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Paul S. Atkins of
Tokyo, asks:
I saw your interview with
Elizabeth Farnsworth on
cable here and enjoyed it
very much. After reading
James Joyce's "Ulysses" a
few summers ago, Homer's
"Odyssey" has never quite been
the same for me. I still
find it a great book, but
Joyce really has a grip on
me. Did you experience any
such anachronistic influences while you
were translating "The Odyssey?"
Professor Robert Fagles of Princeton University responds:
A fascinating question. Yes, Joyce's "Ulysses" influences, and even reshapes, Homer's "Odyssey" in our mind. It's a fine case of "reverse English," and I think our reading is more valuable, richer and fuller, for every later masterwork that permanently alters an earlier masterwork. Joyce has been especially important to me as a translator of Homer. It's Joyce who realizes for us, all over again, just how "married" "The Odyssey" really is. The union between Molly and Bloom is more than a little topsy-turvy, or course, but they do manage to muddle through together—thanks to luck, and happy accidents, and even a kind of loyalty "in the fashion"—that may remind us that the union of Penelope and Odysseus was not exactly written in the stars. Their union—especially their reunion—takes some real human effort, as well as some dumb blind luck, to secure and maintain. And that may be why it's the most famous marriage in history, or in fiction.
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