“My brain works differently. It turns out I am unable to read poetry…. Reading poetry, within a few seconds, shuts my brain down. “All of this came about because there was a new translation of The Iliad, by Robert Fagles, and it was in verse form. The thing is, I couldn’t read it. So this woman at a dinner said: ‘Don’t read it, listen to it.’ I bought the tape and I listened to it, and I found I was completely enthralled. I was surprised by the fact that the story was orally transmitted 2,800 years ago in a different language to a different culture. It was meant for oral transmission, of
...more
