Just Finished Reading The Odyssey by Homer

I was contemplating reading James Joyce's highly acclaimed 1922 novel Ulysses, difficult as it has been reputed to get through, when I read that it was written as a allegory of Homer's classic epic poem The Odyssey.  So I decided to read that story first...in an English translation from the ancient Greek, of course...in order to give myself the best odds of reading Ulysses to completion without becoming completely lost.  Well, I've finished William Rouse's translation of The Odyssey and have some reactions, naturally...

I never did read The Iliad, which precedes The Odyssey and concerns itself with the Greek siege and attack on Troy, with all the heroes and gods playing their instrumental roles in that drama.  The Greek king Odysseus, later renamed Ulysses by the Romans, plays a major role in their success...but his voyage home to his kingdom of Ithaca is marred by one tragedy after another, delaying him by many years.  It is his effort to return to his house and wife Penelope, who is being ruthlessly courted by nobles outrageously trespassing on the absentee owner's property and killing and eating his livestock, that sets the tone of the story.  His son Telemachus, wanting to drive away the unwelcome interlopers, seeks news of his father's fate.  And so on goes the tale...I'm not going to say how it ends, although there's a good chance you may already know.  Instead, I'd like to offer a suggestion: read the book...and most probably The Iliad as well...as being religious texts in much the same way as the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures.  But the religion is different: these are stories about the Greek gods and their characters, domains, and power over mortal people's lives.  Athena, Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Poseidon...these and others are crucial in directing the fate of Odysseus and the other mortal figures in Homer's narrative.  In everything the righteous man beseeches the gods for favor, sacrifices to them, and praises them in gratitude for every good result.  And when misfortune occurs, it is almost always because he or someone close to him has done something to displease a god...

The other thing standing out to me in The Odyssey is the brutality dished out by the righteous man against his enemies, again reminding me of heroes of the Old Testament like Moses, Joshua, and Elisha.  Odysseus is often characterized as someone, having lost his way and suffering all sorts of personal trials, with whom we can identify...but his nearly superhuman strength and fighting abilities, along with his complete lack of mercy even to those who simply insult him, make him out to be an utterly unsympathetic character.  It will be interesting to see how James Joyce looks at him and The Odyssey as a whole through his own novel Ulysses...