Is The Odyssey worth reading?

Is The Odyssey worth reading?

How the hell have you not read it already?

Get off this board, holy shit.

>he didn't start with the greeks

One of the best stories ever. Go and read it now.

Not OP, but should I read the Iliad then the Odyssey or does it not matter?

I've got the Odyssey on my bookshelf, but not the Iliad yet.

Same. I have a version of the odyssey from the 1950s

It doesn't matter. Both are self-contained and required-reading for anyone with half a brain.

Best read in the Greek, of course.

>Best read in the Greek, of course.
I'm not flying all the way to greece just to read a book

Well you'll probably appreciate some of the fanservice in The Odyssey more if you read the Iliad first, but they are definitely separate works. It really doesn't matter too much.

What? There are these things called 'books', right?

If you can't read Greek, then it makes a huge difference which translation you choose. Don't just pick one at random, read reviews

>the joke
>your head

The Odyssey was an epic poem originally meant to be recited. Get an audiobook and listen to it while working or exercising.

The Illiad is about Trojan war, the odyssey is about a guy making it back home afterward.

If you can, I suggest you read the story in the chronological order, though like the others said, it does not really matter.

>and listen to it while working or exercising

It certainly wasn't meant to be listened to while working or exercising.

Only if you know Greek.

Read Theogony first

Then proceed to the Illiad

And only then read Odyssey

Should I read it, even if the entire story has been spoiled to me in bits through various mediums?

tfw you will only ever know a small fragment of the trojan oral tradition and there is nothing you can do about it

It's more of a loss that we barely have any of Sappho's poetry. She wrote like six books of poetry and we only have one complete poems and a hundred tiny fragments.

like what the fuck

What, do you expect him to put on his chiton and fake beard, then recite it to himself while pacing around during a symposium?

This is honestly the saddest thing. When I was studying in Manchester, one of the professors had a discussion with me about how there were untranslated bits of Epic Cycle poems in the Deansgate Library archives from the Oxyrnchus dig but they don't have the funding or manpower to get them translated since rich Americans only ever pay to get Biblical texts translated so they can try and find the earliest one possible.

Yes. I doubt you would have heard of the best bits since they're not in mainstream conciousness, i.e. Diomedes' aristeia.

bravo

I liked the part where Mario brought some Toads along his Journey and 7 of them were eaten by a piranha plant and others were swepted up by a whirlpool.

The bit where he murders the Koopaling suitors after challenging them to a fire flower competition is my personal favourite.

>tfw too dumb to read the Odyssey