Archives for January 2018

My friend Neil Gussman, the foremost of the people who inspired me to read The Iliad, tells me that it’s a book about the messy realities of war, a story for and by soldiers. I finally saw what he was talking about in Book 4.

There’s an intro where the gods decide to force the Trojans and the Achaeans to war for their own petty reasons. Athena comes to the field of battle and convinces a Trojan archer to break the truce and shoot an arrow at Menelaus. The arrow flies, but Athena flies faster and makes sure the arrow doesn’t kill him. Instead, he’s wounded in the goolies or somewhere just north thereof.

Then follows a military motivational treatise. Here we have the archetypes from every movie you’ve seen where a commander to rallies his troops. Some appeal to pride. Some insult and shame. Some deploy rational, measured argument. Some wave the bloody shirt.

And then the war begins. Homer spares the reader no gory detail as men are speared, pierced, and ground into the dirt to die. It’s a horror show that becomes its own motivator, even to the most chickenhearted troops. Twice, Homer concludes a set piece with “…and the dark came swirling down across his eyes.” (Actually, “whirling” in one, “swirling” in the other.) It’s death as the culmination of chaos.

OK, just finished Book 3 of The Iliad. Finally we get the sex and violence. But no one comes out of this chapter looking good. Paris is (pardon the expression) a pussy. Menelaus is befuddled. Helen lacks agency. Aphrodite is a troublemaker. And all the soldiers of Troy and Greece want to do is to go home.

In the course of my research about this chapter, I found a transcript of Homer’s meeting with his editor where they discuss this chapter:

Homer: My loyal friend and staunchest promoter, Oeditus, I bring you greetings from Hellas where the olive-scented glades grow green and ripe and the long-haired Achaeans eagerly await my chronicle of their daring exploits.

Oeditus: Hey, good to see ya, Homey. May I call you Homey? Yes? Good. So how’s the wife and kids?

Homer: The immortal gods be praised, my children are in the rosy-fingered dawn of their youth, charging to and fro with energy to rival that of the swift runner Achilles. And my wife is as lovely as Helen and as tractable as Briseis.

Oed: Good, good. Glad to hear. OK, to business. Now Homey, I read the scrolls your messenger dropped off last Tuesday. And, um, they’re great, great stuff you got there. Really great. Yessir. But listen, Homey, I’ve got a few suggestions . . . you know, just minor things, really, no major changes, of course.

Homer: . . . Yes?

Oed: Right. So first off, I gotta say, that the whole plot here is pretty complicated. Not that complicated is bad, no, but it’s just, well, you might wanna think about making it easier to follow. I mean, you’ve got Achilles’ mother going to Zeus and asking for his help in making sure the Achaeans lose in battle without her son, just to teach them a lesson about what a big macher Achilles is. And the Big Z agrees and sends a dream to Agamemnon telling him to strike while the iron is hot, but all the while the Big Z actually wants Agamemnon to fuck up and for the Trojans to hand his ass to him on a plate. Have I got it so far? Eh?

Homer: . . .(nods)

Oed: Then Agamemnon – by the way, could we change his name to something shorter, punchier, with more fricatives? you know, like Rocky or Spike, something like that? think about it, OK Homey? – anyway, Agamemnon tries the old reverse psychology trick on his troops, telling them to just pack it in and go home. And he thinks his troops will be all pissed off and want to fight to the end, but no, they run like little girls to catch the next ship home. So then Agamemnon’s lieutenants have to give a bunch of flowery speeches to get the men to fight. Have I got this right? Look…it’s too complicated. Too many flip-flops, too much conniving, you know? The whole thing reads like something out of that Raymond Chandler guy or one of those noir luftmensches who’re always writing these stupid complicated stories that no one even wants to figure out.

Homer: . . . (sigh)

Oed: And another thing. It’s thin. I mean, like what really happens in this chapter? It’s just a bunch of Greek guys standing around talking. Now look, I know you, Homey – are you sure it’s OK I call you that? – and I know sooner or later you’re gonna deliver the goods. You know, the violence and sex and plunder and all that. But we’ve gotta put something in this chapter to make people want to read on, or we’ll lose them.

Homer: (sigh) What would you have me do?

Oed: Well, I’d like some action right in the second book, bam, keep everybody interested. Bam! But like I said, I know you and I know you won’t go for that. So how about this: I want you to dump your notebook. All those notes you took about which soldiers were from where and in what divisions? Just toss ‘em in there at the end.

Homer: I do not understand you, O gimlet-eyed master. You say my story runs slow like honey on a winter’s day, but now you want me to add lists of names and places that will be unknown even among the peoples of the Peloponnese? Surely this will neither quicken my narrative nor spice my poetic themes.

Oed: Homey, I gotta hand it to ya. You’re a smart cookie. Really smart. I like that. But you don’t know jack about the publishing industry. There’s more than one way to keep a reader interested, you know? All those soldier names you showed me? All those towns, villages, islands? You drop just one of those names, you increase sales by at least a hundred. And that’s in the smallest meanest little burg in the Achaean world. You take a medium sized city, island, whatever, mention its name, and bam, you’re talking another two thousand sold. Everybody likes to read about themselves. Everybody likes to read about their neighbors to see if there’s any dirt about them. Everybody likes to read about their hometown. Makes ‘em feel important. It’s all about the drachmas in this business, Homey. And the names you got in your notebook are gold. Gold! No one’s actually gonna read all those lists, they’ll just skim the page til they find their brother, their city, their legion, their great uncle, whatever. You’re not writing this chapter to be read. You’re writing it to make money, yaknowwhatimean?

Homer: I will heed your counsel, O seller of others’ words. Your cunning and ingenuity rival that of the many-turned Odysseus.

Oed: Damn right. Oh, and speaking of Odysseus . . .

Homer: …Yes?

Oed: Oh, nothing really. But I was just thinking, if this Iliad of yours hits the bestseller list and sticks there like Old Navy on white trash, you could do a sequel about this Odysseus guy. Him, I like.

OK, I finished Book 1 of The Iliad and I’m pretty disgusted with this Achilles guy. He seems like a wus to me. He whines like a little bitch that Agamemnon doesn’t appreciate him. When Agamemnon forces him to give up Briseis, the concubine he abducted, he steams and stews over the insult to his honor but never breathes a word about being heartbroken – or even actually liking her. No, it’s me me me all the time with this guy. Then he decides to sulk and let the Trojans beat the crap out of the Achaeans. The height of his adolescent sulkiness is reached when he goes to his mother (!) to complain about how it was just SO UNFAIR that he had to give up his concubine. He commits an act of treason by telling his mother to have the Big Z put the whammy on the Achaeans so that everyone will know that they are nothing without him. And his moms actually goes along with this!