So, as I've mentioned, I've been trying to hunt down a physical copy of Antisthenes' "Odyssey" because I'm interested in viewing how the character of Odysseus was viewed by Antisthenes. From what I understand he had a somewhat more nuanced view of the character, and saw his actions as not heroic, but pragmatic. I find that commentary concept fascinating, since it reduces the character somewhat, and yet makes his journey all the more heroic, sans the gods and the mystical creatures. (Or rather, there are more mundane and to my mind plausible reasons why a war veteran might be waylaid for so long.)

Of course, I am gleaning this from second hand sources. Searching online, almost nobody has a copy of the text. There are many references to the work, but almost all do not actually contain direct quotes, and it feels like people talking about a book they haven't read but are trying to pretend they understand through cliff notes.

So far, I've hunted down a new translation, which is the first for quite some time. Of course, it's NOT a best seller, and there are only 2 copies located within Oregon, both at college universities. I've put in the Academic request with Reed College (Which is the closer), and I'm hoping that bears some fruit. (Yes, I could probably buy a copy since it's not listed as "Out of Print" but to be honest, it feels a bit like cheating. )

Just out of curiosity, I also stopped in at Powell's City of Books, which is the biggest bookstores and used book dealers I've ever been to. Apparently the book is also fairly rare even in the original Greek, and the last time they had a copy it sold for $100, used. The only other time they had a copy was in 2001, and it sold very rapidly according to their systems.

So, I look forward to reading this when I finally get the book in hand. I'll share my own thoughts on it, since there has been a few days worth of effort to get to the point where I can read it. Considering that the book is only one of 2 works by Antisthenes to survive, and yet nobody seems to bother reading it is frightening to me. It strongly suggests that the time is rapidly approaching when great books once again are lost, not because of willful neglect, but rather because of references made to it, corrections made to the "Obvious" errors in the book, and numerous other Bowdlerizations which cause the original work to be lost, instead being "Understood" wrong, in ways that those that pull the levers of civilization want us to understand them.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkkCEP0V3PM]