The Iliad
Homer
Reading The Iliad, perhaps the most curious trivia I came to learn of is that people consider it a gay novel. When they say this, they are primarily pointing fingers at the Achilles/Patroclus relationship. It’s not just a fan theory, there are books written on this perspective—legit ones. Meanwhile, I myself couldn’t see it while reading the Iliad, albeit when my buddy pointed that out, it did make a lot of sense. Of course, I first associated this with the new age woke tendency to find homosexuality in every classic (which is no better than genderbending or colorbending already established characters), but it turned out people in ancient Greece also questioned Achilles’ sexuality and the nature of his relationship with Patroclus.
It actually favors the story and makes it a bit easier to make sense of Achilles’ actions when we consider the homosexual point of view as a given. After Patroclus’ death, Achilles becomes unhinged and so bloodthirsty that the whole ordeal only speaks of his undoings. There was a sense of bottomless guilt (as Achilles himself allowed Patroclus to take his armor and fight in his instead) and irretrievable loss — that can only be explained from a lover’s point of view. Loss of the love of your love can drive you to insanity, and enable you to cause mayhem you wouldn’t normally think of.
It’s hard to write on Iliad, truly—as I don’t want to try (and will fail likely, to be honest) to explain the historical and literary significance of the book, it may sound like I’m trying to defend the book from naysayers and even from the other side of my mind that is not impressed. All the battle scenes where soldiers of ‘illustrious’ backgrounds keep stabbing each other in the nipples. What’s so great about male nipples and why would you want to stab there—is beyond me. If they tried to kiss ‘em (forcibly, hey it's a battlefield), I’d at least understand. Something else bothered me, almost everyone in the fight of Troy is ‘godlike’. Yet they surely die quite easily enough. What's so special about being godlike, eh? I made my peace with Homer using ‘winged words’ or ‘words had wings’ to describe any unfavorable sentiment. It was amusing at times though, I admit.
In the end, the Iliad reads as what it is, an epic poem intended for the masses, as they flock around the fire on winter nights, listening to the blind man’s powerful oratory as he takes them to hell and back—singing the heroics and exploits of men. It is hard to read it like other literary classics from the last 600-700 years.
And of course, the usual deal with old books is present throughout— troublesome traits of the depicted society, treatment of women, and the concept of greatness, and glory of battle, etc are so out of place and out of time that without literary significance attached to, it would be downright shitty. I don’t see anyone writing something like this in the modern age and getting away with it unscathed. Then, of course, that’s the whole argument of time relativity. And I’m no literary critic—I don’t usually ponder upon how Iliad influenced nearly all literature after that when I drop my tired body on the bed.
Yet Iliad was an essential read, I can’t deny that, for better or worse. I enjoyed the silly dances, schemes, and manipulations arbitrarily performed by the olympian gods, their naive hypocrisy anent Zeus, and their pettiness.The humans in Iliad are better creatures for sure.
I was thinking this whole Olympian angle can be applied to a political institution like a state, let's call it Mager Mulluk. Ministers/lobbyists are gods and Zeus is the prime minister. Everyone is always scheming and in the end they all end up giving bootlicking to Zeus. Citizens are the humans of both Greece and Troy. Realistic allegorical story it could be!
The prose can be amazing too, sometimes, based on the topic and context.
Although the reading experience will immensely vary based on the translator. I went with E. V. Rieu as his was the one that didn’t feel deliberately vague—while keeping the poetic quality of the prose intact.
N.B. Odyssey seems to be much more enjoyable in comparison.
it needs to be remembered that in the states comprising ancient Greece there was no concept of homosexuality as we understand it today. Romantic and sexual relationships between men are thought to have been common, especially between an older and younger pairing. Mention of similar relationships between women are rarer, but still exist.
While the nature of the relationship between different warriors in The Illiad are subject of speculation it should be noted that when the poems which create the epic were gathered into written form there was no explicit mention of a sexual relationship between characters, and a strong emotional connection does not automatically construe a sexual one.
It is difficult for people of one era to not overlay their mores on the works of older eras.
Taking what is known about views on sex at the time there is certainly a basis for assuming sexual relationships between characters in the poems, but without contemporaneous writing being more explicit on the matter, it remains a point of conjecture.
Of course, their relationship could very well be platonic and I do agree that the homosexual angle is merely a conjecture, but I think it does no harm humoring them lol!
The internet has been merciless though, seen some very questionable memes I cannot wipe from my mind! :)
I tired reading Iliad once quite long ago. Was not capable enough to go further than 3 pages. It takes skill to be a good reader even I suppose.
Read it now. Might feel different.
When reading which do you really prefer bhai, a proper book or the Kindle?
I used to read a lot on my phone, but I got tired of looking at that screen. So, just last year I started ordering and reading paperback copies, some original copies too; I have quite the collecting now. And I must say, reading a decent print of "the real deal" is feeling way better for now.
I can't read on screen to be honest and reading on kindle is very different from reading on a screen. It's actually much closer to reading a paper book. And it comes with a lot of features paperbooks don't have (like instant dictionary support, waterproofing, custom font/sizes etc). So I personally lean towards kindles.
However, I'm collecting paper books as well. I have a personal goal of building a library. Working on that slowly I guess.
Yeah, I remember you showing me your Kindle, it is quite similar to a book. But damn, I didn't know about the dictionary, fonts, and waterproofing, that's new.
I have the same goal in the back of my mind. It's quite a distant goal for now, and it's nothing too big or fancy. But it'll surely have my favorite books all in one place.
Oh it does a lot more actually. Like you can reflow texts from PDFs or even pictures of pages using OCR engine and make the fonts bigger to fit in the screen and make it easier to read. You can also export highlighted texts, notes and then use them when you need.
And about my library, I do indeed want it to be massive enough to invoke envy. Cause that's my goal. Hahaha!
Granted, these functions aren't there in kindle by default but can be achieveable.
Now I understand, it offers a lot more features than I thought. It's quite handy gadget then, especially for someone who likes to read and is travelling a lot.
I fully understand what you mean, I can even picture it in my mind. And among us all, you're the expert is in this category bhai, no competition haha.