He and his students illuminate many of the epic’s gnarlier aspects quite well. I love the way he uses the Socratic method inherent in the seminar to do all his heavy lifting for him. A favorite part is when the author cites critics of the epic throughout time.

Moreover, the book is also a relatively painless way to learn more about the classics. The two approaches differ greatly but the core content, not so much. Mendelsohn like Roth is just another man chronicling the loss of a beloved father. The book reminds me very much of Philip Roth’s Patrimony. He was a mathematician working for Grumman in the pre-computer era. He’s a true believer in the value of hard work, especially academic achievement. The father is a bit of a curmudgeon, not overly so, but he can be hilariously opinionated. So the book is a relaxed contemplation of the great book’s methods and devices, and insight into the present author’s relationship with his father, a research scientist who embraced his gay son from the first. Then the two take a 10-day tour on a small cruise ship of The Odyssey’s principle Mediterranean sites.

Might that include the writing or reading of this moving memoir? The father, Jay, takes his son’s Odyssey seminar at Bard College one spring.

The rigor of his voice may be explained as we learn more about his austere father who believed nothing worth doing should be easy. There’s no smoothly swirling Rothian prose here. Doctor Mendelsohn’s is clearly the voice of a Professor of Classics. Part classics course, part father-son memoir, part travelogue.

Mendelsohn an odyssey