The Illiad, by Homer

 

 Of gods and men...

I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this book before starting it, or even after reading through the introduction. Knowing the basic outline and form of the story ahead of time allowed me to have patience with the pacing, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and gleaned several insights from it.

(Spoiler alert: I discuss some things in the plot that may be considered 'spoilers', however, I think anyone who is reading The Illiad isn't reading it for plot but for substance. This information will not cause you to enjoy reading and pondering The Illiad any less, you will simply be aware of some things ahead of their time.)

The first thing that struck me was the slowness with which the battles are described, each thought and action of the attacker and his foe are detailed, the entrance and exit points of the weapon are noted, the organs that were affected (or spilled, or splattered) are listed, an analogy with an animal or two is defined, and a short history of the dead man is given. Often to indicate death the words used are "and his armor rang upon him," or "and night descended on his eyes." I pondered about Homer's intent with these details, and came to a few conclusions:

• The reader feels the loss of the man much more keenly if when we are aware of his father, twin, or wife, whose hopes are now smothered beyond repair. I contrasted this with the deaths in a battle in Lord of the Rings, where nothing is known about the enemy soldier but that they are the enemy, and we feel no loss at their death, but instead feel only happiness that our hero or our side are one step closer to their goal. In The Illiad, every death is someone's son or brother. I often felt a cavity in my chest as I read.
• I think the fighting may have had a different style than what I imagined in my head before - the opponents sometimes banter, and the victor expects to strip the dead of their armor as a prize, and often does without coming to harm. The battle field's lay strewn with bodies that are trampled day after day when the fighting resumes over them. Horses and chariot thunder and men run and trip and camp, and the mess and gore (and by extension, stink) are very much present in the mental image.
• At the end when Achilles finally rejoins the fray, his overbearing expertise and skill as a warrior take even the reader by surprise when he kills person after person after person with no details or fanfare - he is so speedy in dealing out death that the reader cowers at his presence on the battlefield. We know that each man taken down by him has a past and those who mourn him on many levels, but there is no time to learn about him before another man has been felled, then another and another. It was a powerful contrast.

Many men get into pointless frays and waste time and lives attempting to prove their point. Agamemnon punishes Achilles, who actually suffers little while thousands of men die in his absence. Menalaeus's wife, Helen, is the reason the war is being fought - one woman (and the principle of 'hey, you can't just come and take my wife') causes so, so many deaths on the battlefield that I can hardly believe Helen has the will to live through it. She can see the carnage from the city. The women in Troy urge their husbands on to greater strength and endurance by reminding them that their children will be trampled and their wives made slaves to the victors. This was awful to read, and awful to realize the truth of. The two opposing sides placed no value at all on their opponents, having no mercy, no glimmer, even, of recognition that they were people in their own right.

There was not a single character in the book who had redeeming morals and character. Not a man, not a god, not a river. One river tried to take out Achilles because he recognized the needless slaughter coming from his hand, but when threatened by the gods, the river god retreated and agreed to not help Troy at all when Achilles burned and sacked the town. No backbone at all! I didn't connect with any of the people, any of the women, even the slave women, and see the story as if I were in it. I viewed it from start to finish almost as a fable - not about me, but something I could learn from.

A few general notes:

• Hera and Athena are spelled 'Here' and 'Athene'. Which is fine, except when a sentence begins with the word 'Here' and you think it is using the word 'here'.
• A squire is a position of honor - often the best man's squire is the squire because he is the second-best man in the army.
• The soldiers are greedy and over-concerned with their own standing and pride. 
• The gods are fickle and able to change sides or positions at a moments notice without repercussion - and if they were really planning it all along, everyone sees the deception as normal and not punishable.

The men can do something completely stupid, costing lives, resources, time, and battles, without loosing face before their armies. All they have to do is say that they were blinded by a god or Ate, and their people all say 'oh, how sad. We still trust you!' Hector, the Trojan's dominant soldier, is the only one who shows remorse for having made a bad decision, and recognizes that he, himself, made the decision; not the gods. He doesn't excuse himself and instead chooses to fight Achilles and die, thus heralding the downfall of all of Troy, including the death of his wife and son. Huh. I would think that if there was one time you were going to claim 'The gods did it, the gods did it!', that would be it.

Very little of the way the people view the gods jives with what I believe to be true or doctrinal religion. Mostly the gods are there as a convenience, a protection, a person to blame, and the excuse or reason the fight is going well or poorly. If you win in the morning and get driven back in the afternoon, it's because Zeus was on your side in the morning, but switched sides in the afternoon. And the reader watches Zeus do just that up there in the sky, so the generals are right, but it leads the generals to complacency. They never evaluate their part and ask 'what could I have done differently, or better.'

Normally I read books within a few days. With The Illiad I was content to read a passage or chapter at night before bed and spread it out over a couple weeks. It provided me so much food for thought that I had no desire to start another book during the course of reading it.

If you do choose to read The Illiad yourself, you will find not only epic poetry at its best (whatever that may be), you will find quite a bit to bring you pause and make you consider the way life works.