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That's very poor advice. The Odyssey is a direct response to many of the Iliad's themes.

This is why people ALWAYS recommend you to read something like Mythology by Edith Hamilton first

You're supposed to be lurking Veeky Forums for about a year before you actually start reading books, if you had done this you wouldn't have made this mistake.

This is the main advice here

>X is a mighty warrior, by gods loved very much, so fucking stronk and powerful, with 10 inch dick and rippling muscles blablablablabla
>X gets killed by a spear

>repeat 500 times
The Iliad

literally should have followed the Start With the Greeks guide

Nuh uh, some of them are killed by arrows and swords and rocks and shit

This or Ovid's Metamorphoses.

you forgot to mention what X's dad did and how many cattle he had back home on his farm
but no now he's got a spear through his skull and brain smeared round his helmet, and hot dudes are stripping him

the illiad is a really good book

Listen to the great courses/teaching companies lecture along with it, by Elizabeth Vandiver. You should be able to torrent it pretty easily.
Or just read the introduction + notes as you go along, that will give it some context.

If you can't be fucked to do even that much you should probably just go back to watching whatever the fuck Netflix just shit out this month, all your friends will be talking about that anyway.

I was reading the Odyssey in public when a Classics major approached me. A real qt and interested in my experience with the translator (Stanley Lombardo), I goofed by mentioning iambic pentameter when I meant to say dactylic hexameter.
My advice to you: when someone asks what you're reading just smile and nod.

>start with the odyssey

What happened next? Did you go out with her?

If you see a god's name and don't know who they are just look them up on wikipedia. It's not fucking difficult. Yeesh.

You forgot to mention when X sacrifices 6 million bulls to please Zeus/Apollo/Athene for 5 fucking hours before going full cunt mode again
>when you realize the first 9 years of the war was cattle fighting each other

Metamorphoses is a beast in its own right. Its the greatest epic imo.

It's tough, though

>hot dudes
Pretty homoerotic.

>iambic pentameter

What did she think about Lombardo's translation? Also, did it tickle when she licked your butthole?

Just read this page, it tells you the important events that you need to know.
pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/iliad/IliadGuide01.html
You should already know at least half of the gods from just living in a civilization.
If Homer tells you someone's name and doesn't make the person out to be important, then they aren't. You aren't expected to remember all the names.

>pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/iliad/IliadGuide01.html
This is a nice little resource. Thanks for posting.

Fucking this, overrated book. Only worthwhile for cultural insight. Poorly constructed trash loved by pseuds.

More like homererotic

kek

>Hero X racing towards Hero Y
>Hero Y: shit better start a two page rant about my father Z, who was the son of A, who was the son of God B.
>Also Z married C, who's father D was like, super rich and had like over a thousand cows which he gave to my father D when he married, but the father of hero X, called hero E, son of hero F stole them.
>Therefore i shall battle him right here, for i swea..
>Hero Y was felled by hero X' spear, which went through the shining bronze of his helmet and filled his skull with blood.
>And death covered his eyes as his weapons fell to the ground.
>repeat this over and over and over.
>whenever it happens to Ajax, Hector, Aenas, Diomedes or Paris some fucking god steps in to drag them of the battlefield in cloud.
>What the fuck homer.

(still loved it tho.)

There's like 20 names you actually need to remember. Don't be overly concerned with that chapter where they 'introduce' everyone, it was basically paying homage to the Greek localities, giving them a mention and their own hero. I think this was chapter 2 or 3.

If you want background on the mythology read Biblioteka/The Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus

(or Edith Hamilton's Mythology if you're a disgraceful pleb)