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    An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic
    Unavailable
    An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic
    Unavailable
    An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic
    Audiobook10 hours

    An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic

    Written by Daniel Mendelsohn

    Narrated by Bronson Pinchot

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of The Lost: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading--and reliving--Homer's epic masterpiece.

    When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his "one last chance" to learn the great literature he'd neglected in his youth--and, even more, a final opportunity to more fully understand his son, a writer and classicist. But through the sometimes uncomfortable months that the two men explore Homer's great work together--first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son's interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus's famous voyages--it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: Jay's responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn's narrative comes to echo the Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned author-scholar's most triumphant entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 12, 2017
    ISBN9780525500278
    Unavailable
    An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic
    Author

    Daniel Mendelsohn

    Daniel Mendelsohn is a prize-winning writer and critic. His books include the international best seller The Lost, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and many others; a memoir, The Elusive Embrace, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; a translation, with commentary, of the complete poems of C. P. Cavafy, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; and two collections of essays. He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

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    Reviews for An Odyssey

    4.5/5

    6 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A very moving am father -son story in the context of the Odyssey. Very revealing and well written with the great bonus of viewing the Odyssey in a new way.
    • 4/5
      This book is an account of the semester Mendelsohn taught Homer's Odyssey in an undergraduate class his octagenarian father also sat in. A great appreciation of the epic poem and a touching memorial to the author's father. I am such an admirer of this genre of audit accounts of university courses. It's like going to class without the pressure of the exams at the end. Will have to reread the Odyssey soon (in the newly-released Wilson translation).