"His solution is is so ingenious"

[ricardienne]

Look. I know that making fun of most NYTimes op-ed columnists is like shooting fish in a barrel, but Nicholas Kristoff (already pretty content-free as a rule), is really stretching things today with a piece about a new theory about the location of Homeric Ithaca:

FOR a nation like ours that is seeking its way home from 10 years of war, maybe there’s a dash of inspiration in the oldest tale of homecoming ever — “The Odyssey” — and in new findings that shed stunning light on it.

Homer recounts Odysseus’s troubled journey back from a military entanglement abroad, the decade-long Trojan War. “The Odyssey” is a singular tale of longing for homeland, but it comes with a mystery: Where exactly is Odysseus’s beloved land of Ithaca? Homer describes Odysseus’s Ithaca as low-lying and the westernmost island of four. That doesn’t fit modern Ithaca, which is mountainous and the easternmost of the cluster of islands in the Ionian Sea.

A British businessman, Robert Bittlestone, working in his spare time, thinks he has solved this mystery — and his solution is so ingenious, and fits the geography so well, that it has been embraced by many of the world’s top experts.
.....
“The Odyssey” is particularly relevant to us today as we recover from our own decade of war. How sweet it would be to discover, after three millenniums, that Odysseus was not imaginary but a product of these rocky hills, olive trees and beaches on an obscure Greek peninsula — an example of how the ordinary can inspire the extraordinary.

I have no particular thoughts the location of Homer's Ithaca, and Paliki is a plausible as any. It doesn't have any bearing on the historicity of Odysseus, though!

The idea that "finding" or "proving" Odysseus not only matters but could somehow revitalize a dispirited America is ludicrous (I suspect the latter part was only thrown in to make this op-ed seem like serious political commentary and not just bloggish squee). But -- if I may put on my wild overgeneralization hat for moment -- it's probably related to an obsession with authenticity in our culture. Memoirs, true crime, reality tv, "based on a true story," even the trend of novels coming with long afterwords and appendices laying out the author's research, and detailing what is 'based in fact' and what isn't. If we (somehow) could know that someone named Odysseus lived, would that change anything about how and why people find (or imagine that they have found, even though they haven't reread it since high school English days) the Odyssey to be so fundamental a story about humanity? Nope. It really wouldn't.

Some other questions about Kristoff's piece:

1. Does the NY Times stylebook really mandate "milleniums" instead of "millenia"? Doesn't the former just sound weird?

2. Does Kristoff know that "ingenious" is not a positive descriptor in academia?

3. What kind of "inspiration" does Kristoff think "war-wandering" America is going to draw from having found out where Ithaca was? Is the idea that this will spur us to reenact Odysseus' homecoming by, say, slaughtering the suitors/government and especially punishing the nation's women? -- kind of sounds like the platform the GOP is running on. Or are we supposed to take inspiration from the process of discovery, realizing that we should be putting all of the military budget into archaeology?

4. Just to carry the Odysseus analogy further: does Kristoff not remember that as soon as Odysseus comes home, he starts a local war and then has to set out voyaging again? Where does that fit into the metaphor?

Comments

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

I like your second tag. <3

re: 3.) If we were to take a random sampling of adults, how many would know what the heck you were talking about if you asked them about Odysseus? I imagine it would be a horrifyingly small section (especially since there hasn't really been a movie version yet...). And if you mentioned anything about Homer, I bet they'd think you were talking about The Simpsons (although they did do an Odysseus episode!).

4.) Perhaps Kristoff secretly (not so secretly? I only read his pieces occasionally when they're reprinted on Newser, so I dunno) is an advocate of war with Iran and/or Saudi Arabia? We'll finish up in Afganistan and neatly segue into the next war.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

re: re: 3.) I think you're right. And, I mean, no one except people writing this kind of colum would think that The American People (but I doubt you could say it about any other people either) would be revitalized and have their collective psyche changed by any discrete academic discovery. I bet more people were aware of the Large Hadron Collider than were aware that there's a discussion about Homer and Odysseus and historicity, and the interest in that lasted about until it was clear that the world hadn't been blown up (maybe not even that long).

and re: 4). Kristoff usually writes hand-wringy/inspirational stories about saving girls from brothels in India, so I don't think he's exactly a war-mongering type. But there are a lot of people who have their regular gig at the NYT and seem to use it to produce mindless drivel that reads like a bad high school essay. (I mean read something like "“The Odyssey” is particularly relevant to us today as we recover from our own decade of war.... an example of how the ordinary can inspire the extraordinary." and tell me that you wouldn't advise that student to read fewer Hallmark cards and try to write a thesis statement that actually makes an argument!)