Day 4,041 —Stephen Fry’s Odyssey—

 

I read/listened to the first book in this series, Mythos, by Stephen Fry reimagining the Greek myths in April 2020. The other two books came out shortly after that, Heroes in June 2020, and Troy came out the following year in 2021. Odyssey is probably my favorite and the one I was familiar with the most. I used to teach a version of the story for years, and how it follows James Joyce’s Ulysses made me want to know the story well, to help me understand Joyce’s version of the story.

          I always get confused about whether the story of the Trojan horse is in the Iliad or the Odyssey. I believe it is briefly mentioned in the Odyssey. It is not mentioned at all in the Iliad, which is confusing because the Iliad is about the Trojan War, but the full version doesn’t come into existence until the Aeneid. However, every depiction of the story of the Iliad usually has some version of the Trojan horse story in it. It is undoubtedly the most famous aspect of the story that people remember, yet at the same time it was not in the canonical work and wasn’t told in a way that we remember until much later.

 

So much of the bible’s canon is like that too if you study it. You find out, for example, that the story of Daniel was not considered a canonical text by the Israelites, but because of its popularity, it eventually was included. The same with the story of the messiah character saying, “Whoever without sin, throw the first stone.” This was the story of him saving the woman who was accused of adultery. It is not in any of the original versions of the gospels, but it was such a popular story that it eventually became included.

          Also, for example, the idea that all the gospels ended with a resurrection had to be added to the oldest dated gospel, Mark, even though none of the original versions of Mark ended like that (Mark also didn't start with any of the origin stories that are ubiquitous). Mark is fascinating because of how starkly different its version of the messiah is compared to the other gospels, especially John. Not dissimilar to how the Greeks reimagined the same stories about their gods and heroes for hundreds of years. One author after another borrowed from a different author’s story. After so many hundreds and now thousands of years, who do the stories belong to?