Like the Five-Minute Iliad, this series will cover Homer’s other famous poem, but in fewer installments. Part 1 | 2 | 3 |
I am using the Butler translation. Subscribe to follow along. For another excellent story about a man trying to get home to his wife amidst a divine conflict, read HEARTLANDERS.
Aiight, so we’re halfway through this beast. Books 1-4 were the “Telemachy” wherein Telemachus leaves Ithaca and goes to Pyros/Sparta to ask Nestor/Menelaus what happened to his father, Odysseus.
Books 5-8 were Odysseus leaving Calypso’s island and arriving in Phaeacia or whatever (I’m tracking the character names but honestly the place names and throwing me) where he meets the local monarchy.
Books 9-12 were Odysseus recounting his actual Odyssey to King Alcinous and Queen Arete. And now, here we are.
Book 13
Alcinous is downright pleased to hear Odysseus’ story and to learn of his hardships (it had to be REALLY difficult to hook up with TWO divine beings for all those years). Since Big O should have left Troy a wealthy man, Alcinous generously sets him up with a LOT of treasure and an escort to Ithaca so he’s made whole. Odysseus ends up even richer than he would have been with his Trojan loot, AND everyone loves him, AND they’re waiting for him to come home with Chronic Acute Main Character Syndrome and just kick all sorts of sphincter, sphincter they could have kicked by themselves but wouldn’t even attempt until he showed up, dripping with aura…jeez are we sure this wasn’t written by a woman?
I’m not, because of what Poseidon does next. He’s so mad when he finds out Odysseus is home and rich and everyone loves him, that he goes crying directly to The Manager and whines to Zeus about how Odysseus is a big mean poopy-head and he’s fat and he blinded Polyphemus and so Poseidon is OWED revenge and come on, it’s not like he was gonna keep Odysseus from home FOREVER, he was just going to screw with him for like ten or twenty more years, come on Zeus, I’m the victim here…
Dude. This is straight female behavior. Am I sure this isn’t the Emily Wilson translation? Oof.
Anyway, Poseidon gets clearance from HR to punish the Phaeaicians by turning their boat into stone and also ringing their capital city with mountains, so that it is forever a huge dolor de culo to get in and out of town. Petty. Petty AF. Poseidon is 100% a chick.
Book 14
Odysseus pulls up in Ithaca, but doesn’t head straight for the palace. He needs to know the lay of the place and what the hickity-heck is going on. With some guidance from Athena, who uses her magic to change his appearance, he heads over to the local swineherd, Eumeaus, and they start swapping tales about who they are and what life has been like for them. You don’t end up wrangling pigs in the Mediterranean because everything has gone right for you, yanno? But before he tells his story, he asks Odysseus where he came from, and Odysseus doesn’t immediately declare his identity.
He makes up a false one that skews close to the truth—that he was at Troy, got shipwrecked, and made his way here—but claims that he’s originally from Crete. That would put him under the command of Idomeneus, who Odysseus knew, so that he can get the details right. The story also allowed Odysseus to present himself as a pressed/enslaved man under Idomeneus’ command, which would resonate with Eumaeus, as we’ll see in a second.
Odysseus says he’s glad he ended up in Ithaca though, because he heard that the ruler here (himself) was cool and good and generous and probably also handsome and definitely had six-pack abs, and people should, like, keep voting for him for king and stuff. Eumaeus declares instant BS and says “Bro you rolled up in a bad spot, Odysseus is probably dead, but even if he’s not, the gods hate him, or they would have brought him home by now. As-is, everything here sucks and his son can’t take the throne.”
What happens next can be described as “insider trading” because Odysseus makes a bet with Eumaeus that Odysseus will definitely come back to Ithaca, and probably really soon. They have themselves a nice pork dinner, complete with offerings to the gods, and go to sleep.
Book 15
We temporarily interrupt this program in Ithaca to bounce over to Sparta, where Telemachus is having a Young Male Protagonist In-Waiting moment, staying awake in Menelaus’ courtyard and staring at the stars, thinking deeply about, like, stuff. His ruminations are derailed by the sudden arrival of Athena who’s like “Dude, you have to get home now. Eurymachus has outbid the other suitors and without you around to remind your mom that she’s married to Odysseus, she’ll forget her husband and do something completely insane like marry another guy.” I no longer worry which translation I’m reading, we’re back in tradmale territory.
Telemachus boards a ship and sprints back to Ithaca. It’s not a bad drive, you can do it in around 7 hours, 5 if you’re American, but going by sailboat is a whole other story, especially when the sea god hates your dad. But anyways.
Athena combines her innate traits of combat and wisdom and informs Telemachus that he has to sail home by night, because the suitors (led by Antinous) are waiting to trap him on the western coast. He should land on Ithaca and meet up with that nice old swineherd, Eumaeus, and send him to tell Penelope he’s back. He says his good-byes to Menelaus and Helen (ugh) and heads home. Helen interprets a sign of a passing eagle to mean that [spoilers] Odysseus will return to Ithaca and bust heads.
We briefly interrupt this interruption of the main narrative to return to the main narrative, but only to then divert to another interruption back in Ithaca, wherein Eumaeus tells Odysseus his own story, namely that Eumaeus was sold into slavery a long time ago and purchased by Laertes (Odysseus’ father/the previous king of Ithaca), who is still alive but really old. He’s sad and retired and mumbling in the countryside and tbh I wonder what the point was of mentioning him, I assume it’ll be relevant later. Anyways.
We now un-divert from this diversion back to the previous interruption which converges with the main narrative: Telemachus arrives in Ithaca, having picked up another omen-reader along the way, a dude named Theoclymenus. He’s relevant because he reads a sign sent from Apollo, just as Telemachus is wavering in his convictions about his purpose: the sign confirms that Telemachus has the strongest claim to the Ithacan throne, and he needs to get back to his mom, but first, pigs!
Dude this story is getting weird. I’ll tell you that, as a writer currently struggling with a sequel, sometimes the middle is indeed muddy and you’ve just got to push through. I feel like that’s the Telemachus arc right now. Me, Homer, same.
Book 16
Telemachus checks in with Eumaeus. (I like the detail where Odysseus saw the dogs perk up at a stranger coming, but they didn’t bark.) Odysseus doesn’t say anything, just watches Telemachus check in with the swineherd. He makes sure Penelope hasn’t hooked up with any of the suitors yet (she hasn’t) and sends Eumaeus to tell her that he’s home, but don’t tell Laertes, because he’ll make noise about it, and Telemachus wants his return kept secret.
After Eumaeus runs off, Athena pops up, wipes away the enchantment on Odysseus and reunites him with his son. Telemachus has his doubts and even takes Odysseus for a god at first, but that’s just because Athena cranked the aura up a little too high.
The tearful reunion is pretty moving, and then they get down to business to address the problem of the suitors. There are about a hundred of them in total, which is a lot for two men to handle, but with Zeus and Athena in their corner they’re basically unstoppable, they just need to be smart.
The rest of this book is logistics, on par with the tragedy-of-errors that you might be familiar with from Shakespeare a la Romeo and Juliet. The skinny of it is that Telemachus returns to town and a herald announces him before Eumaeus can privately inform Penelope that he’s home. The suitors pull up and Antinous wants to kill him, but a few of the guys are actually decent and say they shouldn’t kill a royal unless the gods tell them to. Penelope chides Eurymachus and shuns his proposal, reminding him that Odysseus saved his father once. Eurymachus also declines to kill Telemachus. Then Eumaeus meets up with Penelope and tells her Telemachus is back. (Great timing.) Eumaeus goes back to his hut, where he finds Odysseus returned to the form of the beggar by Athena.
They spent the night again, and stuff will get real in the morning.
Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.
My Amazon page has my other books, including FOSSIL FORCE for young boys.
Find my video reviews on YouTube.
I finish around a hundred books a year, most of which are audio because of my job.
Subscribe for more reviews and articles on what I’m reading.