never fear, i am alive and still reading. i did analyze book 2 on the day i said i would, i just also got knocked out by a major headache for 1-2 business days.
but we’re good now! so onto the discussion:
okay, i’m saying this once more and then never again, else i complain about it every single time—the repetition is driving me physically insane. i recoil, internally, every time i set my eyes upon the words “telemakhos, sensible lad” or some variant.
and i know mendelsohn is very proud that he stuck with the epithets since most translations don’t repeat them verbatim every time, and that’s actually a win for him, but i am dying. on the floor. resisting the urge to throw the book down.
that aside, book 2 did feel like it dragged a bit. i think it’s because it’s very speech heavy, but the speakers spend most of it rehashing what the other said. i think antinoös’ speeches held the most original thought, which made his the more appealing and the more exciting to read.
but hands down the funniest line, in mendelsohn’s translation specifically, is when antinoös says to telemakhos: “you big talker, you’re out of control”. and he says it twice.
one, the deep irony of who’s saying that, but two, it jumps out so hard from the rest of the text that it’s like it was bolded, italicized, and made two font sizes bigger. i have never been more delighted by a singular phrase of ancient poetry in my life.
i think wilson’s was the more enjoyable for me for this book, mostly because it felt very brisk and forward-facing. while hers isn’t as detailed as mendelsohn’s, i do feel the more compact language offers its own benefit.
(i realize that reading the same thing two times over can make the second seem more like a drag, so i’ve been alternating which i read first to try and mitigate that.)
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