The Iliad

The Iliad is one of those majesterial works. It's an all-time classic Western masterpiece, maybe THE classic Western work of fiction. I read Robert Fagles' translation, released in 1996. It's one of the best books of 1996. Fagles brings the archaic ancient fiction story into the modern age with his translation. Sure, it isn't 100% what it is in Greek BUT it stays faithful to it AND reads like beautiful epic poetry. Rather than write my typical book review blog post, I'm going to explain the story itself just a bit and then point out things about it.

I'm familiar with epic poetry. I've read John Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, and the King James Bible. However, Homer's meter and verse are much different, of an older time period, a dramatic, emotive, precursor to all that Renaissance stuff in Europe after the Dark Ages. Homer portrays the Trojan War in a brutalist manner, complete with brains and entrails flying over the battlefield. One thing that Homer makes clear is that once a man is dead, he is dead. Nothing becomes of him. Later in the European Rennaissance, orators, writers, and poets would use Christianity as justification for salvation or damnation after death. Interesting little tidbit.

There's this big Homer debate. Was he blind? Could he write? Was he illiterate? The Iliad is some 2,700 years old and there's evidence that supports that the story was altered, changed over hundreds of years. Homer was the Shakespeare of his time. It doesn't really matter if he was a blind oral poet or one of the very early Europeans who could write on stones or papyrus. In his day you didn't write unless you were of the upper class. Most people were illiterate. So it goes. 

The story itself is about Helen of Troy. The Trojans are safeguarding her in Troy. Meanwhile, the Acheans are coming to kill them, take back Helen, and the city. The fighting description and imagery are so raw, visceral that I joked with my friends that the violence in the Iliad makes me want to throw up. Some of it is pretty gut-wrenching. At times it can be a bit much. But fictional death can't be all that bad, right? Well...

At some point, Patroclus, Achilles' friend [and people have also said that Patroclus was Achilles' lover] gets killed by Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy. Achilles responds by going to war. Thus the Iliad is about the Rage of Achilles. Rage is definitely what it was. He goes on a massive murder spree, even chasing Trojans into the river and killing them there. The gods get involved in all the fighting. This war takes place over multiple years by the way, so this really is epic in proportion, even more, epic than Avengers End Game [review here].  

This is a battlefield where men give speeches, telling their life story and taunting to their enemies before they duke it out in a blaze of glory and honor. A lot of times both sides are fighting harder and harder every time an enemy gets a leader or champion's corpse and tries to defile it, stabbing at it, mashing it up, etc. This leads to both armies gaining fighting strength in order to preserve said dead allies' body so that it can be brought to their family for a proper burial. Not to mention Poseidon's war cry, making troops gain sudden strength and will. 

The gods intervene a lot. They seem to have a big stake in this. Achilles is destined to die if he fights in the Trojan War-a prophecy from his goddess mother Thetis. Hera and Artemis work to undermine the Trojans. Poseidon fights on the actual battlefield for a large portion of the story. Gods shield certain champions from certain death. Zeus makes sure Hector's body gets back to Priam, back to Troy, because Hector was a much-loved champion who always praised Zeus and sacrificed the right amount of goats and pigs in Zeus' honor. This shows that the gods will always be involved in mortal human life. They all have their reasons. But maybe they just don't have anything better to do? 

Achilles kills Hector and defiles his corpse by dragging it around the battlefield, three times around Patroclus' grave. Now satisfied, Achilles holds the greatest games, the last chapter entitled Funeral Games For Patroclus [perhaps a precursor to the Olympic Games]. There are all kinds of contests in honor of Patroclus, fighting to the death even. And there's a huge bbq party, and Priam, Hector's father comes. 

When Priam comes to get Hector's body for Achilles, Achilles goes from rampaging god-like creature to a mere mortal when he realizes that Priam's love for Hector reminds him of his father. You could say that at that moment he is humanized, no longer the raging invincible monster, angry because Agamemnon, lord of men stole his girl. His rage is hard to justify.  Because he didn't fight until the end of the war he caused a lot of death amongst his comrades. 

So what is the Iliad about? Generally speaking its about a city about to get sacked. But in between, we have the making of the origin story of tragedy. The Iliad is usually described as the Rage of Achilles but it can also be thought of as the Tragedy of Hector. Although Achilles was a master warrior and a much better fighter than Hector, Hector, in fact, was much more loved, more loving, and a better man to his family and comrades. No wonder Zeus brought his body back to his family. The caveat is that Priam [Hector's father] had to get the body personally from Achilles, who might have killed him if not for the threat of Zeus looming overhead. Very dangerous move for the King to go out and meet with the enemies, especially right before your city is about to get sacked. 

This story has everything: love, war, death, honor, love, sex, gods, mortals. Robert Fagles' translation is easy to understand. The lines all flow in a cohesive way. You have to read a good translation for the Iliad or any work of ancient fiction. A crappy translation will completely ruin the experience. I enjoyed the Iliad so much that now I'm reading the Odyssey, also the Robert Fagles translation. I've caught the ancient fiction bug all of a sudden. I have plans to read the Aeneid and Beowulf after.

You pick up this book and you realize its a 617-page behemoth. I was deep into it, reading it on and off for a while. I started on page 240 on Monday and by Wednesday I had finished the book on page 617. I managed to read 400 pages in three days in a wild burst of long and super enjoyable reading sessions. The language is simply beautiful. I can't explain the mechanics of the poetry at work here, the line, meter, verse and all that but there's overarching linearity to the prose here. It's like the entire work itself connected in such a way that it was all one long sentence. Like it was an oratory experience. This is one of those books I will definitely come back to. I would love to read other translations. 

How could you rate this book? It's a masterpiece, a complete 5 out of 5 stars. Anyone who disagrees either doesn't like epic poetry or just doesn't get it. That's fair too, to not get it. After all Greek mythology isn't for everybody. But I sincerely believe that this ancient fiction is so magnificent that most people would enjoy it. Especially Robert Fagles' version. Do check out this book, it's one of the best books ever.

Han Solo: A Star Wars Story

I finally got around to seeing a new summer holiday movie. I saw the new Star Wars movie, Solo or more accurately titled Han Solo: A Star Wars Story. Here I'd like to tell you a bit about the film and what I thought of it. 

The story starts off introducing us to Young Han and his lover Qi'ra. It turns out that they're poor smucks (slaves) trapped in the shipbuilding world of Corellia, where children are taught to steal in order to survive. 

Han is in a lot of trouble. He owes people money and he doesn't have the credits. So he takes Qi'ra and they try to run off-world, away from their pursuers. Right at the last second the bad guys take Qi'ra and Han is shipped off world alone, presumably to become a pilot for the Empire. 

Han signs up for the Empire but ends up as foot soldier blindly following evil orders by the Empire. However, he meets some mercenaries and ends up joining their ranks, becoming a deserter. 

From there he goes on a heist to steal coaxiom, this explosive material that everybody wants because it makes things go boom! The leader of the mercs, Tobias Beckett owes the Crimson Dawn Syndicate, lead by Dryden Voss (who also played Vision in Avengers, arguably the most recognized actor in this movie) and he tells Han if he helps him get the coaxiom and pay off his debts, he will have enough cash for his own ship. 

They enlist Lando Calrissian (played by Childish Gambino, of "This is America" and Community fame) and use his ship, the prized Millennium Falcon in order to pull off the heist. 

In the end they get the coaxiom but a rebel group apprehends them. Han is perplexed but in the end decides to help them, give them the coaxiom and give Voss a fake replica of it. Voss gets upset when he finds out from Beckitt that he's been crossed, while at the same time Han is surprised that Beckitt crossed him as well. "Never trust anyone," Beckitt tells him for the second time in the film. 

Meanwhile Voss has his baddies apprehend Enfys, the rebels but it turns out what they had was nonexistent. Their bags were empty. Not only that but when they were unmasked they all turned out to be old women, victims of the Crimson Dawn syndicate, peoples whom had their tongues cut out. It turned out that Crimson Dawn was responsible for despicable acts throughout the Galaxy, a revelation to Han. It was symbolic that these women were disguised as the rebels. There was a heartfelt connection to the characters in that moment. This was my favorite part of the film. They did that part right.    

Enfys, the rebels who get ahold of the coaxiom, are planning to use it for revenge and a rebellion against the Empire. The rebel leader, a cute young girl with red hair asks if he wants in the rebellion but when Han says no she says,"You might change your mind later."

There's a showdown between Qi'ra, Han, and Voss. Qi'ra ends up killing Voss, and then lying to her boss (the true Overseer), saying he was killed by the rebels. It turns out the true Crime Boss here is Darth Maul, an old character from Star Wars the Phantom Menace, a film from 1999. In the Phantom Menace Darth Maul gets cut in half by a a jedi named Qui'gon Jin. Darth Maul sends a ship to kill Beckitt right as he's about to shoot Han and take the coaxiom, the real stuff. Han and Chewbacca give the stuff to Enfys. Darth Maul says to Qi'ra at the end of their conversation,"You and I will be working a lot closer from now on."  Qi'ra looks around uncomfortable after the conference call. My secret hope is that Qi'ra becomes a Sith, and learns how to wield a light saber. I can dream right? 

Ending the film, we see Han and Lando meet up again. Han challenges Lando to a gambling game again (how they first met) and Lando ends up betting the Millennium Falcon ship. He ends up losing because Han cheats. Han wins the ship and heads out for Tatooine with Chewbacca, where a gangster is putting together a team for a heist. 

The film didn't gross nearly as high as any of the other Star Wars films but that's okay. I thought the movie was fun. The movie goes very slow with its development but its not a bad movie by any means. The acting could have been better and more emotive, but then again I don't expect Shakespeare from a Star Wars film. 

I thought that they made Han a pretty boy that likes to tell jokes. Thats okay. Han doesn't have to be the cool tough guy he is when he's played by Harrison Ford. This is an all new take on Han Solo and it looks to keep people interested for the summer break. 

Wind River

Wind River is a movie described as a neo-Western murder mystery film. The film stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olson as a US Fish and Wildlife Tracker (hunter) and an FBI agent who try to solve a murder on an Indian reservation. Director Taylor Sheridan wanted to create a film inspired by thousands of stories just like it, involving sexual assault of women on reservations. 

The movie starts off with Renner going to a reservation to hunt down some lions that are bothering this guy's livestock. He finds a woman's body in the wilderness with blood on her groin and he determines that she died from exposure, pulmonary hemorrhage caused by inhalation of sub-zero air. Obviously its a murder and the FBI is called in. On Indian reservations the FBI has jurisdiction over cases like this. Also, Renner knows who the girl is and is disturbed by the whole thing.

Elizabeth Olson comes on the scene but she's not prepared for what's to come. She didn't even bring a jacket. They start off by going to the girl's family. The mother is seen in her room cutting herself in the arm with a knife, a hearth-wrenching scene for sure. The father is annoyed by Olson who's asking her stupid questions. The father says his daughter was last at her boyfriend's house but he didn't know his name or whereabouts. But he suggests they go to see his son. 

So they go see his son and after a scuffle (gun firing, leading to a dead Indian man) his son tells Renner that the boyfriend works at a nearby oil drilling site. The oil drilling personnel are all sketchy and they say that they heard about Natlie's death via radio, Natalie being the girl that died. Olson mentions that her name was never mentioned on the radio. The Indian police officers with Olson start to put their guns up and the drilling personnel do the same but Olson calms everybody down and they go to the boyfriend's living quarters. 

Unfortunately when Olson opens the door she gets shot down hard and fast. A gunfight ensues and everyone except Olson and Renner (who's farther away with a sniper rifle) dies. Renner snipes all the drilling personnel and the guy in the living quarters runs away on foot. But he doesn't get very far. 

Renner captures him and takes him to the top of the mountain, where he forces him to confess his sins. He admits that he raped Natalie and that he killed Matt (the boyfriend) by beating him to death. This is a dark scene. Then Renner lets him free and tells him to run barefoot and see how far he gets. He mentions that Natalie made it six miles and that she was a warrior. 

The murderer runs a few yards before his legs give out and he spits up blood from his lungs. He dies. Renner then meets with the father, who is seen sitting outside in his "death face" paint. He admits that he made up the death face paint. Renner tells him that the killer went out with a whimper. They then sit together in silence, mourning. 

After that there's a message onscreen that says statistics are kept for every demographic except Native American women, whose numbers remain unknown. That to me was mind boggling. How can that be? What's wrong with government officials who can't even track something like that? Racism seems to be a big factor here.

The movie was very good and the characters were complex, especially Renner's character. The movie has a bold message about Indian reservation life and women, something that most people don't know anything about. For that reason the film is important. The harsh cold environment of the mountainous region of Wyoming gives the film a dark and cold gritty feel. It wouldn't be the same if it were on a reservation in California. 

Although the film is dark and the mystery element of it is given away in the end, (in a flashback scene of Natalie and the boyfriend in their room, disturbed by the murderer) I would say that the film isn't hurt by this reveal, instead it shows the audience the brutal nature these people were subjected to. 

Its a good film and did well in the box office and reviews. Check it out.