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Reisen mit Homer. Die wiedergefundenen Inseln, Küsten & Meere der Odyssee
Was Homer's ODYSSEY based on fact, or was it merely a romantic tale of early wanderlust? Ernle Bradford spent seven years in the Mediterranean in his own small sailing yacht, tracking Ulysses on the basis of clues contained in THE ODYSSEY. If you are either a sailor or a lover of classical antiquity you will want this book. If you are both, you will revel in it.
"Bradford's adventures on the trail of Ulysses wove a spell for him. His narrative envelopes us within it too. He is a good chap to meet, if only in his book. For our part, we would like to sail with him."--Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal
"Bradford's adventures on the trail of Ulysses wove a spell for him. His narrative envelopes us within it too. He is a good chap to meet, if only in his book. For our part, we would like to sail with him."--Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal
Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1963
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145 people want to read
About the author
Ernle Bradford
115 books85 followersErnle Dusgate Selby Bradford was a noted British historian specializing in the Mediterranean world and naval topics. Bradford was an enthusiastic sailor himself and spent almost thirty years sailing the Mediterranean, where many of his books are set. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, finishing as the first Lieutenant of a destroyer. He did occasional broadcast work for the BBC, was a magazine editor, and wrote many books.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 2, 2009
This is Homer's Odyssey getting the Michael Wood treatment about 40 years before the latter started doing it on television. Excellent stuff, and what a wonderful excuse for bumming around the Mediterrean in a sailing boat.
Ernie Bradford shows, that yes, there are strong undercurrents of truth behind this epic tale, in the way that Michael Wood did for the Iliad and the Trojan War in the 1980s.
Understand that there are truths behind Homer's epic, and the rest falls into place - you begin to understand how Bronze Age and Classical Man dealt with Life, and how he explained things like luck and chance and fate and natural events in terms of his Gods and their existence parallel to mere mortals. But underneath is a story about what was clearly a real voyage, or several real voyages run into one.
I now live about a mile from where Odysseus struggled ashore on Corfu and Princess Nausika came with her girlfriends to do the washing - a fact that would greatly please my late father, who was the first to put the book into my teenage hands many years ago.
Tom Muir
Corfu, Greece, 2009
Ernie Bradford shows, that yes, there are strong undercurrents of truth behind this epic tale, in the way that Michael Wood did for the Iliad and the Trojan War in the 1980s.
Understand that there are truths behind Homer's epic, and the rest falls into place - you begin to understand how Bronze Age and Classical Man dealt with Life, and how he explained things like luck and chance and fate and natural events in terms of his Gods and their existence parallel to mere mortals. But underneath is a story about what was clearly a real voyage, or several real voyages run into one.
I now live about a mile from where Odysseus struggled ashore on Corfu and Princess Nausika came with her girlfriends to do the washing - a fact that would greatly please my late father, who was the first to put the book into my teenage hands many years ago.
Tom Muir
Corfu, Greece, 2009
August 23, 2022
Once I started I couldn’t stop. This is exactly the book I needed to read right now. With no doubt I will read it again come winter.
2022: Having re-read, this book is again an eye opener about how the tale of the odyssey lines up with the real world. The author makes good arguments with first hand experience of sailing the same waters and places over several years in different ships from destroyers to small open boats akin to the ancient Greeks.
At the very understated minimum, this is a “fascinating” (as they say) read.
2022: Having re-read, this book is again an eye opener about how the tale of the odyssey lines up with the real world. The author makes good arguments with first hand experience of sailing the same waters and places over several years in different ships from destroyers to small open boats akin to the ancient Greeks.
At the very understated minimum, this is a “fascinating” (as they say) read.
January 29, 2012
This still ranks as one of the best books on Odysseus' voyages. I think it is highly speculative in some ways, but he does present compelling evidence for both the sequence of Odysseus' voyage home and where he made landfalls during it. It is my opinion that you would be remiss if you did not read this book.
December 7, 2019
Scholars love to argue about whether Homer had the real world in mind when he came up with The Odyssey. Ernle Bradford is not only a historian but a sailboat captain. Thus he not only examines the poem artfully, he also followed the route Odysseus supposedly took to see if it made sense. It does!
Really a terrific book. Read it maybe ten years ago, probably time I reread it.
Really a terrific book. Read it maybe ten years ago, probably time I reread it.
March 11, 2013
Did Ulysses (Odysseus to the Hellenes) actually exist? Were his travails upon the sea based in reality or was Homer just spinning a good yarn? Is it really possible for anyone to become lost in the bathtub of the Mediterranean for 20 years? hose are questions which have plagued historians, literary scholars and sailors for years. Ernle Bradford is an historian who is also a sailor with a firm grounding in literary studies. He seeks the reality of Ulysses using the tried-and-true method of the private eye, ho follows his quarry. That the object of his quest has not been alive for at least three thousand years matters less than that the Mediterranean is today much as it was in that long ago period: the storms still rage in winter, the Levanter still blows from the east for days at a time, and the islands and harbors are still (more or less) where the legendary mariner would have found them. Bradford's seafaring days in the Med reach back to WW2, when he served on HMS Exmoor (where he might have heard what song the Sirens sing), and continue up through the 1960s, when this book was written. All through his narrative, he parallels Homer's Odyssey with entries from his own logbooks, and supplements those observations with excerpts from the Admiralty Pilot, the researches of others and even poetry. At various points, Bradford stands upon one or another of those far-flung seashores and identifies with the sailors forced to leave the Land of the Lotos-Eaters (calling upon his own experience as a shipwreck survivor in Northern Africa in WW2), the savage Cyclops Polyphemus of Sicily, or the men taking their leave of Circe. While he is quick to identify the landmarks of the actual Odyssey, he is just as quick to ascribe to literary fantasy Ulysses' journey to the Land of the Dead beyond the Pillars of Heracles, but, there, he also takes his cue from Homer's story, who warns all who seek that dark path that the entrance to Hades will not be found on any map. While Bradford makes a strong case for the reality of Ulysses, one must always bear in mind that Bradford has a strong sense of Ulysses' reality, not because he has studied the text of the Odyssey or has had an epiphany, but because he has sailed Ulysses' route, and found Ulysses along the way. This is a remarkable book, not just because of its scholarship and clarity of writing, but because it truly brings the Odyssey to life.
April 18, 2014
Awesome book . Has proved to me beyond a shadow of doubt that he is right about Odysseus' voyage .
May 21, 2019
I saw this author on an old black and white “To Tell the Truth” and instantly determined to find and read the book. The Milwaukee library system had a retired copy that they graciously found for me; the old checkout leaf shows it first borrowed in 1963. Actually fitting for a book justifying the real sites of a 3000 years previous voyage, I felt honored to be reading such a rare and precious volume, and carefully kept it from my book eating pig, who has a particular fondness for anything from the library. What a wonderful story for anyone who loves the Odyssey, written by someone who has actually sailed the “wine colored seas”, and can personally describe the homes of the Cyclops, Circe and Calypso, and make them live with his beautiful writing. Homer, (and Ulysses) would be proud.
August 30, 2023
i was surprised with myself getting through this so fast. it engrossed me on two counts. as a summertime read the book’s link to the sea is most welcome. secondly Homer’s Odyssey is now no longer one of those high brow classical poems that i would never touch. Bradford breathes life into the Odyssey and it’s principal figure Ulysses taking us through coves caverns and creeks sited within the blue Med - that sea which is home to me.
June 30, 2021
Brilliant. Read before going to Sicily a couple of years ago and it made the trip even more interesting. I want to be Ernie Bradford. What an amazing guy…a historical detective (and a good writer!)
October 3, 2022
Brilliant and fascinating.
February 13, 2023
What fun to try to trace the wanderings of the great Ulysses. Written with the knowledge of a sailor, this book breathes a bit of new life into the story.
July 11, 2015
I picked this 1963 book of my Mother-in-law's shelf, expecting something 1960's-ish in the language, something a bit lengthy and round about and faux-humble self-centered. And I found all that, but I got intrigued by Ulysses' voyage. I haven't read the Odyssey and I wanted to know what happened next. And I was curious about the route.
Bradford tells us he is not a classics scholar, but a WWII veteran who had spent about 7 years sailing around the Mediterranean Sea. He claims this helped him work out the true geography of the Odyssey, something that is very vague and fanciful in the classic. Certainly he did feel a connection and he also did some hunting here and there to figure out some of the riddles in the book.
He comes up with a simple route that, at least from what I took from this book, seems to pretty much agree with convention. His reasoning is terrible - anecdotal, and half thought out. He uses he experience of winds and tides, but his research doesn't go much deeper than his personal experience and a single maritime pilot guidebook. So, his conclusions should sit as a maybe despite his own faux humble conviction. He really turned me off a bit near the end when he decided it was important to reason out that Calypso was ugly, with a big butt. This was based off those ancient female figurines and his opinions of the woman of Malta. That to me says 1963.
But despite the flaws, I was happy to read this. It's a little fun. When I finally read the Odyssey, I'll have his geography in mind.
Bradford tells us he is not a classics scholar, but a WWII veteran who had spent about 7 years sailing around the Mediterranean Sea. He claims this helped him work out the true geography of the Odyssey, something that is very vague and fanciful in the classic. Certainly he did feel a connection and he also did some hunting here and there to figure out some of the riddles in the book.
He comes up with a simple route that, at least from what I took from this book, seems to pretty much agree with convention. His reasoning is terrible - anecdotal, and half thought out. He uses he experience of winds and tides, but his research doesn't go much deeper than his personal experience and a single maritime pilot guidebook. So, his conclusions should sit as a maybe despite his own faux humble conviction. He really turned me off a bit near the end when he decided it was important to reason out that Calypso was ugly, with a big butt. This was based off those ancient female figurines and his opinions of the woman of Malta. That to me says 1963.
But despite the flaws, I was happy to read this. It's a little fun. When I finally read the Odyssey, I'll have his geography in mind.
March 1, 2012
I read this after reading Travelling Heroes.
This is a very different kettle of fish.
I agree with the introduction...still do...but Bradford puts a damn strong case.
The intro., by one of the author's old classics masters, makes the point that Odysseus was a liar and most of The Odyssey is just that: Odysseus telling stories.
A fairly brave thing to start your book with I think.
But where Robin Lane Fox discusses pot sherds and trade routes with a fairly cold academic eye Bradford discusses the practical nature of the journey: distance, ship size, currents, the comfort of shore and a warm dry bed after an age at sea.
He tends to back much of his arguments up with something along the lines of, "well, it looked like that/ took that long/ felt like that when I was there"...he's pretty much travelled all over the med. in assorted wee boats and knows the distances and difficulties of covering them in the type of vessel Odysseus would have used.
He doesn't come out and say Odysseus was real or that the journey actually happened though. He thinks that the tale could have been based round an old equivalent of an admiralty pilot book, which is why the geography is all correct.
Well worth a look.
This is a very different kettle of fish.
I agree with the introduction...still do...but Bradford puts a damn strong case.
The intro., by one of the author's old classics masters, makes the point that Odysseus was a liar and most of The Odyssey is just that: Odysseus telling stories.
A fairly brave thing to start your book with I think.
But where Robin Lane Fox discusses pot sherds and trade routes with a fairly cold academic eye Bradford discusses the practical nature of the journey: distance, ship size, currents, the comfort of shore and a warm dry bed after an age at sea.
He tends to back much of his arguments up with something along the lines of, "well, it looked like that/ took that long/ felt like that when I was there"...he's pretty much travelled all over the med. in assorted wee boats and knows the distances and difficulties of covering them in the type of vessel Odysseus would have used.
He doesn't come out and say Odysseus was real or that the journey actually happened though. He thinks that the tale could have been based round an old equivalent of an admiralty pilot book, which is why the geography is all correct.
Well worth a look.
February 3, 2025
quirky book, written by a Brit who spent years sailing around the Mediterraean, positing the idea the Odyssey was based on a real journey, by a real man. The author believed he was able to find the places Odysseus visited in his journey home from Troy, matching descriptions in the Odyssey to harbors and islands the author had visited.
October 12, 2012
lots of facts
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February 3, 2017Enjoyed this book as much as I did 40 years ago (and the old documentary that was based on it) Bradford's conclusions seem reasonable except for one: connecting what would have been almost universal mother goddess worship with its rounded female votive figures and the modern fat ladies of Malta is a bit of a stretch.
I reread the Odyssey before beginning the book but it's really not necessary. The author follows the book faithfully and describes everything of import to the story and his own modern voyage of discovery. All that's missing is the gory ending with Ulysses drawn out return and slaughter of Penelope's suitors, which I could do without anyway.
I reread the Odyssey before beginning the book but it's really not necessary. The author follows the book faithfully and describes everything of import to the story and his own modern voyage of discovery. All that's missing is the gory ending with Ulysses drawn out return and slaughter of Penelope's suitors, which I could do without anyway.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews