Of Homer's work, I'm only directly familiar with The Odyssey. Haven't yet read the Iliad. Though I do have experience with the basic story via its modernization, The Song of Achilles. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the homoeroticism is not quite so extreme. An unfortunate fact of life. Ah, well. It's a buncha well-fit Greek hoplite fellas. I will survive.

Reading Notes

So I had no idea that the Iliad was only a small part of the Trojan War story. I was really caught off guard when we started right in the middle of everything. My modern mind started questioning if we actually were doing an in medias res before I looked it up and understood. Very odd. I guess it makes sense as reconstructed various stories and all that.

I'll be perfectly honest, this has been very boring thus far. I just finished Book 2 (no idea if that differs between translations or whatever) with the big list of names and cities that were in the army. That shit was unreadable. I think I read 4 or 5 of the places, realized this was gonna be a whole thing and so started skimming. Then I realized with dread that it still was continuing on and on and on and so I started quickly swiping down and down to get the book to end. I cannot understand how the Catalogue of Ships survived into the present day. I looked it up, trying to understand what the point of that was. I mean I guess that it establishes scope of conflict...I could also establish how big the number 100 is by individually listing out every number 1 to 100 to my poor poor captive listener...Does that sound like a good idea to literally anybody? No good, was bigtime giving some of the worst bits of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

I don't find that I'm fucking with the style of the Iliad, either. It just feels weird to me. It's poetic, but not really a poem. It makes things hard for me to follow. My eyes slide down the pages, not always taking in information. Sometimes difficult to track who is speaking and whom we're speaking about. I do sort of wish that I was reading some abridged narrative version. Even if it's taking a number of artistic liberties. Oh well, we will continue on with the version I am currently reading. I want to be more aware and educated.

Also, again being frank, didn't understand much of what was going on in the chapter. The back and forth between Agamemnon getting the vision, everyone pissing off, but then Odysseus says no, and that's actually what Agamemnon anticipated with reverse psychology? Ok. You have been there 9 years. What exactly were you expecting?

I insist that we must henceforth stop the shit where we call one person by like 3 different names. Paris cannot also be Alexander, what in the fuck are you talking about, Homer? You already have a thousand different guys running around, were we really hurting for names? This book was at least better than the previous one. Though, I wag a disapproving finger at Aphrodite (I do not give a single shit that the version I'm reading has so helpfully "translated" all the Greek god names into the Roman ones. Who on this cursed Earth does not know them by their Greek names?) quite literally spiriting Paris away before he could get got. What the hell was that about? If I were listening to Homer, I'd have some words.

I'm unsure on Helen's thing, yet. She didn't seem particularly perturbed by being taken and held in Troy. The couch "received" Paris and Helen without much complaint. But also she seemed pretty happy to go back to Menelaus before Aphrodite said "Umm bitch do you see how well-fit and pretty Paris is?" So I'm not entirely sure where her loyalties are. Given, I assume, we are meant to think of the Gods as being parts of these people's psyches. Except of course when they literally pick up the lil green army men and move them out of harm's way. Is she making the best of a bad situation or is she no good? I know not.

I'm gonna continue my negatives and say that the battles scenes are not particularly well-envisioned. They almost always consist of the {person1}, son of {person2}, gores {person3}, son of {person4} basic schema. And the thing about person1, person2, person3, and person4 is that we never hear from any of them again. I'm still very early on so may Jove strike me down if I am wrong, but it very much feels to me like we're just listing off random names because I guess it adds to the stakes? Similar to the whole Catalogue of Ships diatribe? I mean I don't necessarily disagree with the effect. I just feel like if you want some proper action, it could be done better. I promise you Homer, I am physically not capable of taking in the names that you are throwing out. And when you do a bunch in a row, my eyes glaze over and I start skimming. That's just how it is, man. The 1-on-1 fights between the main players have thus far been more drawn out, and thus better. If you're describing a fight between two people and that fight consists of a single sentence where we introduce and also say goodbye to them - no good.

I do like when the Gods make their appearances as little scheming shitheads that poke and prod the mortals into doing things. As opposed to when they full on divine intervention stuff. Athena appearing to Diomed as an example of that being done well. Those moments are fun.

Something wild that I've come to realize as I've become more aware of the shape of the Iliad and the larger Trojan War Epic Cycle. It is insane that the most well-known moments from the Trojan War (IMO that would be Eris throwing the apple, Achilles getting shot in the heel, and the wooden horse) are not in the Iliad. The thing that I thought covered all this. How is that even possible? How are the most famous moments not in the thing? How did those moments survive when a lot of what I am reading right now did not really make it through the cultural osmosis process? Debilitatingly confusing. I'm not confused about those moments being from something else and not the Iliad. Rather, what confuses me is why those moments survived the many years when the things they came from largely did not (at least in their entirety).

Ok, Diomed fucks severely. Told Aphrodite herself to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. That's my boy!

Ahhhh! Ares too! Homer, I take back every ill word I've thrown at you.

Archer and railer! Proud of thy smart bow, And ogler of the women! Wouldst thou make Trial of valor hand to hand with me, Thy bow should not avail thee, nor thy sheaf Of many arrows. Thou dost idly boast That thou hast hit my foot. Heed it not. It is as if a woman or a child Had struck me. Lightly falls the weapon-stroke of an unwarlike weakling. Tis not With me, for when one feels my weapon's touch, It passes through him, and he dies; his wife Tears with her hands her cheeks; his little ones Are orphans; earth is crimsoned with his blood; And flocking round his carcass in decay, More numerous than women, are the birds.

-Diomed, my Greek son

I don't like the back and forth we do in the Iliad. Many people are dying, but also I don't actually feel any real movement. It seems like we switch back and forth between whether the Greeks are about to be tossed out and the Trojans are about to fall every other chapter. But that just feels so unrealistic.

Review

I've been on a classical kick lately. Recentlyish read the Epic of Gilgamesh, moved on to the Iliad, will eventually follow with the Odyssey. When I said classical...They've been interesting reads. With regards to the Iliad specifically, I got notes. Now look, I know the immediate comeback is that it's not really fair to judge when you're reading a translation 3000 years after the fact when the original was performed orally. But I think it's silly to exempt anything from criticism. A far greater number of people have experienced the Iliad by reading it, exactly as I have, than ever heard the original oral tales. So in my opinion, it's whatever. And additionally, I think it's worth going back to old things and revisiting them with a modern mind. Do they hold up? Not usually, but there are parts that do!

Now, Homer. Can I call you Homer? I'd like to know why you insist on giving every schmuck a name. Because nearly every battle there comes a point where you make me roll my eyes. "Prostatoi the well-endowed of Attica, son of Testitortion, slew Bingus much-loved of Troy, son of Who-the-fuck-ever...". And we then do that schema like 10 times just listing out various people that slew other people. We had never heard of these people before and we will never hear from them again. It's crazy-making. The moment I see it happening, I start skimming until we get back to plot. Nothing of value is ever missed. I guess it ups the stakes, in the sense of "look at all these fellas dying for no reason". But it seems massively wasteful to put so much energy into naming so many of them. I just think there's way more economical ways of serving the same purpose.

This was the worst in the "Catalogue of Ships", a truly execrable experience where Homer takes I don't even know how many full minutes of reading time to list out all the little groups of Greeks, how many ships they got, how many people they brought to the Trojan War. It serves a utilitarian purpose (and a historical purpose for us to see all the places Homer mentions). But it's done in such a foul way, that I can't understand why it's there. I try to envision the original storytelling experience. We're all sitting around a fire, or perhaps in a small amphitheater. And the orator is going on and on and on just listing out locations and numbers of people. Who is this for? It can't possibly be exciting. The most charismatic person in the world could not do anything with this material. I can at the very least imagine the list of names that are masquerading as battle scenes being interesting to listen to if the orator is making appropriate dramatic hand gestures. Really playing up the stabbing and the cutting and such as we say X slew Y. We must remember, no video games. But the Catalogue of Ships is a foul piece of shit.

At first I found the Gods' interventions to be annoying and to a point I still do. I like when they are influencing people's decisions, but can't stand the couple times where we get direct divine intervention. It is not fun when someone's about to die and we whisk them away to safety because reasons. It's arbitrary and bad story-telling. As though an actor drunkenly wandered out on stage before their cue and we have to pull a reason from our ass for why they were briefly there.

I will say, however, that the actual drama between the gods was great. I love Zeus and Hera in particular. They are fully a comedic couple. Hera has the energy of a Lucille Bluth. Zeus grumbling about, "She is bent against me in all things..." Very fun. Though his mind is that of a madman. Cannot understand why anyone bothered venerating these assholes when they are ruled entirely by whimsy. I'm just sayin...I much better understand either going with the far more animistic mindset of local spirits and such. Or just saying no and sticking with the big monotheism. The idea of "Yes our gods are universally assholes, but I love them and respect them always." is an alien mindset. Oh well. I only mention because I do feel it detracts from the actual story being told. Arbitrary gods that you just have to deal with can be interesting, but it's never really the focus of the Iliad.

What is the focus of the Iliad, though? That's where my biggest complaint is. So I was not aware going in that the Iliad was not the story of the Trojan War. It is the story of a small slice of the Trojan War. It begins right in the middle of things and ends at a totally arbitrary point, where nothing has been resolved. Very frustrating. And more frustrating is the fact that we didn't see any of the big moments that came to my mind when I thought Trojan War. No Judgement of Paris and the throwing of the apple starting it all. No arrow to Achilles' heel, no Trojan horse leading to the destruction of Troy. Weird beyond reckoning that those moments have had the staying power to survive via cultural osmosis, even though the actual stories they came from have either been totally lost to time, or exist only via summaries that other writers of the time made that did survive. We end in largely the same place that we began, the only difference being some people on each side have died. But I get no sense that there's been any real change in the war.

To me, there isn't a very clear takeaway. There's themes of pride and wrath. Achilles being his typical moody self and feuding with Agamemnon throughout. Eventually coming around after Patroclus' death. But by the end of the story, I don't think Homer really managed to square the circle and come up with a clear through line. Because he's still an insufferable asshole and we know he'll exact his wrath upon Troy. He's not really shown to be in the wrong, necessarily. Achilles is much-loved of Zeus. Patroclus makes out like a bandit, though. Shagging the best of the Greeks, then gets like 4 chapters devoted to people literally fighting over your body and your lover mourning you. Your death being the thing that ends up leading to the end of a ten-year long war.

If anyone was curious where I fall on the Achilles Patroclus thing. I do lean towards lover strongly after having read the material. I was initially quite skeptical while reading. Like, yes they live together and are friends, but we're never really saying anything more explicit than that. And in fact, the only explicit word used to describe their relationship is friend. But once Patroclus gets killed by Hector, Achilles' reaction does not quite align in my mind if they were not at least hooking up. Achilles, drama queen of the Hellenes, really goes into it. The mourning goes on for chapters and chapters and is shown in such a sharp relief to the dozens and dozens of other heroes that died that get little to no fanfare. You think the man that demands the entirety of the Greek army toss themselves onto the ground in abject depression over his "friend's" death? Sure, sweetheart. This man that also demands an enormous funeral pyre seen by all, made to the perfect specifications. The one who says that the one he loved the most is gone and so now he doesn't even care if he makes it back from the war. Oh and you know a little thing like THE FACT THAT HE DEMANDS HIS BONES AND PATROCLUS' BE BURIED TOGETHER. People are stupid and I don't have time for it. Patroclus laid that good pipe and you can't tell me otherwise.