DANIEL MENDELSOHN is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, where he is the Editor at Large. His books include the international best seller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and many other honors; a memoir, The Elusive Embrace, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; a translation, with commentary, of the complete poems of C. P. Cavafy; and two collections of essays, How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken and Waiting for the Barbarians. A professor of Humanities at Bard College, he is Director of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation.
“Subtle, profoundly moving . . . an intricately constructed,
multidimensional journey of a father and son and their travails
through life and love. Mendelsohn weaves his basket with many
wands; the complexity seems natural, an account of the quality of
life itself, a route to revelation. Mendelsohn explicates the
Odyssey with exemplary and generous clarity. A book of shimmering,
beautiful, dapple-skilled intelligence.” —Adam Nicolson, The New
York Times Book Review
“Rich, vivid, a blood-warm book . . . a deeply moving tale of a
father and son’s transformative journey in reading—and
reliving—the Odyssey. Mendelsohn wears his learning
lightly yet superbly. What catches you off guard about this memoir
is how moving it is: it has many things to say not only about
Homer’s epic poem, but about fathers and sons. Mendelsohn has
written a book that’s accessible to nearly any curious reader. The
book partakes of at least four genres: classroom drama; travel
writing; biographical memoir; literary criticism. Revealing and
funny . . . Mendelsohn makes Homer’s epic shine in your
mind.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“My favorite classicist once again combines meticulous literary
investigation with warm and wrenching human emotion—books like
these are why I love reading.” —Lee Child
“Poignant, tender, affecting. . . . Mendelsohn is one of the finest
critics writing today; he’s also an elegant and moving memoirist.
One of the pleasures of reading him in any genre is being in expert
hands. Mendelsohn’s new book draws on all his talents as he braids
critical exegeses into intimate reminiscences, to illuminate them
both. In An Odyssey, a seminar at Bard College becomes a voyage of
discovery, not just for his students but also for Mendelsohn. He is
alert to ambiguities, aware that the path to any truth is a winding
one; his defining skill is his ability to trace those paths in rich
detail and intricate layers of revelations that build to a deeper
understanding—of art, of life—that is humanly and artistically
satisfying. Mendelsohn’s use of the classical Greek technique
of ring composition perfectly captures the stop-and-start rhythms
of his progress . . . Brilliant.” —Wendy Smith, The Washington
Post
“When Daniel Mendelsohn’s mathematician father lands in his son’s
Homer seminar at Bard, the older man sets in motion an odyssey both
hilarious and heartfelt. Father and son start in the pages of an
epic, board a ship to follow the hero’s path through the
Mediterranean, and finally end where all our stories
do. An Odyssey melds genius-level lit crit with gut-level
moving memoir. Beautiful and wise.” —Mary Karr
"This past summer, I made time to catch up on a book I'd missed
when it was published two years ago. Ever since, I've been telling
friends, students and random strangers on a train that
they must read Daniel Mendelsohn's memoir called An
Odyssey. In it, he recalls teaching a seminar on
Homer's Odyssey that his then 81-year-old father sat in
on as an auditor.
An Odyssey is the best account of what teaching is really like
that I've ever read; it's also (like Homer's epic) a spell-binding
story about the tenderness of a father-son bond, as well as the
inevitable limits that one's own personality and mortality impose
on that bond." —Maureen Corrigan, NPR
“A happy homecoming of another kind. Dread of the alien thrums
through [Homer’s] Odyssey; for Mendelsohn, the ancient tale becomes
an occasion not only to explore his relationship with his father,
but to transform it. He recounts the progress of the seminar he
teaches, in which his father is a lively (often obstreperous)
presence. The students are invigorated. In acknowledging the power
of the Homeric poem to bring depth to human relations, Mendelsohn’s
father is acknowledging the value of his son’s world and expertise.
The recognition leaves Mendelsohn free to see through his father’s
hardness—his ‘exacting standards for everything’—to the vulnerable
fighter within: a scrappy, strategizing Odysseus from the Bronx.
What solace or despair resides in the unexpected relevance of
this ancient poem, its encounters with Otherness thrown into high
relief by the xenophobia of our time? Three millennia later, we
have yet to habitually turn to the bedraggled stranger and take
note of his tears. . . . Poignant.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein,
The Atlantic
“Tender . . . complex and moving: a book that has much to say about
fathers and sons. On one level, An Odyssey elegantly
retells the story of Mendelsohn’s Odyssey course, complete with all
the gags, competition, and good cheer of an intergenerational
bromance. [But] it dives deeper, excavating a portrait of
Mendelsohn’s special student, his father: his lonely childhood, his
early brilliance, his forfeiture of Latin for a life of numbers.
Why a man so warm could be so cold. As Mendelsohn unpeels the
layers of his father’s life and education, he dramatizes the
beauty—and tedium—of the classroom. The reality of instruction is
messy; Mendelsohn happily shows us how difficult the transference
of passion can be. In this way, the students become supporting
characters to the book’s hero, Mendelsohn’s father, who lurks in
the corner like a hero in disguise. There is but one ending to the
book; within a year, Jay would die, and so Mendelsohn’s
journey—indeed like Homer’s—would be undertaken after the fact,
when something remained to be learned. It is a remarkable feat of
narration that such a forbiddingly erudite writer can show us how
necessary this education is, how provisional, how frightening, how
comforting.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe
“By turns family memoir, brilliant literary criticism, and a
narrative of education. Most of all, An Odyssey is a love story.
Mendelsohn makes his way through the text of the Odyssey, but also
tells a larger, personal story—of his family. Both odysseys focus
on quests, recognitions, homecomings. The book asks: How can you
really know anyone else? A truth everywhere acknowledged in
Mendelsohn’s odyssey is that everyone has a story, just as every
hero has a flaw, and that everyone needs stories to get through
life. Mendelsohn is the professor every college kid dreams about:
learned, sympathetic, encouraging and challenging in equal measure.
Like Homer, Mendelsohn makes us grateful for journeys, and the
companions—especially our families—who accompany us along our
individual and collective paths. . . . In An Odyssey, he reels us
in with a storyteller’s strongest gifts: passion, clarity, and
timing.” —Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal
“Fascinating. . . intensely moving. There are many moments to
cherish in this tangled and passionate investigation. Mendelsohn’s
exploration is [both] a personal family memoir and a critical
report on Homer’s epic, and the two facets illuminate each other.
Mendelsohn is an imaginative teacher, and the discussion of the
Odyssey sparkles. The Mediterranean cruise that father and son take
pays off in surprising ways; we get a haunting glimpse of the fear
that the end of your journey means finis, the hope residual in
permanent postponement. Best of all are the various small
recognitions that combine to build the late-blossoming intimacy
between father and son. This is an honest, and loving, account of
the improbable odyssey that gave them this one last deeply
satisfying adventure together.” —Peter Green, The New York Review
of Books
“Heartfelt, touching . . . a dazzlingly rich story of identity and
recognition from an exacting critic and award-winning memoirist. .
.When his father enrolled in Mendelsohn’s undergraduate seminar,
Mendelsohn didn’t know his father would only have a year to live.
The course, and the cruise retracing Odyssey’s voyage to Ithaca a
few months later, set in motion an emotional journey neither man
could have anticipated. With each new foray in his oeuvre,
Mendelsohn discovers deeper truths about those we think we know,
including ourselves. Mendelsohn’s intelligence glitters on the
page.” —Rajat Singh, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Mendelsohn is a force. His sentences are freighted with knowledge,
observation, and feeling. Both the classroom experience—where
Mendelsohn’s father Jay serves as a counterpoint to Mendelsohn’s
sharp reading of the story—and the boat excursion they take offer
opportunities: his father slowly sheds his carapace and gives
himself over to the adventure, revealing a side that we—and his
son—may not have seen before. Mendelsohn is an encouraging
teacher with enthusiasm and wonderful energy. But perhaps most
significantly, readers come to understand him as a man with
long-borne emotions, for his relationship with his father has not
been the easiest. [This] father-son journey with Homer as guide
[is] no buddy story, but a hard-fought, hard-won, late-life
conciliation.” —Peter Lewis, Christian Science
Monitor
“Fascinating . . . Mendelsohn expertly examines
the Odyssey with depth and classical acumen, extracting
meaning from even its most subtle moments. He explores [its]
historical importance with the comfortable clarity of someone who
has spent decades immersed in Greek literature. He details his own
relationship with the ancient poem, and he culls from the narrative
many insights into his own familial bonds, specifically with his
father. But the most entertaining part may be the classroom scenes.
By the end of the semester, Mendelsohn’s father had become part of
the class and his presence leads to a revealing and dramatic
moment. An Odyssey is a journey worth
taking.” —Jonathan Russell Clark, San Francisco
Chronicle
“Moving . . . a surprising piece of art—a masterful memoir of
reading, teaching and learning; a book as full of twists and turns
as its subject, often beautiful too. The Homeric questions about
fidelity, heroism and survival are elevated from Mendelsohn’s
seminar by the relationship between the two men. This is a story of
reconciling a scientist and an artist; Jay, the man of calculus,
comes to influence both his son and his fellow pupils. As well as a
contribution to the art of memoir, An Odyssey is a vivid defence of
the close rereading of a classical text, the tiny questions from
which bigger pictures become clear.” —Peter Stothard, The Financial
Times
★ “Enlightening—engaging, gripping and deeply moving . . .
Mendelsohn explores the enduring relevance of
Homer’s Odyssey through a memoir tracing the complex
relationship between father and son.” —Library Journal
(starred review)
“Beguiling. . . in this memoir, Mendelsohn recounts a freshman
class on the Odyssey he taught at Bard College with his father, an
81-year-old computer scientist, sitting in. … Mendelsohn gradually
unwraps layers of timeless meaning in the ancient Greek poem;
Homeric heroes offer resonant psychological parallels to a modern
family. Mendelsohn weaves trenchant literary analysis and family
history into a luminous whole. A gem.” —Publishers Weekly
★ “Sharply intelligent. . . A frequent contributor to the New
Yorker and the New York Times Book Review, Mendelsohn is
also a classics scholar. His father, a retired mathematician, had
been interested in the classics during his school days and decided
to continue his education by studying with his son . . .
Ultimately, this book [is] about what they learn about each
other—and what they can never know about each other. The author
uses a close reading of the epic to illuminate the mysteries of the
human condition; he skillfully, subtly interweaves textual analysis
[with] the lessons of life outside it . . . A well-told story that
underscores the power of storytelling.”—Kirkus, starred review
“There are a handful of books that have captured the pleasure and
romance of [the classics]. Donna Tartt’s The Secret
History was one. This is another. What happens in this book
isn’t really its point; it’s more about the telling than the tale.
And the telling is breathtaking. Homer has a phrase for those who
can speak bewitchingly: they have ‘wingèd words’. Mendelsohn has
wingèd words.” —Catherine Nixey, The Times (UK)
“Radiant . . . a candid, majestic book on the art of teaching, and
the push-pull relationship between professor and student,
especially if the student is one’s father. At the book’s center is
[Mendelsohn’s father] Jay, whose presence in the classroom
bewilders and charms the other students and his son . . .
Mendelsohn artfully allows Jay to define himself through bluster
and unexpected moments of tenderness. With skill and passion
[Mendelsohn] underscores how and why Homer still resonates today.
Intimate connections between Greek myths and our own lives reveal
the author at his singular best. With this graceful and searching
memoir, we all drink from the cup of knowledge proffered by one of
our leading philosopher-writers.” —Hamilton Cain, Star
Tribune
“Lucid textual analysis [of Homer’s the Odyssey], and a profound
meditation on the inherent unknowability of the men who raise us.
More than that, An Odyssey is a moving portrait of the father
Mendelsohn comes to know in the last years of his father’s life—[a]
quest that is the beating heart of the book. I came away with a
renewed and deepened sense of the rewards found in a close reading
of the Odyssey. The poem is about life itself: marriage, fidelity,
homecoming, fatherhood, sonship, duty, honor, love, and in true
Greek style, preparation for death. To encounter the poem, and to
read it deeply, is to encounter ourselves.” —Thomas Jacobs, America
Magazine
“Spellbinding . . . multi-layered, inclusive. . . With bardic
capacity, Mendelsohn tells a story that is heroic in scope yet
distinctly humble in manner. Mendelsohn's keen, penetrating
observations plumb the micro-emotions of the several stories
interwoven here. Slowly, painstakingly and with abiding, warm
humor, Mendelsohn pursues reconciliation with his prickly father,
who becomes a cantankerous student in Mendelsohn’s seminar at Bard
College. The book’s magic is in moving from topic to topic, setting
to setting, insight to insight, ancient to modern over what is
sometimes no more than a paragraph break, and with no creaking of
the narrative machinery. A meditation on filial love as candid,
tender and in its own way ruthless as its counterparts in the
Bible, Shakespeare and Homer . . . written with style as remarkable
and flexible as the Odyssey, with sentences Proustian in
complexity yet lucid and balanced . . . both dense and fleet, and
wholly captivating.” —Tim Pfaff, The Bay Area
Reporter
“It’s hard to pierce a legend, even when it’s just generation-old
family lore . . . As author-professor, Mendelsohn doesn’t lecture;
his storytelling leaves room for other teachers — including his
current students, his former professors and relatives who decode
multi-layered family myths. All of these relationships yield an
emotional bounty, nourished by memories, loyalty, love or some
combination of the three. Equal parts lit-crit class, language
lesson and memoir, An Odyssey create[s] its own unique and
compelling sub-genre. Each element of Mendelsohn’s story is buffed
to perfection . . . Brilliant.” —Alison Buckholtz, Florida
Times-Union
“A memorable mixture of literature and life. . . One of the
students in Mendelsohn's spring undergraduate seminar on
Homer's Odyssey was quite different from the others:
Mendelsohn's own father. Classroom discussions of Odysseus’
long, wandering journey home to Ithaca led father and son to
undertake a real-life Mediterranean cruise retracing the
Greek warrior’s travels. Mendelsohn begins to see his father
in a new light even while the older man challenges the basic
tenets of Homer’s epic. . . [It is] a journey of
understanding they undertake together. Interesting and
instructive.” —Bridget Thoreson, Booklist
“Brimming with longing and heartbreak . . . A noted memoirist and
venerable contributor to a myriad of respected periodicals, Daniel
Mendelsohn doesn’t hold back. In this memoir, he turns his
attention to two men who have influenced a large portion of his
life: Homer, and his own father. An Odyssey carefully
unpacks details from Homer’s epic poem, with the author taking the
stance of a vigilant observer. Witnessing his father’s guileless
rediscovery of the ancient text, Mendelsohn’s life’s work as a
classicist is turned on its head. The revelations and thoughts of
the central characters of Homer’s Odyssey serve as
portals to deeper understanding of contemporary relationships.
Studying (and essentially mirroring) Homer’s legendary work allowed
both the Mendelsohn father and son to find new dimensions for their
love of one another. While the events of An
Odyssey conclude with Jay passing away, the vibrant stamp he
left behind on his son is evidenced by the profundity of the
memoir’s pages. It’s an epic reconciliation, albeit a quiet one,
focused on all that he’d been given by his father, celebrating
their mutual love and respect.” —Michael Raver, The
Huffington Post
“Family memoirs are often chronicles of estrangement and
rapprochement, typically seeking to wring meaning from the haze of
grief or regret. In this quest, Mendelsohn transcends the demands
of the genre with his customary blend of linguistic elegance and
narrative panache. He dares readers to engage with the complexities
of [Homer’s] epic poem and apply its lessons to their own lives. As
the memoir unspools, Mendelsohn’s narrative grip tightens, and the
son’s search for his father becomes poignant and
powerful.” —Julia M. Klein, The Forward
“Compelling . . . a memorable journey through worlds both ancient
and contemporary. As I read Mendelsohn’s wonderfully precise
textual analysis of Homer, I couldn’t help but think how similar
his interpretative method is to the ways in which Biblical scholars
parse the Torah for deeper understanding. With each reading, there
is also more to glean. So, too, does Mendelsohn gain more insight
into his father, and thus himself, at every step along the
way. An Odyssey is a multi-layered tale; a lesson in
learning through the journey of life.” —Diane
Cole, Jewish Week
“Deeply personal. . . Mendelsohn traces his emotional, intellectual
and physical journeys with his father, which he weaves with Homer’s
epic poem about Odysseus’ long journey home from
battle.” —Robert Nagler Miller, J Weekly
“Enjoyable. . . An Odyssey describes a son’s touching mission to
understand his father. In a thoroughly Odyssean conceit, Mendelsohn
questions what it takes to recognise the qualities of one’s kin.
The appeal of the book lies in the lacunae between Mendelsohn’s
understanding of his father and ours. Teaching his father initially
seems to teach Mendelsohn only how little they have in common,
[but] if any subject can dissolve their differences, it is
Classics. Everyone who embarks on an Odyssean quest must fail in
his own way. The author doesn’t fail to achieve Odysseus’s heroism.
Can a son ever know his father at all? It is to Mendelsohn’s credit
that he poses the question before it is too late.” —Daisy Dunn, The
New Statesman
“A rich and richly textured book . . . a tour de
force. Combining an in-depth literary analysis with a personal
narrative is a bold enterprise. An Odyssey could have
been, in the hands of a lesser writer, grandiose. It isn’t. It is
so well written that every page makes you feel more alert and
alive. The brilliance of An Odyssey lies in the
insightfulness of the writing, as Mendelsohn immerses himself in
the text of Homer’s Odyssey: lives it, breathes it, and
presses it for meaning. He is particularly good at physical
descriptions; he is also good at demonstrating how difficult it is
to understand our parents, the small ways in which we hurt one
another, and the tender moments. The ending is
heartbreaking. Through Homer, Mendelsohn has created a
memorial his father: an extraordinary act of filial
love.” —Helen Morales, Times Literary
Supplement (UK)
“Mendelsohn is an artful storyteller whose skills are equal to the
task of weaving Homer’s poem into his own life. In this insightful,
tender book, Mendelsohn gracefully marries literary criticism and
memoir to describe an intellectual and personal journey that
becomes one of profound discovery for both [father and son]. Most
impressive are his transitions from scholarly consideration of
‘The Odyssey’ to intimate stories of his family life, as when the
class discussion flows effortlessly into a magical moment,
witnessing [his father] Jay as he offers a heartbreakingly
beautiful tribute to his wife… [There are] many wise lessons to be
gleaned from this lovely book.” —Harvey
Freedenberg, BookPage
“Fascinating . . . by turns cerebral, lively and poignant.
Mendelsohn has achieved an enviable renown as essayist, literary
critic and author of autobiographical explorations undergirded by
insights from classic texts. In
Homer’s Odyssey, Telemachus, now 20, is searching for the
father he has never known; likewise, while teaching a course on
the Odyssey, Mendelsohn discovers that the classroom
becomes a way to better understand his cantankerous father. In
lesser hands, this sort of parallelism would seem gimmicky, but not
here. It’s clear that Mendelsohn’s Socratic method of teaching (via
dialogue rather than lecture) forces everyone, including himself,
to see things with fresh eyes. Every step of the way, An
Odyssey charts a remarkable journey made indelible by
Mendelsohn’s elegant prose. —Dan Cryer, Newsday
“Rich. . . surprising, seamless. Mendelsohn is perhaps the most
accessible contemporary ambassador of the classics; An
Odyssey makes his most convincing case to date for their vital
necessity. The book argues that Homer’s classic may be, more
than anything else, a family saga. In An
Odyssey Mendelsohn places himself in the Telemachus role to
ponder his relationship to his own father, who, like many fathers
seems to have at some point drifted away. This book is as
much tribute to the magic that can occur in the classroom as
an unlikely tale of a father and son’s spiritual reunion. It is an
adventure in criticism and in familial reckoning, telling the story
of how Daniel and his father get to know each other in the last
year of his father’s life. Mendelsohn takes us through
the Odyssey alongside his class, meanwhile drawing
comparisons between his and his father’s journeys, and those of
Odysseus and Telemachus. Mendelsohn has honed a method of mixing
memoir and criticism to reflect on the problems of contemporary
life through the lens of the Greek classics. What’s remarkable is
the extent to which the Odyssey truly does help him—and
us—understand our lives.” —Craig Morgan
Teicher, Bookforum
“A brilliant new memoir . . . richer and deeper than Mendelsohn’s
previous work. At its core, it is a funny, loving portrait of a
difficult but loving parent: Mendelsohn’s father, Jay, who is, like
[the Homeric hero] Odysseus and perhaps all of us, polytropos:
“many-sided” or “much-turning.” Mendelsohn sets an account of the
Homeric Odyssey alongside a nuanced portrait of his own
complicated familial and quasi-familial relationships, including a
vivid picture of Mendelsohn’s anger, anxieties and embarrassments
about his father. The book shows us how his desire to become
a classicist was shaped in part by the desire to please his
father, and how he shares some of his father’s need to be always
right. Most powerfully, Mendelsohn contrasts his account of Homer
with his father’s more critical response . . . the meeting of the
two perspectives leads to a far richer reading of the poem. The
fault-lines mapped in the disagreements of father and son
correspond to some of the most fascinating interpretative questions
of The Odyssey itself. Mendelsohn is a perceptive
literary critic and a self-consciously elegant writer. An
Odyssey is a stellar contribution to the genre of memoirs
about reading—literary analysis and the personal stories are woven
together in a way that feels both artful and natural.
A thoughtful book from which non-classicists will learn a
great deal about Homer.” —Emily Wilson, The
Guardian (UK)
“A marvellously entertaining and wise chronicle of [Mendelsohn’s
and his father’s] odyssey, first in the classroom and then on a
tour of the seas around Greece. Mendelsohn senior reveals himself
to be a clever questioner and someone capable of motivating a class
of reluctant youngsters. Revelations about the sorrows of war, the
pangs of love, the craft of matrimony and the laws of travel are
had. ‘A good book leaves you wanting more,’ Mendelsohn’s father
observes after finishing his son’s seminar. This is powerfully true
of this moving new odyssey as well.” —Alberto Manguel, Literary
Review (UK)
“A gentle, at times almost nostalgic, work: Mendelsohn’s lithe
prose flits seamlessly across intervals and registers, switching
from erudite exposition one minute to emotion-filled reminiscence
the next. An accomplished, brave book that testifies to what is
perhaps the Odyssey’s most abiding message: that intelligence has
little value if it isn’t allied to love.” —William Skidelsky, The
Observer (UK)
“In An Odyssey, the act of reading Homer tests a father-son
relationship. Besides creating page-turning narrative tension,
Mendelsohn’s father Jay’s skepticism raises a question: What good
are classics to a modern life? Jewel-like moments and meditations
arise.” —Giancarlo Buonomo, The New Republic
“Extraordinary . . .Mendelsohn is the closest thing American
classicists have to a hometown celebrity; his nonpareil prose has
been recognized in wide literary circles. An Odyssey will
speak to souls already well-watered by Homer and to those who have
yet to drink from his well. An Odyssey is about the
challenge we face in attempting to assemble our own prehistories.
It is, in other words, the challenge of figuring out your parents.
A deeply personal, profoundly moving meditation.” —Johanna
Hanink, Eidolon
“Wise and deeply humane—a many-layered memoir; a remarkably warm
and intimate book, one that brings an ancient wonder into modern
life and creates heroes on a less than epic scale. Mendelsohn
explains how his relationship with his father was historically
spiky, characterised by patches of silence and distance. Under the
teacher-pupil bond, however, it flourishes. Even as Mendelsohn
lights up hidden meanings in the Odyssey and universal
resonances for the reader, he is not only conveying his knowledge
about the epic, but about the little things, too, those details
that make a person who they are. In every way, this book is an
education.” —Victoria Segal, The Sunday
Times (London)
“Brave . . . A memoir that itself is a deeply Odyssean work, not
just structurally, but thematically: as Mendelsohn takes us through
Homer’s epic, he reveals how its themes – the passing of time,
identity and recognition, the bonds between fathers and sons,
husbands and wives – resonate across his and his father’s lives.
The book thus enacts a truth that has long been central to
Mendelsohn’s writing and teaching, which is that the great works of
antiquity remain relevant today. This is a gentle, at times almost
nostalgic, work; Mendelsohn’s lithe prose flits seamlessly across
intervals and registers, switching from erudite exposition one
minute to emotion-filled reminiscence the next. This accomplished
book testifies to what is perhaps the Odyssey’s most abiding
message: that intelligence has little value if it isn’t allied to
love.” —William Skidelsky, The Guardian (UK)
“Brilliant . . . not just a memoir but a celebration of Homer’s
great poem. Throughout we learn not only of the nuances and stories
of the Odyssey, but the actual structure as well,
illustrated by the author placing his own story in the parameters
of the Greek epic. Mendelsohn proves to be a wonderful teacher; he
confidently leads you through the ancient text. He also tells an
intimate story about a father and son who don’t become close until
late in life. If Homer’s The Odyssey is about any
one thing it’s about stories, imagined or real, heroic or tragic.
This memoir is also the story of another father and son and the
stories they reacted and told each other.” —James
Conrad, Chronogram
“A poignant and funny memoir as well as a stirring work of literary
criticism.” —Vulture Best Books of 2017 (so far)
“A beautiful personal narrative and literary interpretation . . .
an elegiac work in which the Odyssey comes back to life. The
ancient story’s leaving and coming back to shared memories is also
a strength of a son’s tribute to his father. By turns Mendelsohn
becomes closer to his father as the two men take a journey of
late-life friendship.” —Michael D. Langan, The Buffalo News
“Part odyssey, part memoir, part lit-crit and part classroom
drama, swirling back through time. Mendelsohn has [long] been
the plangent voice connecting the ancients with us. But the
connectivity never hit home as hard until her undertook An Odyssey,
[which is] is essentially a seminar of reading a human being. That
human being is his father, and so his erudition is ennobled, and
electrified, with true very human love. An Odyssey is a
vindication of Mendelsohn’s theory that every man is a great text
and the nobility of close reading. When the text is great and the
man is your father, close-reading gives life back to the lines and
the space between them.” —Joshua David Stein, Fatherly
“Beguiling. . . The ancient tension [between fathers and
sons] that Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, points out in
the Odyssey is still simmering when father Jay takes his
corner seat in son Daniel's Odyssey class. Mendelsohn's book keeps
four stories aloft at once: a summary of The Odyssey; his account
of the class he teaches; the story of his relationship with his
father; and an account of his own and his father's life. The
refreshing thing about An Odyssey is that it’s a
repudiation of the cultism of the classics. Reading The
Odyssey, the great book, with your failing old man, and keeping
each other company in the parallel epic known as life [is] a memory
that will last longer than anything on your cellphone.” —Ian
Brown, The Globe and Mail (Canada)
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