In between sessions of playing Forza 7 Motorsport on Xbox One, I finished reading Homer’s The Odyssey, thanks to a wonderful translation by Emily Wilson. I was initially very intimidated by the thought of reading a nearly 3000-year old work of literature, but the language was so accessible.
I have no experience the type of prose found in English versions of The Odyssey, which is iambic pentameter. I taught myself to read with a certain rhythm to avoid rushing through it like any other work of fiction. I wanted to enjoy each page, each book of the 24 in all.
Now that I have read The Odyssey, I can now claim to understand obscure references to Scylla and Charybdis, which is just a fancy way of saying “between a rock and a hard place”. I also remember reading Greek mythology when I was a young boy, so this work brought back some good memories.
I am not sure what to read next. I have a couple of books on urbanism on the go (including Jane Jacobs’ canonical, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities“). In terms of fiction, I was thinking that I might finally tackle Tolstoy’s War and Peace.