DD is regularly belittling "The Odyssey" and I don't like it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD (15) is reading "The Odyssey" for school. I am a professor of Greek literature, so I may be biased, haha. But I adore this book, maybe more than any book I've ever read. DD has...different views. She regularly announces that she hates or thinks it's bad, and that's okay, she can have her opinions. But she often makes jokes about its apparent poor quality and has even taken to mocking Homer. Yesterday she claimed at dinner that "Sabrina Carpenter could have written The Odyssey but Odysseus couldn't have written Bed Chem". This is starting to seem to me that she's trying to get under my skin. Why is she doing this? If she doesn't like a book that's fine, but why this persistent need to make fun of the book that plays a large foundation in my career?

I'm impressed that your daughter reads ancient Greek at age 15!

Fairly certain that was the point of the post. One of the best VBAs I have read in a while.

What does that mean?

It is the best veiled brag alert I have seen in ages.

Oh, my kid is smart enough at 15 to be in a class where they are reading The Odyssey and also precocious enough to be baiting me by slamming it, which happens to be my favorite book.

Come on, now, it’s bloody brilliant.

When I was in school, we read the Odyssey in 7th grade. It was in English. OP's kid is not reading it in ancient Greek, ding dong.

Same and my daughter also read it in 6th. There are different versions of the book out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD (15) is reading "The Odyssey" for school. I am a professor of Greek literature, so I may be biased, haha. But I adore this book, maybe more than any book I've ever read. DD has...different views. She regularly announces that she hates or thinks it's bad, and that's okay, she can have her opinions. But she often makes jokes about its apparent poor quality and has even taken to mocking Homer. Yesterday she claimed at dinner that "Sabrina Carpenter could have written The Odyssey but Odysseus couldn't have written Bed Chem". This is starting to seem to me that she's trying to get under my skin. Why is she doing this? If she doesn't like a book that's fine, but why this persistent need to make fun of the book that plays a large foundation in my career?

Does she know that Christopher Nolan is directing the Odyssey and it will star Tom Holland and Zendaya, among others? Bet that will get her interested. It's due out next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD (15) is reading "The Odyssey" for school. I am a professor of Greek literature, so I may be biased, haha. But I adore this book, maybe more than any book I've ever read. DD has...different views. She regularly announces that she hates or thinks it's bad, and that's okay, she can have her opinions. But she often makes jokes about its apparent poor quality and has even taken to mocking Homer. Yesterday she claimed at dinner that "Sabrina Carpenter could have written The Odyssey but Odysseus couldn't have written Bed Chem". This is starting to seem to me that she's trying to get under my skin. Why is she doing this? If she doesn't like a book that's fine, but why this persistent need to make fun of the book that plays a large foundation in my career?

I'm impressed that your daughter reads ancient Greek at age 15!

Fairly certain that was the point of the post. One of the best VBAs I have read in a while.

What does that mean?

It is the best veiled brag alert I have seen in ages.

Oh, my kid is smart enough at 15 to be in a class where they are reading The Odyssey and also precocious enough to be baiting me by slamming it, which happens to be my favorite book.

Come on, now, it’s bloody brilliant.

I don’t know what your kids are doing but reading the Odyssey at 15 is not a flex. Most schools do it. They end up reading a bunch of excerpts and writing essays about it.

Also, in case it wasn’t clear, the kids are reading the English translation of The Odyssey, not Ancient Greek.

[Anonymous]

But what’s her take on Hesiod?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But what’s her take on Hesiod?

Didn't do anything that Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ron Chernow, or Taylor Swift couldn't do.

[Anonymous]

I like all the classics I've read, except the really dreary realist novels about the misery of the human condition (Emile Zola, Dostoevsky, UGH). I couldn't deal with those as an adolescent, and still can't deal with them as a middle aged person. We get enough of that in real life or on the news!

My 15 year old 10th grader in MCPS is also reading the Odyssey. It's fine, but if your daughter is like mine, then she'll want something a little more weird. DD is enjoying Dracula and plans to follow it up with Frankenstein. Right in time for Halloween. Read on a sardonic 21st century level, Dracula is hilarious because all the characters have such little self-awareness, and there are so many idiosyncrasies of the 19th century novel still in it, despite the fact it was written in 1897. Frankenstein is more interesting from a condition of man point of view.

Encourage her to branch out, OP. Her mind wants feeding.