Book 1

In Medias Res

When beginning a story, it is customary to begin at the beginning. Quite sensible, in fact. The Harry Potter saga begins while the Boy Who Lived is a small child, and not yet The Boy Who Receives His Hogwarts Letter. You might even say that story begins before the beginning, functioning like a prologue.

If we think a little more carefully though, we might say that The Philosopher’s Stone starts in the middle of the action (for all us thick Americans, that is The Sorcerer’s Stone rightly named). Harry has just been exfiltrated from the ruins of his former home after the tragic death of his parents at the hands of Lord — Thingy. We learn this as the scene unfolds through dialogue cues, since the events happened off-screen (or off-page, but let’s face it, you’re thinking of the film). Throughout the saga we will receive flashbacks and supplemental accounts from other characters that start to fill in the missing details of that night.

This kind of storytelling mode is known by the Latin phrase « in medias res », which simply means in the middle of things. Book one of The Odyssey parachutes us in near the end of Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan war. He’s been stuck on the island of Ogygia with Calypso for seven years, but we are not even told that much. We read starting at 1.19¹:

But then, when the wheeling seasons brought the year around, that year spun out by the gods when he should reach his home, Ithaca—though not even there would he be free of trials.²

So what do we know from this excerpt? Nought but that the time fated is come at last for Odysseus to return home. We get beautiful cyclic imagery declaring the appointed year being revealed, but no concrete units of time.

Lines 81 - 84 reveal the reason Odysseus is stuck on an island in the Pirates of the Mediterranean: he blinded the monstrously inhospitable, man-eating cyclops, Polyphemus, right in his good eye, and now his dad is pissed. Rotten luck for Odysseus since no-eyed Polyphemus’ father is the sea-god Poseidon, and if there is one thing the gods of Homer do well, it is hold a grudge.

Structure

While book one begins with words of Odysseus’ struggle, his men, and his striving to return home, focus soon shifts to how his family’s fortune in his absence. We are introduced to his son, Telemachus (tuh-LEH-muh-kus), who we will follow during the first four books.

Matt Damon returns under Nolan’s direction from Oppenheimer and Interstellar cast as Odysseus with Tom Holland cast as Telemachus. Holland is a sensible choice since Telemachus has recently come of age and must assume the mantle of his manhood and grow into the image of his wise and cunning father. His course is blessed by the guidance of the goddess Athena, who is played by none other than Marvel Spiderman’s love interest, Michelle, a.k.a. Zendaya. A newer inductee into the Christopher Nolan crew, Robert Pattinson, plays the violent suitor, Antinous, whom we meet in 1.440³:

Eupithes’ son Antinous broke their silence: “Well, Telemachus, only the gods could teach you to sound so high and mighty! Such brave talk. I pray that Zeus will never make you king of Ithaca, though your father’s crown is no doubt yours by birth.”

We can expect Pattinson to play up the mean-spirited sneering as he sucks down his host’s wine. Surely he’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. He, alongside myriad other mindless jerks, is vying for the hand of Penelope, since Odysseus is presumed dead. Another two-film veteran of team Nolan, Anne Hathaway, will be taking her place at the loom.

Once we enter books 5-12, we will join Odysseus and learn of his adventures. In the final books, 13-24, we follow the return home and the fate of his house.

Non-Linear Time

Looking forward to the film premiere, our modern Bard, Christopher Nolan, is famous for his fascination with the function of time in cinematic storytelling. He’s made a career of the artistic exploration of chronology with films like Memento, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet. And herein lies the reason I am so enthusiastic about this rendition of the ancient classic: I can think of no director with the skills and experience to mold the exquisite clay of this story into film-form. Whether his brush strokes are delicate and restrained, or the narrative perspective is greatly altered, he is poised to present a masterpiece for the age of cinema.

Of Characters & Proper Nouns

If it feels like the Bronze Age since you last read ancient Greek literature, some rhetorical culture shock is a common side effect. One dizzying feature of Homer is the sheer number of synonyms seen throughout the text. Some translations are said to simplify this, but Fagles is not shy to render the Greeks as Argives, Achaeans, Hellenes, etc., just as the text gives us. I expect that there are various subtleties specific to each, but when you compose over twelve thousand lines of dactylic hexameter verse, you are bound to get creative.

Mnemonics

Names of characters are often varied by employing their lineage. In place of Odysseus, we might see Laerte’s Son. Pay attention to genealogies! I am not suggesting you draw out family trees (they are already in the back of the edition we are using), but do pause when you notice the name of someone’s father and repeat it to yourself to cement the connection.

Names of characters also go with their homelands. This is especially prominent when treating with rulers and royalty. Remember that a unified Greece is a novel invention, and we are reading through the age of Greek nation-states which may be as small as a city or a island in the Aegean. When Athena takes the form of Mentes, she/he often goes with the title lord of the Taphians or lord of Taphos.

Last and in the chief place, names go with their epithets. If you studied any Homer in grade school and had crazy cat-lady English teacher whose feline infatuation was only rivaled by books, you had Homeric epithets hammered into you till your own vulgar epithets rose to the tip of your tongue. These are extra adjective bits that go before or after a name as in the giant-killer Hermes, the lord of the silver bow Apollo, Agamemnon lord of men, or Menelaus lord of the warcry. These tend to be fairly self-explanatory, but might itch your curiosity until you follow the rabbit trail and remember that Hermes killed the hundred-eyed giant, Argus Panoptes, or that Apollo slew the Python with his bow before assuming the seat of worship at Delphi. Without any intent to downplay the virtuosity of Homer, these epithets are a stylistic hack to fit names into the meter of the original Greek. They create a stable metric chunk that can be employed more easily throughout the story.

The Genealogy of the Royal House of Odysseus

If you own the print edition we are using, this genealogy is found on page 497, but for any of those listening to the audiobook or who prefer a digital reference, here is my attempt at a mermaid diagram family tree. I do not claim this will be very useful, but I could not pass up the opportunity to get more familiar with the House of Odysseus as well an excuse to tinker with mermaid diagrams. If you haven’t caught on yet, I am 100% nerd.

Pronunciation

• Odysseus
  • əˈdɪsiəs
  • ·𐑩𐑛𐑦𐑕𐑾𐑕
• Penelope
  • pɪˈnɛləpi
  • ·𐑐𐑦𐑯𐑧𐑤𐑩𐑐𐑦
• Telemachus
  • tɪˈlɛməkəs
  • ·𐑑𐑦𐑤𐑧𐑥𐑩𐑒𐑩𐑕