Recent Developments

Having watched a couple of different movies about Odysseus lately, I've learned something important: Odysseus was just about naked a lot of the time. Last year, Dr. Theresa and I went on a big kick of watching Biblical epics and other movies set in ancient times. One we really liked starred Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus. At the end, I lugged out my hardcover translation by Robert Fagles, like, did such-and-such really happen in the poem? And if I recall correctly, it did, whatever it was I got so worked up about. So then the other day I watched an Italian movie, which I had recorded from TCM, with Kirk Douglas as Odysseus, and it was a lot of fun. They had a good Cyclops. Then I was like, "I should read THE ODYSSEY again. But I am too old and tired to drag out this Robert Fagles edition so many times (twice), and my gnarled, elderly hands and arms like twigs are too frail to hold it up in bed at night. But hey! If memory serves, wasn't there a recent translation I should check out?" So yesterday I went by Square Books and found the recent translation of which I was thinking, by Emily Wilson. It was in paperback, and I bought it with money. Recent! I checked the copyright page and it came out in 2018. That still seems recent to me. When did that happen? When did seven years begin to feel like nothing, really? Like, when I was 16, I didn't go around thinking, "I was recently nine!" But as you get older, things that happened longer and longer ago seem more and more recent. You'll find out! And I suppose, when you're thinking about THE ODYSSEY, everything is recent. But what I really want to say is Athena is there right out of the gate. To mix sports metaphors, she comes out swinging! And you know what I was thinking: "She famously hangs out with owls!" And yes, it isn't too long before she is described as "the owl-eyed goddess." What's more, she "flew away like a bird, up through the smoke." And what did Telemachus think about that? "Watching her go, he was amazed." No kidding! Oh, Telemachus, you crazy kid, when will you ever learn?