blocks photos, it also showcases the vulnerability the woman has for letting the world into her home.  The first line of building blocks are usually the foundation. Consider her image of vulnerability but also her want of showing off her child’s bui
Read more

Maids, Wives, and Widows

Image
So this a book a week thing is harder then I was thinking it would be. Finding books that aren't my normal and slowing down to be able to think and write about it...it takes some effort and time I didn't realize was needed. Also spending all day on a book makes my husband (who gets frustrated with my book reading anyway) a bit grumpy, lol. So This book was based on English women in history between the 1570s and the 1770s. Maids (the young unmarried women) seemed to have the most freedom in terms of how they were thought of. Wives seemed to have most of the work, and widows seemed to be kind of stuck, to be honest (they paid their dues as a wife but couldn't do much with them). The book kept referring to this time as the early modern-day, which I can see, sort of. This time frame had a lot of modern-day thinking, they relied on the medical/science (of the day) and church for all their new and improved, from the home and its housewifely and chide rearing, to the health and
Read more

Crafting: Weaving

Image
So I want to produce one craft a week (I feel like I am biting off more then I can chew, here, actually). I figured this way my stop and go love/hate relationship and half-finished and just started projects that I am famous for in my house, can all be increased! haha, well, hopefully, the projects will be completed (especially since it will give me something to write about). Today's post: weaving! So I got a weaving kit at some point at the beginning of our stay in NC and realized while i enjoyed the act of weaving and  (I really like using them as inner layers for stuff), the lap loom I had, was, well, lap-sized, so it was small with slits for the warp (the vertical material along with the frame) the were evenly spaced but a good 24 of them notched together. I had trouble keeping my warp on the notches, to begin with but it all felt so...claustrophobic-ly small! Once I found ways to use existing furniture that the shape I wanted to weave (it was usually bigger), I quickly ditched
Read more