The Odyssey is no doubt one of the most thrilling epic adventure ever witnessed my mankind.
The world has witnessed many many epics ... practically every community claims to have one. But there are very few of them which stand apart in the crowd. Something about them is so gripping that people chose to read them thousands of years later inspite of absolute changfe in lifestyle , style of speach , beliefs and even morality. What was considered right at that time might not be considered right anymore ... could even be a criminal offence now ... but people read it just for the sheer joy of reading. The Odyssey is one such book ...others being the Illiad , the Ramayana , The Mahabharata , the Bible etc. to name just a few.
The odyssey is about the return journey of the supremo / ruler of ithaca ... Odysseus who was a hero known for his exploits in the battle field as well as public speaking. After winning the Trojan war by cleverly suggesting the world famous trojan horse ... the Odyssey describes the return journey of the hero back to his home town in Ithaca , his beautiful wife penelope and his son Telemachus.
A person should be well aware of the Greek mythology to read it in one go and understand because it deals with practically every character Homer could think of at that time.... from Zeus, Hades to Venus in gods ... and from Ajax , Achilles .. to Odysseus himself .
In my view , The Odyssey is totally dedicated to showing how easy life can be if you keep the gods happy by offering proper sacrifices and how difficult life will become if you make them angry. Odysseus won the battle of troy as gods favoured him but later showed disregard to them in many ways one being the fact that his crew ate the cattle belonging to appollo... although he had warned them and he did not have anything to do with that but he was supposed to be responsible for his crew.
He even blinded Neptune’s son Polyphemus to gain the sea god’s wrath. He had to conquor many problems of the likes of Circe the sorceress , the sirens etc. He even had to go to the underworld in the realm of Hades to find a way home.
By the time he reached his family it had been years since the Trojan war was over. Everyone thought he was dead , his wife was bugged by suitors , they even planned to kill his son.
It was because of the fact that Minerva (Roman)/ Athena ( Greek) still favoured him that he managed to reach home at last .
All it shows is untill the gods are in your favour you have evrything to lose.
What I liked about it is the detail in which every aspect of Greek Mythology has been covered.