When my daughter saw me reading “The Odyssey,” she made a face. Back in high school, I think it was, she had to read it, and hated it.
Truth be told, my attempts at reading the book and its predecessor “The Iliad” have pretty much come to naught. All that slogging through archaic language. And where’s the plot?
Well, T. E. Lawrence — yes, that T.E. Lawrence — in that unsettled (for him) period after he played a major role in re-shaping the Middle East as “Lawrence of Arabia,” tried his hand at translation.
Not just any translation, but “The Odyssey.” Despite his lack of expertise at Greek, despite his many other interests, avocations and, for want of a better word, hobbies.
And the result written in prose is just wonderful.
Oddly — or, perhaps, given Lawrence’s deeply squirrelly nature, not unexpected — Lawrence dismisses “The Odyssey” as something less than art.
In a translator’s note, he writes, “Crafty, exquisite, homogeneous — whatever great art may be, there are not [the Odyssey’s] attributes. In this tale every big situation is burked and the writing is soft. The shattered Iliad yet makes a masterpiece; while the Odyssey by its ease and interest remains the oldest book worth reading for its story and the first novel of Europe.”
Well, I’ll leave that for the scholars to debate.
In Lawrence’s hands, the story is constantly moving apace, even when seemingly mired in a bog of speeches. The 24-page set-piece in which the suitors are given their venge-filled end are a marvel of description and rhythm.
How much is Homer and how much Lawrence?
I couldn’t say. But I can say: Read this book.
Patrick T. Reardon
6.26.11
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.
Researching the life of T E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia – amazing man!
TE Lawrence was a warrior himself as well as a sailor. He wandered Arabia on horse and foot. He ate food in the great tent camps of the Arab tribes. He killed men in close combat, and his plan to take Aqaba during the Arab revolt was as crafty and audacious as Odysseus conceiving the Trojan Horse.
That made him a splendid translator.