The Iliad is a slog compared to the Odyssey. Like I guess it's cool to see the gods do a bit more stuff but it's literally the same repetitive battle stories on and on and on in every book. Meanwhile the Odyssey feels much more relatable and like an actual epic journey, and the climax is much more rewarding in my opinion. The narrative flows better in my opinion and isn't as repetitive as the Iliad. The Odyssey is much superior to the Iliad.
i agree in general with your sentiment but feel i should point out that the epic journey of the odyssey is only about 5 chapters out of 24. overwhelmingly the focus is on the idea of homecoming and how it works for both the people left behind and the changed people coming back rather than the voyage itself
>>25539149Yeah that's true but the whole story with the suitors and Odysseus killing them just, again, feels much more satisfying to me. It does get a slight bit repetitive too near the end but it's not nearly as bad as the Iliad and the quality of the poetry makes up for it in my opinion. The Odyssey has more capacity in it for esoteric exegesis as well. And again it is just so much more relatable in terms of what Odysseus is trying to achieve.
>>25539145>Meanwhile the Odyssey feels much more relatableIs it? Because I find the Iliad a lot more easy to relate to, the Odyssey has much more complex messages and symbolism. You can more easily consume it like a modern Stephen King novel, but why would you do that?
>>25539145>and the climax is much more rewarding in my opinionMan the Odyssey sucks fucking ass as soon as Odysseus reaches Ithaca. It would have been satfisfying if half the book wasn't Odysseus acting like a bum instead of shooting the suitors as soon as he arrived
>>25539195The Odyssey has infinitely more intriguing symbolism and cultural motifs than the Iliad. It gets so tiring after a while in the Iliad where the same fucking things just keeps happening. Every main character has plot armor (yeah I know "fate", whatever it's still annoying) and it's just a list of random people who gets a short backstory that you'll never remember and then they die. Line after line after line is the same shit.
>>25539145Eighteenth-century scholar Richard Bentley remarked that the Iliad was written for men and the Odyssey for women.
>>25539195i heard disney-marvel make plot lines that are market-researched to be specifically ‘satisfying’. dunno but you might be more into that.
>>25539227That makes sense actually since men don't read good literature while women do.
>>25539221>it's just a list of random people who gets a short backstoryYou've said this repeatedly but can you say the exact book where this really happens? These are epic poems, repetition is a given. >Odysseus sleeps>He lands on new shore>He crosses a new threshold>He bathes>He eats>He is given gifts>Odysseus sleeps
>>25539145Horrible post. Try rewriting it in E-Prime.
>>25539239r e s p e c t for posting this statement on this board.
>>25539236Seems to be more your speed since you are prone to herd mentality
Oh God I don't fit in, I can't see the greater value in things that those who came before me did. I can't defend my position because I am lazy and therefore stupid and uninteresting. Should I read the texts more deeply? No, I must drag everyone deeper into the bucket so I am not alone.
>>25539227well guess I'm a woman then
>>25539145>doesn't mention the Telemachos filler content that only feature is namedropping Nestor and Menelaus
As a non-reader and consumate professional of this splendid board, I must admit I've always found the idea of reading these ancient books anachronistic at best and a complete loss of time at worst. We already get what's important in these books by cultural osmosis, and they're very rudimentary anyway. If you're not studying this stuff then why.
>>25541581Except most of these classics have aged wonderfully
>>25541588There's just a lot of filler, name dropping, tedious lists (not just the catalogue of ships), then the whole And This God Did This and That God Did That, and so on. Symbolically, they're great, and have some psychological depth, but as a reading experience it's just not what I'd consider good. I'm no expert but I don't think they were even meant as something to be read.
>>25541595>reads an epichmpf.jpg
>>25541595I don't think reading is supposed to be low brow page turners where you go "OH MY GOSH I CANT WAIT TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO HAGRID!!!!" If you look at other boards, they've turned into a handful of resentful normalfags that come to "concensus" that the worst lowest common denominator crap ever is what's popular and therefore good and then the board just becomes absolutely devoid of spirit. You see it on /v/, /tv/, /his/ etc.Maybe you just don't like literature.
>>25541595Idk if lil nigga here is talking about ancient books in general or just the Iliad but in the case of the Odyssey it doesn't have any of that. Regardless, I think you're a product of your time if you need Homer to get an editor for it to better suit your taste. Some things are like coffee, if you only engage with contemporary works all your life you're not gonna have much patience with ancient storytelling (which is why literally starting with the Greeks might be a bad idea)
Lol now try reading the Mahabharata. Talk about a fucking slog.
catalogue of ships is the easily the most exciting part of the whole book
>>25539145Read The Iliad two or three times. Read it slower (a scene or two a day), maybe even take breaks. That's its design (bard poetry). Odyssey is more novel-esque, different things occur all the time, and that's why it's bingeable. Iliad is something else, and greater as that than Odyssey is as what it is.
>>25543871>Read it slower (a scene or two a day), maybe even take breaksHuh? Just read it aloud in a room filled with torch smoke while drinking wine and feasting on roasted meats.
>>25543883Unless you're a mega faggot your throat should probably get tired 10-20 pages in.
>>25543950>Unless you're a mega faggotGood news
>>25539221I disagree, anon. I find the Iliad a better poem than the Odyssey (they're both top tier, however). I liked the way fate is dealt with in the Iliad more than in the Odyssey. In the Iliad, you get more of the sense of how fate is known/understood by some of the characters, and you see the differing ways in which these characters cope and deal with that knowledge. Do they fight? Do they cower? Do they beg for their lives? Do they stand in front of the wall and face Achilles (after first running away)?And this is a theme I like. If you knew how things were going to end, what would you do during the in-between?
>>25539145You don't have to read them lol. I haven't and I read probably more than 95% of anons on /lit/ and get more out of it.
>>25541637>650 pages into it>it finally gets goodSomehow the slog was worth it. I did not expect it to go from 0 to 100 that fast and end up enjoying
>>25539145the shattered iliad makes a masterpiece, while the odyssey by its ease and interest remains the oldest book worth reading for its story. ‘gay, fine and vivid it is, never huge or terrible.’the odyssey is sometimes called the first novel of europe. the iliad is more truly an epic poem.
>>25539145The Odyssey's climax is so underwhelming it feels like an unfinished work. His homecoming is incomplete with the Phaeacian treasures still hidden away. Tiresias' prophecy is still unfulfilled. The Iliad fulfills what it set out to tell.
>>25539145Odyssey is definitely the easier one to read, it's much more fast paced and the plot threads are few and clear.But I think I still enjoyed the Iliad more. I feel like the language was more beautiful. There were more flowery descriptions and metaphores. Felt more like a folk story than a grand epic, too, despite not actually being any less grandiose story-wise.
