by Luke Strople
The ultimate man book.
Seriously.
It strikes you the minute Penelope comes out of her chamber, to
find her long lost husband standing in his court victorious after
an agonizing twenty-year absence.
He could have stayed with the sexy nymph Callisto, in comfort and
un-aging until the end of time. He could have let those pompous
uninvited suitors eat all his food, trample his holdings, murder
his son and ultimately, sail away with the hand of his
grief-stricken wife in dishonourable remarriage.
But to utilize one of Homer's own epithets, Odyseus is a crafty man
- a man of war - and he will brook none of that jazz.
The Odyssey is every man's fantasy: to strive against the gods and
nature with nothing but your own strength and cunning. To encounter
flesh-eating mythical beasts such as the multi-necked horror of
Scylla perched deep in her cave above a sheer insurmountable
pinnacle. Or the ill-mannered, self-pitying Cyclops in his massive
inescapable abode. To pillage and plunder homeward across a
storm-tossed sea in the aftermath of a war well fought. To arrive
after all these incredible travails, massacre every last one of
those conniving, collar-popping fratboys who have infested your
house and tried to score with your wife, even as she's grieved over
your ambiguous demise.
I think that every man dreams of meeting a Penelope.
A woman who can reckognize a cabal of spineless, lustful half-wits
when they come knocking at her door; asking her to party.
A woman who'll thank you after twenty years of hardship with a
night of enthusiastic lovemaking, once you've kicked down your
door, stained the Ikea tablecloth with the blood of your enemies
and strung up the gossiping neighbours on wires for their
scandalous chattering insolence.
Needless to say, there's a reason that this epic has enjoyed the
popularity it has for five thousand years or so.
I enjoyed every page of it.