Erica Jong's Bookshelf
The Odyssey
By Homer
To my mind, this is the first novel about marriage ever written. After surviving the Trojan War, Odysseus tries to get home to his wife and son in Ithaca. But the gods are angry with him and prolong his voyage interminably. He encounters every sort of obstacle, and both his heroism and his tenacity are tested. When he finally sees his wife, Penelope, after years at sea, he faces an even greater challenge: proving that he is really her husband. The tenderness of their reunion, the reestablishment of trust between wife and husband, shows how similar people in Homer's time were to people in ours. Their feelings about love and marriage were not so different from our own.
By Homer
To my mind, this is the first novel about marriage ever written. After surviving the Trojan War, Odysseus tries to get home to his wife and son in Ithaca. But the gods are angry with him and prolong his voyage interminably. He encounters every sort of obstacle, and both his heroism and his tenacity are tested. When he finally sees his wife, Penelope, after years at sea, he faces an even greater challenge: proving that he is really her husband. The tenderness of their reunion, the reestablishment of trust between wife and husband, shows how similar people in Homer's time were to people in ours. Their feelings about love and marriage were not so different from our own.
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