"Yet another book assigned to ninth graders that I don't think they will be able to relate to. I've been assigned The Odyssey numerous times and have never been able to read it cover to cover. Maybe this is my year..."
"When I first read this book, I thought that I would never be able to finish this book because there was a lot of reading I had to do."
"you would think that a huge fantasy nerd like me would have loved this book."
"Sure the killing and the monsters and the adultery is all swell, especially when read as a 13 year old. Still an overlong tale (epics are definitively but unnecessarily so) only bested by Ovid's Aeneid for tedious filler material."
"My goodness, was this a boring book or what? This was one of the worst books I've ever read. I mean, I get that it's a classic and everybody should like it and all of that other pretense, but I did not enjoy one bit of this book, I'm sorry to say."
"so so so soooooooo boring oh my goodness i wanted to cry"
"the odyssey was just really confusing, and it was like not fun to read!"
"WELL I DIDNT LIKE THIS BOOK VERY MUCH IT WAS BORING AND NOT MY TASTE. I RECOMENED THIS BOOK TO PEOPLE WHO LIKE GREEK THINGS OR THINGS LIKE THAT."
"I was very disappoionted about the story. Getting very good reviews and feedbac; it wasent very interesting.It started off boring and finished off the same"
"I found Odysseus very arrogant and the gods hypocritical and the actions of them morally questionable. The style was also patronizing in places, by always addressing characters with an adjective describing their character, which we should make our own minds about, and not be force fed what we should think of them."
These may be "bad reviews", but there is a point to be made. In the general public's eye, the Odyssey is boring. It doesn't matter to me how old it is or how I should "respect the classics" or how it's like a rite of passage. It's time to face facts- some of the books modern culture holds in such high esteem are enormous forests-worth of predictable, out-of-date, overanalyzed drivel, which most people, being completely honest, would say is considerably less entertaining than the average science fiction novel filling today's bookshelves in obscurity.
ReplyDeleteLITERATURE HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO ADJUST ITSELF TO THE DESIRES OF A PULING "GENERAL PUBLIC" -- IF MOST PEOPLE THINK THE ODYSSEY IS DRIVEL, THEN MOST PEOPLE ARE WRONG, AND HOMER IS NONE THE WORSE OFF FOR IT.
ReplyDeleteBUT IN ACTUAL FACT, THE ODYSSEY IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR BOOKS OF ALL TIME: IT WAS THE RUNAWAY SUCCESS OF E. V. RIEU'S 1946 TRANSLATION THAT STARTED THE VERY LUCRATIVE PENGUIN CLASSICS PUBLISHING LINE. THE INADEQUACIES YOU ATTRIBUTE TO "MOST PEOPLE" ARE YOUR OWN.
or its just bad lol
Delete@Baron Well, what's so good about it then?
DeleteI was assigned to read the whole epic poem. I'm halfway through... Practically bored to tears, so I decided to google "the odyssey is so boring", which led me here... So that was interesting to see other people's opinions. Now time to continue this misery.
ReplyDeletesame tho
DeleteOMG SAME LOL
DeleteWords can't describe how pissed off I am at this book.
ReplyDeletei need to write a paper on this book and i literally hate it omg. its so boring. i don't like greek god stuff, its so boring and unnecessary tbh. this book makes no sense
ReplyDelete