In addition to the pair of previously mentioned works, I'll also embark on yet another attempt to make it all the way through Homer's Iliad read aloud. I've tried it with both Chapman and Pope (the Chapman version purely as an homage to Keats) but I've never manged to get too far past the catalogue of ships before indiscipline or laryngitis sent me hurrying down to Hades. (Perhaps I could manage more vocal stamina if I didn't try quite so hard to sound like a young Larry Olivier?)
Anyway, it's a glorious day out by the pool, I have the highly aural Robert Fagles translation of 1990, and I don't intend to do more than three or four books in one lazy sunny afternoon, taking rests in between books to swim laps, pump out some bicep curls, and meditate on whether the guiding passion of the Iliad is wrath, pride, jealousy, or something else. The legendary beauty of Helen notwithstanding, it sure as heck ain't love (unless the marriage of Zeus and Hera is a paradigm of marital bliss with which I am entirely unfamiliar).
364 days, 50 novels, 50 books of non-fiction to go.
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