Why Homer Matters: A History

by Adam Nicolson

"Adam Nicolson writes popular books as popular books used to be, a breeze rather than a scholarly sweat, but humanely erudite, elegantly written, passionately felt…and his excitement is contagious."—James Wood, The New YorkerAdam Nicolson sees the Iliad and the Odyssey as the foundation myths of Greek—and our—consciousness, collapsing the passage of 4,000 years and making the distant past of the Mediterranean world as immediate to us as the events of our own time.Why Homer Matters is a magical journey of discovery across wide stretches of the past, sewn together by the poems themselves and their metaphors of life and trouble. Homer's poems occupy, as Adam Nicolson writes "a third space" in the way we relate to the not as memory, which lasts no more than three generations, nor as the objective accounts of history, but as epic, invented after memory but before history, poetry which aims "to bind the wounds that time inflicts."The Homeric poems are among the oldest stories we have, drawing on deep roots in the Eurasian steppes beyond the Black Sea, but emerging at a time around 2000 B.C. when the people who would become the Greeks came south and both clashed and fused with the more sophisticated inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean.The poems, which ask the eternal questions about the individual and the community, honor and service, love and war, tell us how we became who we are.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Classics, Mythology, Poetry, Books About Books, Literary Criticism

318 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 22, 2014

About the author

Adam Nicolson writes a celebrated column for The Sunday Telegraph. His books include Sissinghurst, God’s Secretaries, When God Spoke English, Wetland, Life in the Somerset Levels, Perch Hill, Restoration, and the acclaimed Gentry. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the British Topography Prize and lives on a farm in Sussex.

Reviews

[John Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contents:

Maps:

The World of the Ancient Greeks
The Bronze Age World
Pictures

Preface

1. Meeting Homer
2. Grasping Homer
3. Loving Homer
4. Seeking Homer
5. Finding Homer
6. Homer the Stranger
7. Homer the Real
8. The Metal Hero
9. Homer on the Steppes
10. The Gang and the City
11. Homer’s Mirror
12. Homer’s Odyssey

Conclusion: The Bright Wake

This is magnificent in so many ways and my words will be inadequate mumblings as I grope towards the reasons for saying so.

Adam Nicolson's writing is sheer poetry, that alone makes it worth reading. Adventure stories,travelogue, history book, culture file, psychological study, critique and much much more. Homer certainly matters and this book will always matter to me.

[Cinzia DuBois · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a bizarrely constructed book. It wasn’t in-depth enough to be classified as academic; it wasn’t unique enough to be classified as commentary, and it was self-indulgent, but not revealing enough to be classified as biographical.

It’s all well and good having a very catchy title, but if the book doesn’t deliver on what the title promises, it's disappointing by default. I was hoping for an exploration of the cultural and social impact that Homer has had on contemporary society. Instead what I got was the fleeting semi-autobiographical ponderings of someone who wanted to write about the Odyssey and the Iliad for the sake of doing so. The book had no clear structure on what it was supposed to be about. Nothing flowed, it all just seems to be a brain dump of concepts that jumped from one idea to the next, and none of it was particularly interesting.

Quite honestly, the book was boring. I didn’t know why it was being written, why certain subject matters came to light, or why it was unnecessarily self-indulgent in places. Perhaps I’m supposed to know of this person and be interested in their personal life? Perhaps. But I didn’t, so their life story seemed totally irrelevant to the premise of the book.

The final product seems like a very half baked idea. The author felt inspired by Homer when sailing and thus wanted to write a book about that feeling, but then scrambled to fill the rest of the book with information about Homer to justify sharing this quaint tale. That personal connection would’ve suited a blog post, but certainly not a whole book.

Sadly, the book lacked structure, purpose and flow. As a Classics academic interested in the influence of ancient Greek literature in contemporary society, I was deeply disappointed that it didn’t cover this topic at all.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this turned out to be only a 3 star rating, it doesn't necessarily reflect the value of the book, overall, to those who are looking for an introduction to Homer -- just a commentary on my feelings of slight disappointment at the time. Nicolson's book is filled with interesting minutiae about both the Iliad and Odyssey and makes an interesting, if brief, tour of the ancient world. If you are new to this subject, I would say it's quite a good read.

I think I was expecting something different, given its title and the jacket blurbs: I was looking for more of the "how" and "why" of Homer, than the "what, who and when" ... if that makes sense. If nothing else, I've come away with the intention of reading the Fagles translations to see what all the fuss/acclaim is all about. I've been reading (over the years, have read both the I and the O three or four times) the Robert Fitzgerald translation which seems to me full of life and vigour -- exactly what Nicolson ascribes to Fagles -- so perhaps there won't be much difference to my simple mind.

I also didn't feel that Nicolson's attempt to drag Homer into the 21st century was very successful. (I'm not saying it can't be done; I'm just saying his arguments were rather weak. It seemed to me he was trying to be too cute/too clever by half: like the "cool" high school teacher who speaks the kids' jargon but misses the point completely of all the important cultural references.)

There's more than a bit of Nicolson's personal-odyssey herein which leaves me scratching my head as to why it's even in here. (His encounter, down a dark alley, one night in his youth, as one instance. Why in the world does anything like this belong in a book about Homer, I asked myself.)

I did truly appreciate Nicolson's facility with language and his ability to spin an interesting tale, when required. I also valued his footnotes: in fact, I think I garnered more valuable information from those than I did from the book, as a whole.

If you're looking for a good overview of Homer, I wouldn't pass this one by. It might even give an interesting perspective to the uninitiated. Just don't be looking for an answer to the title's promise: Nicolson can't really tell you more than you already know, if you've read Homer yourself.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I marked WHY HOMER MATTERS as contemporary mostly because I figured Homer would get a laugh out of it. And why not? Classics are timeless. Even if this is about a classic as opposed to a classic itself.

Adam Nicolson covers all the bases and then some in this perspective on why Homer is perm-cool and forever relevant. He covers a lot of ground (and wine-dark sea), including key scenes in both The Odyssey and The Iliad. He makes some connections and takes some stands that will shake Homerphiles up a bit.

For starters, how about Greek heroes as hooligans? I most enjoyed his chapter comparing the invaders to modern-day gangs. By this theory, Troy represents civilization: wealth, stability, marriage, order, amenities, respect, sedentary pursuits, et, cetera. By contrast the roman (sic) Greeks are the nomadic bad boys. They wear their wealth not so much on their cities and palaces as on their gleaming bodies and bloodied war toys. They see the wealth and feel a mixture of envy and disgust. They feel slights over the slightest things. When they are disrespected, they gain respect (from each other) by brutally attacking the source of the dis.

That's a Greek hero redefined. And oddly, the butcher Achilles earns respect by dissing Agamemnon, King O' the Greeks, who offers all kinds of "goods" to ask for forgiveness for stealing Achilles' girl toy. (Of course that's nothing compared to Achilles after the Trojans dispatch his boy toy.) All very interesting stuff.

Nicolson also travels the wine-darks himself. Not only that, but visits sites visited by the other wily butcher, Odysseus (think of big O's last big scene with the suitors... 108 of them make for a successful blood drive!). Insightful. And though Homer glorifies battle, he is no fan of Death's. (Never mind the irony.)

All in all, just the sort of book you should read before diving into one of H's epic doorstops. Me, I purchased the Fagles Odyssey. It's waiting at summer's port. I just have to get there. (Calypso, you see....)

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most useful complements to a reading of Homer I know of. Adam Nicolson's knowledge of Homer's great works and his understanding of the Homeric world seem truly deep. Along with the important literary analysis The Mighty Dead is dense with historial fact and perspecctive concerning Bronze Age conflict, the tribal nature of Greek socity compared to the more civilized Trojans, Greek origins, and the importance of Troy to the ancient world. Nicolson has some interesting ideas: he convincingly equates the warrior attitudes of Greeks on the beach at Troy with the gang ethos present in modern East St. Louis, and he writes a section late in the book explaining how the Biblical Philistines were the same kinds of Mycanean warriors who besieged Troy. The book bubbles from front cover to back with such energetic insight ranging from who Homer really was to why we stilll refer to him for news of the past and why he so accurately reflects the nature of modern man.

As equally delightful as Nicolson's knowledge of Homer and the world of the Greeks is how well the book is written. Nicolson is a wonderfully descriptive writer. One personal reflection of how he himself once had a knife held to his throat illuminates the fighting on the beach at Troy. Another--and these are just 2 examples--is a description of a stormy sea, something he as sailor knows as well as the Greeks did. His elegant image of the way a gull can raise one wing to expose his chest to the wind as a way of lifting himself higher took my breath away. The book is full of such moments. You don't necessarily have to read Nicolson to read and apporeciate Homer. Homer can stand on his own 2 feet. But you'll want to read Nicolson for the depth of background he can give you about Homer's famous poems. And for the joy of Nicolson's writing.

[Andrew H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here Nicolson excavates Homer and explores his relevance: his is misleading as Nicolson accepts that Homer was plural; and the person drawn singing as a bird of poetry flew from his harp strings was a composite figure. There are passages of evocative writing, but a reader often has to dig beneath Nicolson's verbosity to uncover what is being said. And there are some mighty odd passages of confessional writing also: the strangest involves a description of how a younger Nicolson, whilst investigating the Homeric, experienced a violent male rape. It is offered as a symbol of weakness, of the vulnerability that women felt in Homer! The best parts are when Nicolson is attuned to the ancient Greek language and its subtleties of meaning: he writes finely on Keats and Chapman's Homer and demonstrates how Keats quotes Pope, thus drawing the Romantic Imagination back into The Age of Reason. As a book, this is fascinating and infuriating, and it manages to say a lot about Homer though not, necessarily, why Homer matters.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars what a book! I want to read The Iliad again
The author expresses himself quite well. Homer is here; Homer is now. He can be seen in the olive groves, in archeological digs, in gang mentality.
I appreciated the use of appropriate Greek words and their etymological roots. I'm inspired to learn Ancient Greek now.


Lenten Buddy Reading Challenge book # 11

[Rex Libris · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was some interesting materials in here about Homeric traditions and what you currently in the places that are supposed to the locations of the legends, but the good stuff was drowned out by drone an author who seemed to be in love with the sound of his own voice.

[Eddie Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title should have been "Why Homer Matters . . . To Me".

Nicolson is a skilled prose writer and the book is drenched in his personal love and responses to the Homeric epics. I enjoyed reading it, but others may find it self-indulgent. He's done a lot of research and works hard to present it in a vivid way. Some of his insights into the poetry are profound and original. I learned a lot.

He dates the epics much earlier than conventionally thought - this is always going to be an issue due to the way the poems were composed orally and repeated through performance, possibly through centuries, before they were written down. Even when written down, multiple versions existed and the poems went through a serious phase of editing in Hellenistic times in the library of Alexandria in order to arrive at an "authentic" version.

I admit my politics are such that I tend to get very anxious when people rabbit on about the "Indo-Europeans" (Aryans in Nazi terminology) so eyebrows were raised as Nicolson bases a lot of his analysis on his presumption the Greeks in the Iliad represent imagined and essentialised "Indo-European" character traits. This analysis descends into chaos as Nicolson admits the Trojans were of Indo-European descent too (as were the Hittites, the regional hegemon at the supposed time of the Trojan war) - but he casts them as the proponents of an (again essentialised) "Asiatic" mind set. But these categories fluctuate a lot in Nicolson's telling depending on circumstances, so it's unclear to me how useful such a reading actually is.

Nicolson cites the ancient Egyptian story of Sinuhe as an example of an "Asiatic" contrast to the Odyssey. It's ironic then the ancient Egyptians themselves referred to the Semitic peoples of the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean (who periodically migrated into and out of Egypt in search of safety, food and work) as "Asiatics". The Egyptians saw themselves as Egyptian. The moral of the story is that cultural chauvinism and xenophobia can occur anywhere.

Interesting Nicolson cites the Biblical Philistines as being Greek Myceneans colonising the Far Eastern Mediterranean coastline.

I say, completely off the top of my head here, that the documented close cultural connections between the Greeks and Semites throughout this period demonstrate a deep cooperation between the cultures rather than existential conflict - (as shown by the Greeks adopting the Phoenician alphabet wholescale, as well as various origin myths of the Greeks - ie Europa was a Phoenician princess and moved to Greece from Beirut on Zeus the bull's back; Aphrodite too made a similar journey; the founders of Thebes came from the East) - shows that the Greeks happily merged anything they thought useful into their own culture during this early melting-pot Bronze Age period. Moving into Hellenistic times, this tendency of cultural osmosis developed into full-blown ideological syncretism under Alexander and his Hellenistic heirs, and was possibly most successfully pursued under the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, where a Greek overclass ruled Egypt for hundreds of years without racial conflict. So if anything, the 'essential' characteristic of the Greeks is rapid cultural osmosis and constant cultural adaptation without losing their identity. After all, not only did they survive hundreds of years of Ottoman colonisation intact, previously they had managed to swallow Imperial Rome from the inside out too; the Byzantine continuation of the Empire being wholly Greek culturally. Today Latin is a dead language; Greek lives.

Just flying a kite here, but hoping to suggest that alternative analyses to Nicolson's are possible.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

That Adam Nicolson is an excellent journalist I already knew but as a non fiction novelist he is a revelation. Don't be put off by the seemingly high brow subject matter. He makes Homer accessible and describes just why it is so important to western civilisation especially in these rudderless times. Its a travelogue through the classical world recreated in the present day, throwing up all manner of nuggets on all sorts of topics as we wind our way through the Mediterranean, up to the Hebrides and back to Hades in modern Portugal.We visit the shores of the Black Sea and the European Steppe heartland and maybe find the Western soul there hidden in plain sight.Who would have thought? There is darkness too, deep melancholy, apt for a book on Homer. Adam's experiences in Syria are harrowing and disturbing to read. But this chapter explains the banality of evil better than any number of holocaust novels. He writes such beautiful touching prose on a subject he loves.He wants the reader to share his love too. I would read him on anything after this book.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book but in no way conclusive. It has little to do with “why Homer matters” to us after the early parts of the book. I enjoyed the information but the author wanders like a storm blown Odysseus.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicolson is provocative in numerous ways, from the origins of the Homeric epics which he pulls back to the origins of indo-european civilization, to the inspiration of Keat's poem on Chapman's translation (a poem that is critical of the Alexander Pope translation). In short, he doesn't believe there was a Homer, but sees Homer as a collection of myth accumulated and standardized over time with origins around 2000 bce.

To understand Homer he goes in many different directions, collecting a variety of research into a pretty readable form. I loved his section on Keats. His sections on mining and Hades, and on the Hittite, Egyptian and Israelite views on a Greeks were really interesting. He puts a new light, for me, on David vs Goliath. His comparison of East St. Louis gangs to the Greek army in the Iliad was fascinating. He also includes his own sea faring experience, and bravely, the story of his own rape.

I thought it was interesting how he essentially disregards all modern archaeological research into Troy with the common sense comment that 1250 bce is a baseless date. We don't need to worry about whether Troy VI or VIIa matches Homer. Troy II, from a 1000 years earlier is not only just as valid, by maybe more valid because the Greeks were more raw and barbarous and Troy was wealthier at that time (and less Greek). Anyway, this isn't history, it's myth.

He's not perfect. And sometimes seems to think himself more a wordsmith then he really is. But, still, in summary, for the Homer curious, recommended.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be a required companion volume either before or during reading The Odyssey and Iliad. I understood so much more about the cultures of both the Greeks and the Trojans and their histories after reading it. He takes you to the places where much of the action occurred and where they speculate that the Greeks originated. He also explores the history of Homer and the theories about him. All of this is done in an incredibly readable fashion.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever the merits of this book’s historical or archeological arguments about Homer, Nicholson’s exquisite prose is a pleasure to read. Side note: I remember reading and loving a few of his famous grandfather’s works back in the day, so it was kind of fun to see the literary inheritance at work.

[Tim Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Longlisted for the 2014 Samuel Johnson prize,' it says on the cover. All I can say is that 2014 must've been a stonking year if this book didn't even make the shortlist! I've seldom read a book that spreads itself so magisterially (and readably) over literary criticism, ancient history, linguistics, morality, poetry, psychology, sociology, and geography. It's in many ways a genre-busting book, containing autobiographical elements alongside insights into Homer, the world of the Ancient Greeks from the Steppe migrations right up to Chicago gang culture. Nothing seems out of place or forced into the narrative. Nicolson wears his learning as lightly as one of Helen's chiffon garments; the gold of his insights as delicately veneer-thin as a golden body image from a Mycenaean tomb. If this didn't win in 2014... what did?

[Gwen Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initially chose this book for obvious reasons--but The Iliad and The Odyssey are two of my favorite works in all their many translations, so it was great to spend some quality time with a writer who's an enthusiastic amateur rather than a Homeric scholar per se. If you're a fan of Homer, or of Greek mythology generally, then this is a truly great read--one that will leave you wanting to go back and brush up on your Iliad/Odyssey knowledge. Lots of great travelogue stuff in here too, which always goes down well (at least for me) in the summer.

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One poet's love affair with Homer. Each chapter's different perspective-- chiefly on the Iliad, but the Odyssey gets a look-in too-- is enchantingly written and genuinely insightful. (Not the scholarly consensus on dating by a long chalk, but powerfully argued).

[Vishvapani · Rating 5 out of 5]

A year ago, I picked up Fagles translation of the Iliad, more from a dutiful sense that I should reconnect with the classics I read many years ago than in expectation of pleasure. Then came an intense, demanding but utterly engrossing and compelling reading experience. That's what The Iliad has done to people for thousands of years, and it meant that I came to The Mighty Dead as a lover of Homer. This book is written for people like me, but it is such a superlative, masterful piece of writing that I hope many more people read it, and come to Homer that way. Or perhaps you should read Homer so that you can enjoy The Mighty Dead!
Nicolson undertakes to explain and explore how a pair of poems that seemingly celebrate brutality, pride and deceit can be so aesthetically powerful: what is the version of reality they explore and display? His answer is personal, poetic, scholarly and literary. I found myself thinking, this is what all literary criticism should be: a charged personal engagement with a text. The scholarship (which in this work is considerable though I am unable to vouch for its strength) is there to serve that encounter and make it available to others.
Nicolson merges the Parry view of Homer as the final inheritor of a tradition of epic recitation and improvisation with the finding that sometimes ancient tales are transmitted unblemished over many generations. This is a little evasive, but it helps him locate Homer in the very distant past, far beyond the 8th century favoured by some scholars; and the events he describes in a more distant past than the C13th setting assumed by most in the field. His Trojan War occurred around the turn of the millennium, 2000 BC, or perhaps a couple of century later. His Greeks are neo-Barbarians, gangsters and pirates, carrying with them memories of the Steppes and the Indo-Aryan past; while the Trojans represent an already ancient Near-Eastern civilisation with its associated virtues: settlement, civility, domesticity. This I find powerfully clarifying. This isn't then a civil war between two camps in a broad Greek civilisation, but a clash of cultures. Achilles versus Hector is killing machine versus the defender of his homeland: two very different ideas of heroism. This Homer sees through the eyes of the Greeks, but he allows their flaws to be exposed in the Trojan relief; and Homer's depth springs, for Nicolson, from this perspectival stance.
Whether or not you love Homer, and whether or not you agree with his interpretation, this book may be read for the masterful quality of its prose. Every sentence and paragraph moulds diverse materials into wonderfully supple, constantly vivid writing. At times, as in the passages of personal description, this has the grip of imaginative literature; but even the expository prose is of a very high quality indeed. That's only possible when a writer knows a subject from within and has the expressive power that allows him to range freely over it. God, I wish I could write like Nicolson!

[JoséMaría BlancoWhite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todo en torno a Homero y su Iliada y Odisea. Contado con pasión y de forma muy personal. Lo histórico y lo literario analizado en detalle. El propio autor ha viajado a algunos lugares que describe Homero y reconstruye muy bien lo que es el sentimiento homerico y su héroe. Muy entretenido y a la vez bello libro.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esperava mais, mas acredito ser um livro que ganha mais em ser lido em formato físico ou digital.

[Michael Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may just be one of the best lay-person's explorations of classical literature and epic poetry I have ever had the pleasure to read. Nicolson has a poet's grasp of image and language and a critic's sense of literary significance and resonance. This book is not only an excellent introduction to Homeric epic, but it serves as a reminder of why continuing emphasis on the humanities and interdisciplinary study is crucial in understanding the world around us and our place in it. Nicolson's musings range from oral formulaic style and works-in-translation, to the significance of metallurgy in cultural development, to the continuing resonance of martial symbolism in graphic art, to a meditation on how human beings face death in a transient world. Throughout, he weaves in his own personal discovery of Homer's significance with a recounting of life experiences both tragic and humorous, intimate and profound. If you have never cracked a copy of the Iliad, begin here. And If you have personally memorized thousands of lines of Greek dactylic hexameter, this book will deepen your appreciation of Homer's epic tradition and its relevance to our modern world. Highly recommended.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not read Homer since University. I find it amazing that we are still reading in the original or in translation something written in 700 B.C. The events depicted in the epics are thought to have taken place, as early as 1800 B.C.

Nicholson explores the age old question of was there such a person as Homer or more than one person. The author covers the history of Homer, Nicholson says the linguistic analysis suggest that “The Iliad” was first then “The Odyssey”. Nicholson sums up what we still look for in Homer: “Wisdom, his fearless encounter with the dreadful, his love of love and hatred of death, the sheer scale of his embrace, his energy and brightness, his resistance to nostalgia.”

Nicholson has written a beautiful study: full of insight, generosity and unaffected passion, the book is about what Homer means to him. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. One of my favorite narrators John Lee narrated the book.

[Jaqui Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've now read this book twice....several pages tagged.
Wasn't expecting to me so moved by this story but I should
have not been surprised.

Just one quote. 'Here was a form of consciousness that understood
fallibility and self-indulgence and vanity: and despite that knowledge didn't
surrender hope of nobility and integrity and doing the right thing.'
As relevant today as it ever was.

Worth buying, reading, keeping and re-reading.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

One reviewer described this book as "almost unbearably personal". That's about right. After a few hundred pages, I found the tone of the book increasingly breathless and hyperbolic. Nevertheless, I followed the argument gamely until I was knocked off balance by the author's sudden account of being molested at knifepoint. I never really recovered my footing in the argument.

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This began and ended really well but I think my main problem was finding the personal anecdotes interwoven into the analysis a bit boring. I also wish there was a trigger warning because I was not expecting that graphic part. My favourite part was his comparisons to gang warfare and parts on ships and horses. I think another reason why I found this book hard to get through was I was already familiar with the plot of the Odyssey and Iliad and the oral storytelling origin of Homer. This book also felt very androcentric and as another reviewer put it: "Title should have been why Homer matters... To me". It was a very personal response which wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

[Dan Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't have the patience to read the Illiad, then read this book instead. Not only does it relate the stories in it, it debates them and places them in historical context. It attempts no less than an explanation of the epic poem, how it came to be, what it means, and what we should think about it today.

Personally, I think it should be required reading for anyone who has read the Old Testament and been disturbed by it, particularly the conquest of Canaan. Because if the Greeks are one of the two founders of Western Civilization, then that makes the Illiad the OTHER founding text - a sort of mirror image of the Bible.

So as for the conquest, the reality is that the bronze age (or early iron age) were very different worlds than we know today. People back then thought and acted entirely differently. In fact, the closest approximation that Mr. Nicolson can make is that the Greeks were basically a street gang while the Trojans were the wealthy 1%ers. Yes, that's right, the Greeks, our idealogical "forefathers," were just a bunch of street hoodlums, stuck on themselves, desparate to prove their heroism and manhood by slaughtering the men, raping the women, and enslaving the survivors. It's not a flattering picture.

But still, it does open a window onto the ancient world. No, it was not a place of liberty, fraternity, and equality. A women was worth less than a bronze tripod. Achilles claims Briseis the old fashioned way: by slaughtering her mother, father, brothers, and husband. She, in turn, comes to love(!!!!) Achilles, in a way, because if anything happens to him, one of the other Greek thugs will claim her. Better the devil that you know. No wonder people back then believed in Fate. Horrible things happened to you that were simply beyond your control. People back then accepted their reality - if we faced similar circumstances, our minds would probably break.

Finally, the most telling portion of the book was the actual intersection that Homer's world has with the Bible: Mr. Nicolson contends that the Philistines were early Greeks, which makes Goliath a sort of Achilles of the Old Testament. And we see what happens when the pious mindset meets the heroic mindset: the one crushes the other with only 5 smooth stones. God is no respecter of persons, or of bronze armor, or of shouted boasts and threats. Frankly, I'm glad to live in a world where the pious wordview won.

But that is not what the book is ALL about, that's just the part that resonated most with me. Mr. Nicolson addresses things like how the poem could physically have come to be. We post-moderns are highly suspicious of oral tradition, certain that only the written word, recorded as soon as possible after the event in question, can possibly relate the truth. But this is a new worldview: human language is essentially oral, and human history for millenia was oral. That is the reality, plain and simple, and the ability to remember/create/perform a poem of the epic tradition is truly astounding. Video footage is not required to arrive at the truth, and may in fact hinder the truth coming out, because INTERPRETING an event is just as critical as the actual event.

So, read the book. This one is going in the library, not back to the used book store.

[Richard Hannay · Rating 4 out of 5]

La mejor forma de abordar este libro es...abordarlo: imaginar que son historias que el autor, marino, Baron Carnock, de ilustre prosapia literaria nos cuenta tras un día de intenso combate con el mar, tomando una taza de te. Strong. "one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones" decía Orwell durante el racionamiento. En ningún caso azucar. The Mighty Dead es un libro intenso, bellamente escrito, que mezcla las reflexiones y la experiencia personal de Nicolson, en ocasiones demasiado personal y ciertamente dolorosa con lo expositivo. El subtítulo es falaz. Nadie que no llegue previamente persuadido de la importancia de Homero encontrará demasiadas razones para serlo. Por lo visto se trata de una colección norteamericana, editada por Yale University Press que incluye "Why Beer Matters", un título este tan atractivo como innecesario. Con barco o sin barco el libro de Nicolson consigue algo tan dificil como es elevar el goce de la lectura de Homero.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος | οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε...

Why does Homer matter? Because he does.

And in the course of explaining this simple truth, Adam Nicholson takes a textual, linguistic, historical journey into the heart of the Homeric world. Its raw passions are unleashed and the deepest roots of classical Greece - and therefore western civilization - are uncovered. He's not an academic, but is familiar with the right research so there's a unique blend of second-hand scholarship and personal anecdote. Though, perhaps, a few stretched conclusions. But at the end of it, I'm still left longing to reread my Homer.

And learn ancient Greek.

Also on Twitter and Tumblr.

[Don O'goodreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicolson is a comprehensive tome on the analysis of Homer. I imagine every student with a Homer writing assignment will now simply choose a chapter from this book and have their research done.The most up-to-date comprehensive compendium of research related to The Illiad and The Odyssey.

My only disappointment is the title. The title question is addressed on the last page, and this felt to me like an after thought. As Greek history through Homer, the book is a great read.


For more see: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2014/1...

I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway on September 20, 2014. I received my copy on September 30, 2014.

[Lizzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

ADORED THIS. It was the book I had been waiting for. Perfectly relates Homer to our world. Blog post here: http://theselittlewords.com/2015/06/1...