I
just finished reading "An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and An Epic" by
Daniel Mendelsohn. As I mentioned before
I fine it well-written, insightful and thought-provoking.
Chapter
Sema,
Of
course the last chapter deals with the end of the Odyssey (and of the father).
The ritual that ends Odysseus’ career as Destroyer of Cities and start of
his role as King of Ithaca as predicted by the seer Tiresias mimics the rites
involved in the burial of Odysseus’ sailor. In never occurred to me that
the burial of Achilles is foreshadowed by the burial Patroclus and all mixed up
the prophecy of Thetis.
None
of the characters above experienced the long lingering death of the elderly,
which the father succumbed to and so feared. As we all do.
Chapter
Anagnorisis
The
son and father seem to have so little in common. (I wonder if the son knew the story that
Laertes is NOT the father of Odysseus, but rather Sisyphus (Scholium to
Sophocles’ Ajax 190). Just saying, the
son’s mother, father’s wife was a beautiful woman. ) The son seems so clueless about the father,
as though the elder man had been gone twenty years. But siblings and relatives alike knew all
sorts of stories, had all sorts of insights that the son didn’t share.
This chapter, actually the next to last and I
think the most pertinent, is primarily about the son interviewing relatives
about the father. (Probably symbolic of the author gathering material for the
book.) While talking to Aunt Barbara and
Uncle Nino this happens;
“Barbara looked at me and said, slowly, Oh, I know
what you’re doing I know why you interview your uncle. I know why you’re here.
I looked at her and said, what am I doing? Why am
here?
Barbara smiled with slow self-satisfaction, like a
student who is convince she has outwitted the teacher. She said, you’re doing what Telemachus did.“
okay
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