The Odyssey

 The Odyssey by Homer (trans. Emily Wilson), 582 pages.

I realized when perusing this blog that although many UCPL staff members read this book as part of our annual Big Book Challenge, nobody had actually written about it here, so I decided to fill the gap! I imagine most people know the broad shape of the story, as it is nearly 3000 years old. That being said, I was surprised to find how little of this vast, sprawling epic has made it's way into pop culture. It is definitely worth reading the whole thing for yourself, and I don't believe there's a better translation than Wilson's. She does an excellent job capturing the tone and rhythm of the original poem, while also rendering it not only easy to understand, but exciting! 

We are flush with copies of this excellent translation of a classic, and I highly recommend picking it up if anyone missed the discussions this summer.

A Separation

A Separation by Katie Kitamura (2017), 229 pages

At the beginning of this novel, a wife who has been separated from her husband is called by his mother, Isabel, who does not know of the separation, but who does know that her son Christopher went to Greece. Isabel is insistent that Christopher's wife travel there and make sure he's ok since she has not been able to contact him. The wife (whose name isn't revealed), decides to go ahead and travel to Christopher's hotel in an isolated area of Greece in order to ask him for a divorce.

Upon her arrival, she learns that Christopher hasn't been seen by the hotel staff for several days. Based on the behavior of one of the hotel's employees, a desk clerk named Maria, she suspects that Christopher has had an affair with the young woman, not surprising since Christopher had a habit of infidelity. The wife decides to hang around for a few days to see if he returns, taking a couple of day trips to look at a church and meet an old woman who was a professional weeper at funerals.

The time spent waiting to see if Christopher would return was also spent in mulling over relationships, not only her own with Christopher, but also that of Maria, the desk clerk, with Stefano, a man who is clearly in love with her, and also the relationship between Christopher's parents, Isabel and Mark. The outward lustiness of the only other guests at the hotel is also something to consider. This novel isn't uplifting, but it does provide something to think about...

Exit West

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (2017) 231 pages

There are at least four reviews of Exit West on this site that compelled me to add the book to my "to read" list. I'm glad I finally had a chance to check it out. Two young adults, Nadia and Saeed, meet in their native land, an unnamed Middle Eastern country, while political turmoil is altering their country and endangering their lives. Eventually the couple decides to migrate, first to Greece, then to Britain, then to the US. Their migrations are almost magical, except that we see it often takes much waiting and concern before the time is right for them to go through the "doors" to other countries. Author Mohsin Hamid's power lies in his portrayal of the changing relationship of Nadia and Saeed. He packs worlds of meaning into what at first seem to be long, but simple phrases. One that particularly struck me:  "They slept on the slender single bed together without speaking, without touching... not unlike a couple that was long and unhappily married, a couple that made out of opportunities for joy, misery" (page 127).  Hamid also deals with evolving personal changes, e.g., one's changing inclination for prayer, or independence. This is a thoughtful work, filled with many instances of pithiness.

  

My Last Lament: a Novel

My Last Lament / James William Brown, 341 pp.

Aliki is a young girl living with her father in a small Greek village during the warw hen the Germans invade and take up residence.  When Aliki witnesses her father's summary execution for foraging in a forbidden field, she goes mute, and is taken in by a family friend.  She and Takis, the son of the family friend, become friends, in spite of Aliki's muteness and Takis' odd behaviors.  Things change for them the day they learn a woman and her teenage son are hiding in the basement.

Focused primarily on the period immediately after the war, this is a well-told tale of a time and place not familiar to me.  Greece clearly descended into chaos in the war's aftermath, and My Last Lament captures that disjointed situation nicely.  Very fine historical fiction.

Something Will Happen, You'll See / Christos Ikon, trans. by Karen Emmerich, 274 pp.

These short stories are very much products of their time, all set in a working class Greek port town in which most of the residents are unemployed, underemployed, or working but not being paid.  The characters are lightly sketched and the narratives contain only faint arcs of action or change; primarily these are mood pieces in which the sky is grey and no one is laughing.  Details of first-world people dealing with hunger (not the spiritual kind) are alarming and feel true in an unpleasant way.  These stories leave an impression, but I didn't quite like them; there was a sameness which is perhaps part of the message.  My favorite was Go out and Burn Them, in which a young man reads a bundle of his dead mother's old letters and remembers that poverty is not entirely new to his family and neighbors.

Greek Passion / Nikos Kazantzakis 432 p.

I am a Kazantzakis junkie.  This author of Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ wrote a novelization of the life of Francis of Assisi - Saint Francis: a Novel - which is one of my all-time favorites.  Greek Passion was less enjoyable but still interesting, a reworking of the Gospel Passion in a small Greek village controlled by the Turks during the Ottoman period.  I liked it for its extremely vivid depiction of the setting; on the other hand, the development of the characters to represent various Gospel figures felt sometimes forced and cookie-cutterish.  I did like the Pilate figure, the Turkish governor, fat, drunken and debauched, with no more concern for his subjects than animals but powerfully motivated to keep the peace.

An Ode to Salonika: the Ladino Verses of Bouena Sarfatty / Renee Levine Melammed 308 pp.

This was a pleasant surprise.  I'll share a definition of Ladino, only because I didn't know what it was before I read this title: a nearly extinct Romance language with elements borrowed from Hebrew that is spoken by Sephardic Jews esp. in the Balkans, Turkey, and the Near East. (Webster's)  Sarfatty grew up in the Sephardic community in Salonika, whose roots are traced back to Spain at the time of the expulsion of the Jews in the 15th century.  She was imprisoned during WWII, escaped, and worked as a partisan to free others.  During and after the war she chronicled the history of her community by writing approximately 500 coplas, a form of Ladino poetry.  The book contains chapters of explication, in which Melammed provides both Sarfatty's personal history and the history of her community.  Then we get to see the complete collection of her coplas, both in Ladino and translated into English.  As Melammed points out, Sarfatty's coplas would not be considered high art, but they provide an amazing amount of information in an intimate and immediate way.  Really fascinating.