This endless tug-of-war between fathers and sons, successes and failures: I sometimes wondered what Homer’s father was like, if there had ever been a Homer. “Few men resemble their fathers. Few sons are better, most are worse…” But then, this has to be the case for the Odyssey to work. After all, if Telemachus were his father’s equal all along—if he were able to kill the Suitors, marry off his mother, take charge of Ithaca—there’d be no reason for Odysseus to come home; there’d be no Odyssey. Whatever its emphasis on Telemachus’ education, the Odyssey can’t really let him—so to speak—graduate.
