Book review: the Iliad and the Odyssey

Name: Angelo van Oeffelen

Class: TA2A
Author information: Homer
The Greek poet Homer is credited with being the first to write down
the epic stories of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and the impact of his
stories continues throughout Western culture. Most aspects ascribed to
Homer are derived entirely from his poems. Homer is thought to have
been blind, based solely on a character in The Odyssey, a blind
poet/minstrel called Demodokos. A long disquisition on how
Demodokos was welcomed into a gathering and regaled the audience
with music and epic tales of conflict and heroes to much praise has
been interpreted as Homer’s hint as to what his own life was like. As a
result, many busts and statues have been carved of Homer with thick curly hair and beard and
sightless eyes.

Fiction or non-fiction: Fiction

This book and the entire story is based on (Greek) mythology. There are Gods, which interact
with each other. The story takes place during the trojan war, but it is built around mythology,
which means it is fiction

Genre: Historical drama (history + story)

The story was written in 800 BCE by Homer and took place between 1250 BC and 1180 BC.
This depicts the Greek legend of the Trojan War in all its detail. 

Themes: War, pride and revenge                                                                                             

This story is very much centred around war and hatred. The Greeks and the Trojans hate each
other’s guts, which is kind of obvious. But the reason the war is still going on is not because
of hatred, but because of pride(Achilles’ pride, to be exact). When Agamemnon(a
commanding officer of the Greek army) had taken this girl Chryseis prisoner, Achilles’ pride
was hurt so much that he refused to fight. Achilles is the strongest warrior in the Greek army,
so you can imagine this was a major loss. This almost lost them in the war.

Plot: Trojan War

The war started in the 11th century BC 
when Helen of troy was taken from her husband, by Aphrodite. Aphrodite had made a deal
with Paris that she would give him the most beautiful woman in all the lands. And so she did,
kicking off the trojan war(oh and the Gods aren’t allowed to interfere with war)this will be
ignored a lot). Sometime later (I couldn’t find the specific date) Agamemnon takes Chryseis,
which is where the book starts. Chryseis’ father, a priest of Apollo, begs Agamemnon to give
his daughter back. The father offered Agamemnon untold riches, which he declines on the
principle of being a jerk. So this powerful and desperate priest of Apollo prayed to the god in
question, who gladly started raining down arrows on the Greek army. Agamemnon is
somehow surprised that this backfired on him but still won't give girl until Achilles starts
verbally fist fighting him. It comes to a point where Athena has to stop Achilles from almost
killing his commanding officer. They come to an agreement and trade Chryseis for another
woman(Achilles`girlfriend). But Achilles isn’t done being grumpy yet and stays in his tent
refusing to fight, and praying to his mother to ask Zeus to help the trojan side. Zeus likes
nothing more than screwing with mortals, so he agrees. He tells Hector and Agamemnon to
attack full force. This has the opposite effect they wanted because the trojans kind of lost this
encounter. Meanwhile, Menelaus, Helen`s real husband, challenges Paris to a duel. Paris
accepts but quickly regrets this. Menelaus almost kills him and ends the war, but Aphrodite
sweeps him off the battlefield. The tide of battle shifts half a dozen times until people get fed
up with Achilles because he isn’t doing anything. His best friend Patroclus tries to persuade
him back into battle, but he still refuses. But then Achilles comes up with an idea that has no
chance of going wrong. If Patroclus would put on his armour and go into the battlefield, no
one would notice it wasn’t him. He does this but gets killed almost immediately by Hector.
When the news arrives Achilles goes on a rampage killing any trojan warrior in his way. He
spills a river with so many corpses, that the river itself gets mad and tries to drown him. so he
beats it up until it stops bothering him. Then he gets distracted and starts chasing Apollo
because he felt like it. Then he finally remembers what he’s there for and chases Hector thru
Troy, kills him and parades his dead body around Troy a few times. Then they hold a funeral
for Patroclus, where they play some party games. But then out of nowhere Achilles gets shot
in his heel and dies
This was a major simplification of events but, the story is so long that I didn’t have time for
the details.

Sub-plot:
There is no real fitting sub-plot to this story. It is one long a quite linear story. I could’ve
maybe done something about the Odyssey, but that story is even longer than the Iliad, which
would be impossible to read in about three days.

Character description: 
The Iliad has a lot of characters. If I had to guess how many named characters there
are(because it`s too big to count) it would be between 200 and too many. I was thinking about
only doing a description of the gods and some other human characters but even that number is
alarmingly big. Luckily for me, there`s only a few that are important to the story.

Trojan side Greek side

Name: Paris Name: Achilles

Position: soldier Position: soldier
Traits: coward, Traits: strong,
handsome, loyal,
decent fighter
fighter vengeful
and romantic
and tremendous
pride

Name: Helen
Position:taken Name: Patroclus
Traits: hopeful Position: soldier
beautiful, weary, Traits: friend,
and Romantic fighter and loyal

Name: Hector
Position: chief Name: Agamemnon
Traits: mighty, Position: chief
trustworthy, Traits: strategist,
strategist and fighter, strong and
good sun great leader