The Iliad

I finished the audio version of the Iliad a few weeks ago. The end came as rather a shock - Hector dies and is buried and then the story stops before the final battle in which the Greeks take Troy.

It's a curious story. Wonderfully entertaining in a way close to movies. Lots of blood and gore that must have excited and engaged listeners down the years but with elements of a comedy.

The strangest aspect about the Iliad is the lack of an interior voice - there's only one scene when a protagonist reflects on his actions. That's when Agamemnon reconsiders the bad way that he treated Achilles. Apart from that, stuff happens because the gods will it that way. There's a wonderful book call "The Origin of Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by a Harvard psychologist called Julian Jaynes putting forth the notion that the Greeks actually thought differently that we in the modern world do - that their actions were at the prompting of an internal voice which could be taken to be a god. Jaynes argues that the origin of language and metaphor in particular led to a breakdown of this bicameral mind. It's an interesting read even if you don't accept the thesis.

Leaving that aside, the reason to read or listen to the Iliad is that it's a great story - perhaps the first great story in the Western world. Recommended.

Tim