My Big Summer Read

the tome I'm picking up for the summer

It’s been too long since I read a tome. The kind of book that informs your handbag choice. When I think about it, I think the last time I did was when I read A Little Life. In hardback. Along with the rest of London. I kept seeing people read it on the tube in tears and that seemed to be enough encouragement for me to lug it around.

I read it, slowly, over a month. It’s not the kind of book you can speed read.

I don’t think any book I’ve read since has had the same impact. Was that the writing? Or was it the fact that I was in it for so long that it became part of my world?

With longer summer evenings approaching, I figured this was the year that I want to pick something up that I haven’t read yet. Ashamedly, I haven’t read the big books that are everywhere at the moment - The Brothers Karamazov was the book of the winter and I’m seeing East of Eden as the current big book of choice.

And I do want to read those. I will. But something else is calling me first…

After reading Henry Eliot’s article in this month’s Idler on the best translations of The Odyssey, I’ve decided to read Emily Wilson’s translation and Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation together. At the same time.

From what I have read about the translations, Wilson’s is the more lyrical and readable and Mendelsohn’s is the one that holds closer to Homer’s form.

I’ll pair the reads with the usual adjacent stuff - essays, podcasts, videos. It’s meaty enough to take me all summer, not least because I’m reading it twice, but also because I’ve got the Booker longlist on my list and a whole bunch of philosophy reading as part of my self-study.

I’m undecided on how I’ll divide the read. The poem is made up of 24 ‘books’ so some people read it in two halves as I gather there is a natural break point in the middle. And others read it in the three ‘movements’ with books 1-4 being the first, 5-12 being the second and 13-24 being the last. I’ll figure it out once I get into it but if you’ve read it and think one approach is better than the other, let me know?

Either way, I’ll report back with a reading guide. That may be in two parts. It may be in three. Let’s see!

Interested to see what the paired reading will give me…will Wilson’s Odysseus be the same as Mendelsohn’s? Or will I end up with two different men - or some blend of the two?

Also, a slight aside, but I didn't expect A Little Life to take over my life. It just did. But now I'm trying it on purpose. I wonder if you can actively aim to be immersed in a book, or whether it only happens by accident.

Let me know if you’re planning on reading The Odyssey and, if so, what translation you’re picking up.

In the meantime, spare a moment to think of my handbags this summer.