Finished the Iliad

Finished the Iliad yesterday and it was a long journey. What I felt most in reading this epic is the contrast between the wars our country is fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ancient war of Greeks versus Trojans. In the Iliad there are graphic descriptions of warfare, primitive warfare fought with spears and swords, where guts are spilled and injuries detailed. War is horrific and brings out both the worst and the best in the men fighting.

Our country is fighting a war that I am completely out of touch with. And it's not that I don't pay attention - I do. I read two newspapers every day, a local and a national, and would say coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is paltry. The only coverage on fatalities in the local paper happens when a local soldier is killed. And the coverage, aside from a few stories in Newsweek, is sanitized. Emphasis is on good medical response for the soldiers, and how many lives are saved by it, rather than the debilitating injuries and fatalities.

Homer describes every death in the Iliad; there is no such person as an unknown soldier. When a warrior dies, Homer names him and his foe, and he also describes the fallen. Perhaps we learn of his parents, or where the warrior hailed from. Sometimes we learn of deeds or accomplishments of the warrior. This aspect of the poem has really struck me.

I remember from history classes in college descriptions of the television coverage of the Vietnam War, and the way the networks would scroll the names of soldiers killed in action. I don't see that now, except in the Memorial Day Roll run by the comic Doonesbury!

I think we have sanitized war and distanced ourselves from it, and this is not a good thing. How are we ever to realize how horrific war is and how terrible and irrevocable the consequences are? Homer understood this, and I think modern man had the chance to understand this, but we've let it slip away.

Anyway, after reading that, I felt the need for something light, so I picked up Steve Martini's The Jury. Good plotting so far, thin on descriptions, heavy on conversation. Not always my thing, but a good read right now