Monday, November 20, 2006

The Odyssey - post III

Things start to get interesting as Odysseus tells his story - a sort of Sinbad emporium of giant Cyclops and angry gods

Bullet points from chapters nine and ten

Nine
Odysseus starts to tell his story and how the army split after the victory at Troy and he set off and ran into problems with the Cyclops who turned out to be cannibals happy to eat members of his crew for breakfast

After managing to blind then escape from a Cyclops Odysseus taunts it from the sea and the giant prays to his father Poseidon to make sure the crew all dies and Odysseus has a terrible journey home

Ten
They start at Aiolia Island and the King helps them but when they reappear he understands that their journey is cursed so asks them to leave and they come across a land where the scouts sent to meet the king come across yet more cannibalism

They flee to a land with a hall in the middle of a glade and the goddess Kirke lives there and enchants the men and turns them into swine but Hermes comes and tells Odysseus how to break her spell but she tells him he cannot go home easily and must first sail to the land of the dead and go through some complex sacrificing rituals to make sure the gods are appeased

This is a great read and the only criticism would be that the adventures are sometimes too short leaving you wanting to know more about the different lands and the creatures/people who live on them