This is more about books I want to get round to reading, or feel I ought to read (or re-read in this instance). I've been hurriedly trying to re-read Richmond Lattimore's translation of the Odyssey before my next bookgroup meeting, as the book up for discussion is Margaret Atwood's excellent The Penelopiad.
As a former classicist I did read the first 12 books of Homer's Odyssey (and the last 12 of the Iliad) in the original Greek for my 2nd year exams - but these took place in early 1994, a loooong time ago. So of course I've forgotten it all by now, and in an attempt to prove to myself that the degree wasn't a total waste of time I foolishly mentioned to Mark, co-owner of the wonderful Mostly Books in Abingdon (and host of our monthly Wednesday evening bookgroup) that I was going to swot up a bit prior to the meeting. I've actually only got up to book 4 of the poem though and am off to BodyBalance tonight so feel that I might not get any more done by Wednesday night. It's proving quite interesting though, remembering all the epithets ("rosy-fingered dawn" "wine-dark sea") and the stock phrases that I always rejoiced to see in exam translation passages as they repeated themselves with such regularity: "And then they put aside their desire for eating and drinking" being a fine example...
Is it terrible to cheat and do some revision on Wikipedia?
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