Hearing Homer’s Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry

Who was Homer? This centuries-old question may be best answered by asking, Who was Milman Parry? Kanigel (Eyes on the Street) takes a deep dive into the life of the classical scholar, who was the first to officially posit that Homer was not a single individual but many people who passed down great epics from generation to generation. Parry, born to working-class parents in Oakland in 1902, became enamored with the works of Homer as an undergraduate at Berkeley. Throughout the narrative, Kanigel doesn’t neglect the struggles and frustrations of Parry’s wife Marian, who tends to their two small children while her husband pursues his scholarly passions. The author makes it clear that the marriage was strained, mirroring the disconnect between Odysseus and Penelope in the best-known of the Homeric tales. This friction hovers like a dark shadow throughout, and Kanigel’s revelation that Marian has been considered a suspect in her husband’s mysterious death in 1935 creates an underlying quiver of suspense.