Aug 8– "The Odyssey" by Homer translated by S.H. Butcher and A. Lang

 One of the better ad campaigns Nintendo has done

Aug 8– The Odyssey by Homer translated by S.H. Butcher and A. Lang

Summary: Circe turns Odysseus's crew into pigs (they get better) and bangs him for A WHOLE YEAR!

Commentary: This has always struck me as one of the odder, and more pointless encounters in The Odyssey. Odysseus and co. land on an island. Some of the men go inland, find Circe, eat the food she offers, and get turned into pigs. A huge part of The Odyssey is hospitality to guests, so Circe using that against the men should be just as bad (or worse!) than Polyphemus. Instead of being inhospitable, she uses hospitality to harm her guests. Instead, she (depending on who you ask) is generally considered one of the less bad (or even sympathetic) obstacles in Odysseus's way.

Meanwhile our great hero of "many devices" pauses his journey (and only sort of looks after his men, some of which are guarding the ships) to sleep with her for a year. 

We're supposed to be cheering for this guy to get back to his wife, and he spends a whole year fucking a woman who wanted to turn his men into pig slaves! Even if we accept that he and Penelope are swingers or something, I don't think anyone would be okay with their missing spouse taking a year long hall pass without any contact.

It's even weirder since it's so similar to the earlier encounter with Calypso (where Odysseus at least generally makes it out like he's being held captive, instead of willing.) Is Homer just so into men being stuck on islands with hot demi-goddesses that he needed two different versions of the same story?

There's an interesting arc in the middle chunk of The Odyssey where Odysseus, after initially being introduced as this genius/awesome guy, seems to get dumber and douchier as time goes on. It doesn't really follow all the way through (he's mostly smart/good once he returns to Ithaca for the last third of the book) but it's interesting while it lasts. It'd be interesting if Penelope just told him to go back to see when he got home, or if he was going nuts or time or something.