Author tackles a tough sequel: Homer’s Odyssey
Most of us who studied Homer’s Odyssey in school remember it as a ripping adventure right to the end. A hero of the Trojan War, Odysseus sails to his kingdom of Ithaca only to brave a 10-year voyage rife with cannibals, tempting Sirens and his crew’s escape from a one-eyed Cyclops on the underbellies of sheep. Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus reaches home to find a house full of unruly suitors competing for his wife’s hand and kills them all.
The epic poem ends with Odysseus quelling a civil war and ensuring Ithaca is at peace. Or so readers have accepted for the last 3,000 years.
Kelowna author Carl Hare had the audacity to write a sequel to one of the oldest surviving works of Western Literature. Called Odysseus, the story carries on, with the Greek hero’s quest to appease the god Poseidon for blinding his son Cyclops.
Odysseus embarks on another monumental journey that connects him with veterans of the Trojan War and their heirs, and forces him to defend his own family and kingdom.
To reflect the form of Homer’s long, narrative poem, Hare has written his 550-page epic in the classical poetic style used in the original. Even more gutsy is Hare’s decision to make it the first book of a trilogy he has spent the last 20 years writing and perfecting.
“I decided I needed three journeys,” he said in an interview.
“I wanted something that would tie all the literature together, starting in 1180 BC with the myth of the Trojan War and the Odyssey to the present day.”
Now 85, Hare recalls what sparked the epic trilogy On the River of Time. He was on tour with his son Kevin, who was performing Homer’s The Iliad at a fringe festival, when he spotted the collected works of Edmund Spenser in a Winnipeg bookstore. He bought Spenser’s most famous work The Faerie Queene, which the poet read aloud to Elizabeth I, but was only halffinished when he died in Ireland.
Hare was inspired to compose the last of the 12 books Spenser had intended for his masterpiece and wrote it, fittingly, in Spenserian stanzas. The work, entitled Spenser, encompasses the second volume of Hare’s trilogy to be released this fall.
“I wrote the last book of the Faerie Queene for him,” he said. “He dies at the very instant of his last word, which is ‘magnificence’ — the ultimate virtue.”
Hare has enjoyed a long theatre career as an actor, director and artistic director. As a teacher, he founded the University of Victoria’s theatre department and chaired the University of Alberta’s drama department.
His third book, Archer, mines those experiences but the protagonist, a renegade actor-director, is fictional. The finale is set in the modern day and ties all three books together, Hare said.
Although Odysseus may not be for everyone, it’s proving even millennials enjoy it. Poetry may have had its golden age generations ago, but Okanagan coffee shops regularly host readings that attract crowds of young people. Hare is convinced poetry continues to find new ways to express.
“My hairstylist bought a copy of Odysseus,” he said. “Twenty-year-old athletes are reading it. This isn’t just for classical scholars — it’s for anyone who will read it. It’s full of action. There’s humanity in it.
“I’ve tried to show as many forms of the human relationship, whether it’s male-female, male-male, in ways in which human beings struggle and relate.”
Odysseus is published by Quattro Books and is available in paperback at amazon.ca for $26.68.
My hairstylist bought a copy of Odysseus. Twenty-year-old athletes are reading it.This isn’t just for classical scholars — it’s for anyone who will read it.