Response
to Books of the Odyssey, V-XII
Throughout these
eight books in the Odyssey, I noticed a few things. First of all, Ulysses is
always talking extremely fancy. I can’t help but laugh at him! Come on. When he
sees the girls washing clothes, and he’s naked? He talks to himself. Think
about how realistic this is. “Will they kill me? Are they evil? Is she a
goddess? I know what I will do! I will go out and see for myself. That is how I
will know.” Yeah, if you were put in Ulysses’ position, you wouldn’t say all
that in that situation. You’d might think it, but to say it out loud? No. You
wouldn’t. Secondly, I noticed that even though all these people are hospitable,
they can be just as cruel – such as when the one blessed man sent Ulysses away
saying, “You’re cursed.” Thirdly, Ulysses is clever and wise – but he does,
like everyone else, have a big head. He is easily provoked into joining in the
games, and immediately starts bragging about how he is the best at all of them
and will accept any challenges. All of that due to one little insult. This “ego”
shows up a little throughout the story.
As the storyline itself goes, I found it to be much the same as Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. The Sirens, Circe, Scylla, and the whirlpool all show up in the Percy Jackson story as well. I found that interesting. God’s intervene all over the place, such as when Mercury appeared to give Ulysses the root dispelling him from all charms – where did Mercury come from? Why did he do that? It was very quick, I thought. Also, I’ve heard audio books on the Odyssey before, and I remember the tales of Scylla and the whirlpool and the Cyclops being much harder than this reading. It was described in much further detail, and I they were barely hanging on for life. But when I read it this week, it seemed like they made it through each of those without too much difficulty. They lost some men, sure. But they just kept going, and seemed to forget about it. I’m not sure if this is due to a lack of detail from Homer, or if Ulysses just skipped over some parts, or if I listened to an inaccurate audiobook. Either way, I was surprised that so little time was spent on each of these hardships.
One of the other things I noticed that was strange was the swift changes in attitude in Ulysses. He asked the singer to sing a song about the Wooden Horse in Troy. He was “weeping bitterly” according to the Odyssey. The king asks the singer to stop, and then asks Ulysses to tell his story – and Ulysses just starts telling the story like an honorable hero. Did some time pass for him to stop crying, or did he simply stop crying and tell the story like a true adventure man? That’s a far-fetched attitude change, I think. The last thing I noticed is the king of Phocaea throwing a mini Olympics for this man [Ulysses], of which he knows nothing about. He doesn’t even know Ulysses’ name, but judges him rather on how he talks and looks. What kind of culture is this? Did people really trust others that much back then?
As the storyline itself goes, I found it to be much the same as Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. The Sirens, Circe, Scylla, and the whirlpool all show up in the Percy Jackson story as well. I found that interesting. God’s intervene all over the place, such as when Mercury appeared to give Ulysses the root dispelling him from all charms – where did Mercury come from? Why did he do that? It was very quick, I thought. Also, I’ve heard audio books on the Odyssey before, and I remember the tales of Scylla and the whirlpool and the Cyclops being much harder than this reading. It was described in much further detail, and I they were barely hanging on for life. But when I read it this week, it seemed like they made it through each of those without too much difficulty. They lost some men, sure. But they just kept going, and seemed to forget about it. I’m not sure if this is due to a lack of detail from Homer, or if Ulysses just skipped over some parts, or if I listened to an inaccurate audiobook. Either way, I was surprised that so little time was spent on each of these hardships.
One of the other things I noticed that was strange was the swift changes in attitude in Ulysses. He asked the singer to sing a song about the Wooden Horse in Troy. He was “weeping bitterly” according to the Odyssey. The king asks the singer to stop, and then asks Ulysses to tell his story – and Ulysses just starts telling the story like an honorable hero. Did some time pass for him to stop crying, or did he simply stop crying and tell the story like a true adventure man? That’s a far-fetched attitude change, I think. The last thing I noticed is the king of Phocaea throwing a mini Olympics for this man [Ulysses], of which he knows nothing about. He doesn’t even know Ulysses’ name, but judges him rather on how he talks and looks. What kind of culture is this? Did people really trust others that much back then?
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