21 February 2025

Homer and the Epic Cycle

I keep writing about how I want to pay attention to Homer’s Iliad more and finish those pages. I have actually produced a few more pages for this project recently, but I still have another nine to finish it.

To focus my attention on it a little more I have taken to reading books related to The Iliad. I read Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy and Aeschylus’ trilogy, The Oresteia, this month. I’ve decided that for the moment I want to focus on a few books on this topic. I’m currently reading Castanza Casati’s Clytemnestra, the Mycenaean queen married to King Agamemnon of Trojan War fame. After I finish that I thought I would read Euripides’ Electra, and then read Jennifer Saint’s modern version of the Electra story. I also have Stephen Fry’s book about Troy to read, too, as well as his book, Odyssey.

As if this wasn’t enough, the thought of where the Homer project is going has begun to niggle my at brain. The simple plan was to move on to The Odyssey and round it all up with Virgil’s The Aeneid.

But I’ve now begun to think about the Epic Cycle. The Epic Cycle comprises six books (there is a larger version but let’s not go there) which filled out the story of the Trojan War in ancient times. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were a part of this cycle, but because we still have them the term ‘Epic Cycle’ usually refers to the six books that have now been lost, except for a few lines and fragments. Despite this, scholars have a pretty good idea what the books were about because they were highly influential in ancient times. Other writers like Ovid and Virgil based some of their stories on the Epic Cycle. The Epic Cycle was also quoted and referenced in other works for centuries. So, scholars are able to piece together a chronology from what remains to roughly determine what each book in the cycle contained.

Now I’ve gone and bought some books.

These aren’t books you will be able to find in bookshops, most likely. I placed orders with Amazon and booktopia, and all the books I ordered from booktopia are printed to order. They’re a bit niche, I guess.

I had the two I ordered from Amazon arrive yesterday, The Cypria and The Telegon, both edited by D.M Smith. Smith’s books are supposed to be a more accessible version of other books that do a similar thing in the scholarly world. He pieces the stories of the works back together using quotations from other sources, supported by some commentary. The Cypria was the first book in the Epic Cycle, which tells the story of the beginning and early days of the Trojan War, while The Telegon was the last book in the Cycle, and it tells the story of Odysseus’ fate after the events of The Odyssey.

I have another more comprehensive text book on order which covers the entire Epic Cycle, and a short introductory book which covers all the books in the cycle. On top of this, I ordered Euripides’ play, Iphigenia at Aulis, which covers the events surrounding Iphigenia’s sacrifice to the gods by her father, Agamemnon.

I’ve started to redesign The Iliad project page. The redesign is not publicly available yet. I think the Iliad and Odyssey will only be two parts of this project now, albeit the largest parts. I also intend to devote a page to each of the lost epics, based on my reading of the books I have ordered. For that reason, I will rename the project ‘Homer and the Epic Cycle’. It may take a few weeks for the changes to appear, but that’s where it is going.

Ultimately, it means it will probably take me years to finish all this, if my progress so far is any measure. And Virgil will have to be content, when he finally gets a look in, to be relegated to a small project on his own.

- bikerbuddy

20 February 2025

Dropping Acid

I just finished a review for a trilogy of ancient Greek plays a few days ago, The Oresteia by Aeschylus. The copy I read has sat on my shelf for at least 35 years. I have a collection of ancient Greek and Roman plays as well as other primary source material I bought when I studied a bit of ancient history. The thing is, The Oresteia was bought because I loved Aeschylus’ plays, Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes and The Persians, but then it was put on my shelf and I never got around to reading it until last week. I picked it up because I’m trying to read a few books related to Homer right now.

The main point to take from this is that I’ve owned the book at least 35 years, maybe even forty.

Despite sitting largely untouched on my shelf during that time, the book was in poor condition. The pages were yellowed and the inside covers were browned. This is a reaction from the acid in the paper and cardboard to the air, which can also be affected by other factors like humidity and heat. When I opened the book, the front cover snapped clean off, brittle like a cracker. When I turned to the back of the book, the back cover did the same. This process of slow degradation is known as “slow fire”. Apart from the look and the covers, I write notes in books with a mechanical pencil for the purposes of my reviews, and as I wrote I found I was sometimes tearing into the pages, too.

The problem of acidic paper was something I hadn’t considered until I bought a collection of Easton Press books years ago. They’re leather bound with thick paper. After the title page they bear a little notice:

This book is printed on archival quality paper especially milled for this edition. It is acid-neutral and conforms to all guidelines established for permanence and durability …

Apparently, the production of acidic paper began in the nineteenth century, but it is still used today even though acid-free paper is becoming more common. The paper is manufactured using acidic substances that remain in the paper after production. Over time they cause paper to yellow, become brittle and eventually even the print on the pages becomes unreadable as the paper breaks down. The consequences are obvious. If you are collecting books across a lifetime, as I have done, some books in your collection may degrade as my Aeschylus has. This seemed a particularly bad copy. Other books I own from the same period are yellowed, but not disintegrating.

If the problem of acidic paper is one you’ve never encountered or thought about, I’ve provided a photo of my copy of The Oresteia here, showing its yellowed state. The browned pieces of cardboard are the insides of the front and back covers.

There are treatments for acidic paper if you want to go to the trouble or expense. The key thing is to raise the PH levels in the paper to counteract the effects of the acid. As a cheap method, some people try baking powder, but it is not very effective since the powder doesn’t properly get into the fibres of the paper and it leaves your book all powdery. Another method is to bring the paper in contact with calcium carbonate filled paper at a high humidity. A range of commercially available sprays to treat the paper are also available. The most expensive option, usually reserved for rare and valuable books, is the services of professional de-acidifying companies, usually used by libraries with archive materials.

As far as my own books are concerned, I am not actually concerned. Almost all the books I own are in reasonably good condition. Only a few show signs of being affected by acid in the paper, although the book I’m reading right now, Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati (another book related to the Trojan War) already has some spotting on the pages at the top even though I bought it less than two years ago. However, I figure my books will last me my lifetime and after that my sons will have the problem of how to get rid of them. Unfortunately, I see a digital future when a collection of books, which would once have been valued, will only be seen as a dust collector.

- bikerbuddy

4 February 2025

Menu Update

I did a little update to the website yesterday morning after I wrote the blog post. The update was to provide better access to the Blog Archive. Each month I archive blog posts from the Blog page, and I have been making these available through a list that was featured on the right-hand side of the Blog page. There were two problems with this. On phone screens and narrow computer monitors the list had to be shunted to the bottom of the page, making it mostly invisible. Also, the list wasn’t readily accessible once someone looked at one of the archive pages. It was only on the Blog page.

The solution was to incorporate the list into the menu at the top of pages across the website. Now the Blog page is accessible at the head of that dropdown list, and the archive is listed below that, as shown in this screen shot:

I also reread Held and addressed some dumb errors I made.

- bikerbuddy

3 February 2025

Rereads

I was just archiving the blog posts for December 2024 and I saw my end of year resolutions I made in November. At my most optimistic projection, I had intended to finish reading The Iliad in January. As it turns out, I read two more books of The Iliad and posted pages for them for the website project, but I still have nine books to go. I will continue to focus on this project whenever I can.

One thing that will be occupying my time this month is rereading a few novels. One reread will be for Anne Michaels’ Held, shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year. I wasn’t a great fan of the book, and there are aspects of it which means I never will be. But a few people have made comments which make me think I may have got some minor details wrong. I want to reread the book to check whether I have made factual errors, or if the comments merely reflect a different interpretation.

Before I came to that decision, I had already been thinking of a review I wrote way back in 2017 for Philip K. Dick’s Valis. It was only my tenth review for the website, in fact. The website was a lot different then. There was no blog page, for one thing. I was still trying to get my head around coding. I was also deciding exactly how we were going to present reviews and what I wanted them to be. As a comparison, the review for Valis came in at only 750 words (the review for Held was 5000) in its original version, which is still the current version at the time of this blog's publication. The review also had no sidebar. But the real issue was that I was not happy with this particular review, even back in 2017 when I posted it. It always sat in the back of my mind. Perhaps this has less to do with the review rather than a nagging thought in my head that I hadn’t read the book very carefully before I wrote the review. I mean, I read it, but I rushed it, and the review was rushed too. This wasn’t typical, even back then. I feel I need to give the book a second try – a fair go, we say in Australia – and see if my opinion about it changes.

I’ll be starting the reread of Held this week, and will reread Valis soon, according to the elastic schedule of my reading that is so well-characterised by my reading of The Iliad!

- bikerbuddy