THREE THREADS

There are three threads I'm currently pursuing in my Homer/ancient Greek "cutting in" reading project.

---

Thread One.

I am reading The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis. I've completed Book One (of Twenty-Four). It is very slow going because the language is so rich, dense, and chewy. My guess is that is due to both the original Greek and many metaphors that Kazantzakis wrote in, as well as his translator Kimon Friar (a fellow Greek and a poet in his own right) trying to capture the words, rhythms, and images of Kazantzakis in English as best as possible.

In other words, I'm reading this epic poem much differently than I did either The Odyssey (in a glorious spare translation by Emily Wilson) and The Iliad (through a fascinating translation by Caroline Alexander, as well as two simultaneous readings of poetic "versions" of the same—Memorial by Alice Oswald and War Music by Christopher Logue—each with its own interpretation of Homer's original text).

---

Thread Two.

I discovered that one of my local libraries has the film versions of two plays by Euripides, as filmed by theater and film director Michael Cacoyannis—The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977). Both films were based on earlier stage productions that Cacoyannis had directed. I'm looking forward to delving into both. One looks at the start of the Trojan War from the Greek side of things (Iphigenia), while the other looks at the end of the same war from the conquered Trojan vantage point (The Trojan Women).

Having seen a live stage production of The Trojan Women, I'm really looking forward to both films.

(I watched the first half-hour of The Trojan Women during lunch today and it is spectacular and gut-wrenching. Katharine Hepburn as the Trojan queen Hecuba and Geneviève Bujold as her daughter Cassandra were powerful performances I won't soon forget and am hoping to continue watching tonight or tomorrow.)

---

Thread Three.

A few years ago, I picked up a hardcover copy of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes at a library book sale. It was obvious the book had never been read, which is how I'm sure it came to end up being removed from circulation. Similarly, I've yet to read it. It has sat on a bookshelf of my home library, untouched.

But now it will get a good reading. Apparently, large sections of it focus on The Iliad and how the "gods" of that epic poem are auditory hallucinations from one side of the brain to the other side of the brain of the heroes who are being spoken to, due to the fact that the rosy-fingered dawn of what we think of as modern consciousness (and the internal monologue and voices that we think of as our own) had yet to fully emerge. Likewise, how the shift to dawning consciousness has taken place by the time we get to The Odyssey, and so the relationship between Odysseus and the gods is different in his journeys than when we encounter him on the battlefield of the Trojan plains. (And then I'm pretty sure that the sequel of Kazantzakis will push Odysseus further along in experiences of consciousness as he engages existential crises and encounters "versions" of Don Quixote, Buddha, and Jesus Christ.)