Odyssey - Stephen Fry

Rating: ⭐ 4/5

As a modern book with plot, humour, character arcs and suspence it gets a 3, but as a recreation of a Greek epic - 5.

Stephen Fry did an amazing job of turning what is a very dence, historical narrative into a readable and engaging story. I recollect reading the Illiad during lockdown, the most notable chapter where they spend pages naming the different Greek kings and how many horses, ship, men and cattle each brought. There was none of that in this retelling, for which I am grateful. Never having studied the original Odyssey, I cannot say for sure how far this retelling takes liberties with plots or details. I am sure there are some discrepancies, but the main themes around sacrifice, perseverance and the savage pettyness of Greek gods all survived.

Stephen does break character sometimes to reference other poems or plays that are linked to the story. At the end he goes on a slight detour with some interesting takes on AI. Homer as a (potential) group of authors is compared to the way current AI models work, and parralels are drawn between Prometheus giving humans fire, and us passing on consiousness to another creation.

On to the film…