Why Homer Matters

Review of the book by Adam Nicolson

Flashes of brilliance
The beginning struck me as sizzle without substance. Then came flashes of brilliance and intriguing speculations, as he mixes personal memories with his reception of Homer’s epics.
Samples:
“…the canvas stirs, like a dog in a bed, begins to acquire a form, and the boat gains a sense of purpose, a coherence that it had lacked as it slopped in the chop or swell.”
“Homer is his poetry.”
“Homer for classical Athens was an encyclopedia of moral choice.”
“Like all great art, Homer is essentially transitional, emergent, hung between what is lost and what does not yet exist.”
“…the Homeric condition: the Odysseyan promise of delight enclosed within the Iliadic certainty of death.”

List of Richard’s other stories, poems, jokes, and essays.