MY FAVORITE BOOK

I'm embarrassed to say that my all-time favorite book is one that I still haven't finished, Homer's "Odyssey." I first encountered it in an old-fashioned literature anthology that we used in 3rd or 4th grade. I was impressed by the earnestness with which the stories were told. The author really seemed to believe that reading about Ulysses was the most important thing you could do, and of course he was right.


My favorite character was the cyclops. He seemed oddly human and appealing but these qualities didn't prevent him from being single-minded about eating the Greeks. I remember thinking how strange it was that the cyclops could think and speak but still have no mercy on his fellow creatures (sounds like animation writers, doesn't it?). It was the first inkling I had that the world contains some puzzling characters whose motives can never be understood but who must nevertheless be resisted.


Years went by without any thought of The Odyssey then I saw "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" in a theater. Wow! My kid heart almost jumped out of my chest! I instantly recognized my old friend the cyclops, made even more terrifying by Harryhausen and Bernard Herriman...Sinbad was from Iraq but the feel of the story was unmistakably Homeric...minus the cheesy Hollywood touches. I began to think of the Greeks as the storytellers who delivered the goods, who could explain life to me better than anyone else.

Still later I saw "Jason and the Argonauts" and that firmed it up. There again was the Homeric sensibility even though the story was written by someone else. I loved the ideal that permeated the film: manliness, intellect, courage and a thirst for adventure. Isn't that what we all crave? I don't claim to possess any of these Homeric qualities but having them in front of me as distant ideals changed the course of my life.

I don't think the picture above is of Homer but it's the way I like to think of him so it gets a place here. I mentioned earlier that I never finished The Odyssey (I listened to an unabridged tape set of it a couple of times but maybe that doesn't count). Maybe I never will finish it. I have a taste for modern stories now and the Odyssey's way of telling a story seems too old-fashioned to me. The really odd thing is that I can still say with complete sincerity that it was and is the most influential book I've ever read. It's amazing how even a small dose of Homer goes a very long way.