Peter’s Reviews > The Odyssey > Status Update

Book XXI sees Odysseus win the challenge Penelope has set with the bow and the axes, setting the stage for Book XXII where both Odysseus and Telemachus lay waste to the suitors with bloodthirsty thoroughness. A couple innocents get saved, the rest perish.

Then, the slave girls who slept with the suitors are compelled to clean up the mess before they get hanged by Telemachus for their treachery.

In book XIX, Telemachus and Odysseus have hidden the arms and set the stage for the archery contest Penelope will propose.

Whew, what a whirlwind! Odysseus has reunited with Telemachus, and together they scheme to recover Ithaca’s palace, but slowly. There’s an interesting itinerant prophet whom we keep seeing,, but I don’t know what he will end up doing. All I know for sure is a can of whup-ass awaits the suitors, and I can’t wait!

Odysseys cloaks his story in lies to gain his former slave eumaeus’ trust. His efforts mostly work, but the slave refuses to believe Odysseus is ever coming back home

I have skipped many chapters since I last posted an update. Odysseus’s has been to hades, has chatted with tiriesias, and then ventured between Scylla and Charybdis.

On the island of the sun king, his men violated their oath and slew Helios’ cows, an offense they paid for with their lives. That brought him to calypso, and finally the phaecians whom he had told his tale of woe. Athena guides him to Ithaca.

Neglected the page number in my Book XIX notes

Book XIX: this one was a real humdinger, covering the encounter with Poseidon’s son the cyclops Polyphemus. It’s not a spoiler to opine Odysseus really deserves all the misery that’s served up to him, given his hubris and obnoxious taunting of the cyclops.

Book VIII: after great food, poetry and a decent night sleep, Odysseus meets with phaecian leaders and awatches the dancing and the games. After the dancing, which he admires extravagantly, his tears during the bard’s take of Troy tips Alcinous that the story hits close to home for his unnamed visitor. He begs the stranger to tell his name and life stories, as well as clarify why the story hits so close to home.

Book VII : clearly Odysseus needed a spell among the Phaecians to remember how to behave in polite society. I think he does to sleep thinking his trip home is almost done. Ha ha.

Book V: after Calypso releases Odysseus and helps him fashion a raft, he makes his way home, but it’s never easy, because Poseidon lashes out at him. Is it because of something Odysseus has done, or has not done enough of? Or is Poseidon simply angry that Zeus assists Odysseus?

Whichever the case, he makes it to Phaecia with the goddess Ino’s help.