725 BCE · Homer
The Odyssey
A war hero spends ten years trying to become an ordinary man again.
Homer
The Odyssey
Troy has fallen. Everyone else has gone home. Odysseus takes another ten years, loses every ship and every man he sailed with, and arrives alone, disguised, and unrecognised in his own house. The Odyssey is an adventure story that keeps quietly asking a harder question underneath the monsters: after everything, is there still a person left to come home?
The companion
Summary
What happens, and how the book is built.
Read summary →Analysis
Close reading. What this book is really doing.
Read analysis →Chapters
Chapter by chapter — short notes, no fluff.
Read chapters →About the Writer
The human behind the book.
Read about the writer →Themes
The ideas it keeps circling back to.
Read themes →Characters
The cast — who they are, and what they carry.
Read characters →Symbols & Motifs
Recurring objects and images — and what they carry.
Read symbols & motifs →Quotes
Passages worth saving.
Read quotes →Lines to Ponder
Single lines worth sitting with.
Read lines to ponder →