I think it’s because you sort of have to take it all on faith. They’ve never really known each other, Telemachus was just a baby when he left. So… He stopped then, looking sheepish. So what? I said. Yes, the emotion in the scene is abstract; yes, Telemachus has to take Odysseus on faith. What does it add up to? I looked around the room. It was Brendan who broke the silence, and the point he went on to make forced me to wonder—not for the first time since he’d speculated, during our discussion of Book 3, that maybe Telemachus was unconsciously hoping that Odysseus was dead—what his relationship
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