Odyssey books whatever we had to do to finish it

I am finally done with the Odyssey and looking at other posts by people I have followed in this class I am only the third person to finish it. This isn't anything new to me - I was actually surprised to see that two others had other had already finished it. But to the book - no, poem - itself. They actually used a different name for Dawn! Instead of rosy-fingered Dawn, they called it at one point rosy-fingered morn, and then they said gold-enthroned Dawn. I was surprised that Dawn was in a gold throne - she seems like a minor goddess, and where would they get her a gold throne. Next, is Rumour, mentioned late in the book, a metaphor, a goddess, or was it just a typo that it was capitalized? Also, is Mentor - the form that Minerva takes so often in the book, probably the most favored of all her forms - a real person that Minerva is copying, or is Mentor completely made up, and so is the whole story about him? It also seemed odd and abrupt when Ulysses was at war for on the last page and it just ended immediately. Except for the gory description, I thought it was awesome how Ulysses just whipped around after shooting through the twelve axes and killed Antinous. Just why didn't the story get into the part where Ulysses brought the oar to that weird country, sacrificed a bunch of animals, and slowly died somehow? I didn't really want the story to get much longer, but it was still a question that was floating above my head in the end.

Books XIII-XVII

Finally a reading without crap and fluff in it! O.K., I'm going to try to do this briefly. First, I'm going to talk about Neptune. It seems likie he would have tried harder than just turning the boat into a rock. And what will happen to the Phaeacians? They didn't deserve that! But I am still glad that Ulysses came home. Minerva turned him into the anonymous beggar, and it was annoying that he had such an intricate story when he didn't even have a name. Next, I found it so touching when Telemachus came back to Ulysses and they were crying. Random question: Why do all gods and goddesses get to control the wind?

Next, why did Argos the dog die as soon as he recognized Ulysses? And how did Argos recognize him? Then Ulysses begged all the suitors for food and such. This seemed risky, and afterwards when they said that the beggar might be a god or goddess, that made me realize how stressful that lifestyle would be, constantly worrying about your actions to please Jove. And lastly, Penelope wanted to hear the beggar's story. It seems like she would have heard enough stories by now, and they were false. I wouldn't even start to think that they were being honest no matter how nice they seemed. That's where it left off, so I tonight I'm going to start reading ahead. Happy reading, everyone!

Odyssey Books VIII-XII

I liked this passage. I was especially glad to have gotten the full of Ulysses's story. It was very blurry up to that point, and all I had known was that Neptune was mad at Ulysses and Ulysses had been trapped with Calypso. But out of all my reading, I couldn't keep my mind off the gruesome description with Cyclops, or Polyphemus. First disturbing paragraph, "The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood." It still went deeper into disturbingness, but I don't want to be reminded of anything more. It was also disturbing when they were twisting the peg into his eye! This isn't right, it's down-right disturbing - people had too much fascination with violence back then, a sick obsession and I hate it! I suppose people still find entertainment in violence, but this isn't right. If it's this disturbing with Cyclops/Polyphemus, I'm not sure the death of suitors will be so nice either. . . This has lowered my judgment of this book, and I'm downright angry at it right now.

Revelation of note!!!

I tried to comment on people's posts on my older, windows XP computer, but it kept denying access to comment. However, I did it on a modern windows 7 laptop and it worked! Hooray!

Books 5-7

This was really good! But I have some annoyances and questions. The gods keep guiding people and telling fates, but at other times it is stated that they have no control over humans. So do they have control on humans or not? And gods in this are so human-like that they reproduce, fall in love, etc. with humans!? That's pretty weird. . . But probably the most annoying, simple thing, is how rosy-fingered Dawn keeps appearing, every morning. So only dawn gets to take the form of a goddess? That's so unfair and annoying! Why can't their be ashy-fingered night, or orangey-fingered evening, or dandeliony-fingered evening! Plus, why does it have to be the fingers? It seems like it would be rosy-cheeked, or something along the lines of that! Also, what is a nymph? I've recollected (or what ever the word is) that a nymph is some sort of inferior, evil god or goddess, but that's just an inference - what really is a nymph? From all what I know, it's just some sort of bug here on earth, but what is it in Greek /Roman mythology? One last thought - what's going to happen for the last hundred or so pages if Ulysses is so close to getting home already? No spoilers, Josie and Ethan! (I don't think I used any periods - just exclamation points, question marks and multiple periods in a row. . . gosh, my fingers are numb!)

WHOOPS! Books 2-4

This reading was better than book I - I didn't know I had to post about my reading specifically last week - and it was very revealing. My main questions would have to be about the geography of everything - all the different places are hard to keep track of, and it would really help if there was some sort of map to help me. The good thing is, I figured out this is definitely greek mythology with some weird roman names scattered about. These books showed the story to be a very good poem. I just kind of find it odd that there are books within a poem instead of poems in a book, like an anthology. Not much else happened to take increasing note of that I can think of at the time.

NaNoWriMo

I'm doing just barely decent in getting a thousand words in a day to meet my 30,000 word goal. . . is there any way that this can be a more efficient process???????????????????????

Odyssey Book I Review

I found it very interesting for this first book. A creative story, and I can see already why it's stayed up as a great story for so long. It was still very confusing. Is this Roman or Greek mythology? I know they're the same, just with different names, but my guess would have to be Greek. Also, how did Telemachus just somehow know that Minerva, even in disguise, was god-like? Did he have exposure to gods in a human disguise from knowing some of Ulysses's friends? If anything, that would have to be my guess. My last question would have to be what are all of those god characters they keep referencing? They keep referencing characters with no explanation whatsoever. So I think if I knew more about Greek mythology, I would be able to understand this story a lot better. That's all I have to say about the first book of The Odyssey.