An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic

Mendelsohn (Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities, Bard Coll.), translator of the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy, frequent New Yorker contributor, and award-winning author of works including The Lost, here explores the enduring relevance of Homer's Odyssey through a memoir broadly parodying the ancient poem's narrative structure. It centers on the author's father, Jay, deciding to enroll in the freshman Odyssey seminar his son teaches, challenging Mendelsohn's authority as teacher and stimulating his introspection. Mendelsohn's account of the seminar provides an enlightening introduction to Homer's epic. Odysseus's adventures are represented by a father-son Mediterranean cruise, responding to sites associated with Homer. He even includes Athena/Mentor in the form of his own teachers, the classicists Froma Zeitlin and Jenny Strauss Clay. The journeys of Mendelsohn's Telemachus and Jay's Odysseus trace the complex relationship between father and son: the son's growth and self-discovery in the quest of his father; the father's coming to grips with his successes and failures, as he struggles to return home and understand his son.