Book report: Every single page of The Odyssey

I finally finished The Odyssey. It didn't take me as long as Love in the Never-Ending Time of Cholera, but I did have to renew it once. I'm not sure how I got out of reading any ancient or just old epic poems in high school and college, but I did. I read Beowulf and Gilgamesh on my own (and loved both), and still have to read The Iliad, Paradise Lost, and, well, I guess other Greek epics.

The Odyssey was pretty good. That's the short review. I was surprised at how few of the 463 pages concerned Odysseus actually sailing around having adventures, like battling the Cyclops and avoiding the Sirens. That was maybe 75-100 pages, tops, and all in flashback. The whole "slaughter the suitors" plotline dominated the second half. I think that section would make a good movie, so I don't know why the story is so often reduced to the sailing bit. Maybe because that happens first, and people don't make it all the way through.

Plus, I had no idea about Telemakhos, his son, going after him, then teaming up with him later (like a gory Batman and Robin, one that doesn't involve Osama bin Laden) to kill everybody.

It ends a bit abruptly, as abruptly as a 463-page poem can end, with Odysseus about to go off and leave Penelope again so she can get a whole new bunch of suitors for him to kill. The book conveniently doesn't mention much about her reaction to the guy coming home for one night then leaving. Maybe she really liked the loom.