by Richard Halliburton
We read the Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton in Level 3 (year 1 and year 2) and enjoyed them immensely. In this book, he follows the path of Odysseus to the Trojan War and home again. The escapades are often irreverent, frequently involve alcohol (and at least one encounter with drugs), and approximate the geography of the Odyssey. But it's thoroughly fun!
At one point, Halliburton tries to run the original marathon, tracing the route of Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens. Overwhelmed by thirst, he requests wine from a local bartender.
Glass after glass was emptied. In fact so much wine disappeared that when I sought the road again it reeled about in the most amazing manner. I had to hold tight to keep from being thrown by it. Running was too redic'lous. I felt so jolly, just rolling along and stopping to tell everybody in English that everyshing was all right, since the Pershuns were in wild flight.And so on. I found it amusing, but it probably would be unwise for teens to subsist on a constant literary diet of Halliburton who engages in plenty of drinking and smoking in the midst of his sometimes ill-advised adventures.
He writes eloquently of Troy.
Its fame is imperishable; its romance is inexhaustible. To our own far-away new world its great name has echoed, and I, for one, am proud to have answered its calling, to have lain atop the crumbling battlements in the twilight with the wind whimpering fretfully through the grass-grown ruins, and with the ghosts of Priam and Hecuba, Helen and Andromache drifting beside me, as each night they mount to the Scaean Tower to watch, with hollow anguished eyes, the ghostly horses of the ghostly Achilles dragging Hector’s shadowy body before the silent, sleeping, sorrow-laden mound that once was Troy.In search of Stromboli (keeper of winds), Halliburton hires a boat to take him out in the night to gaze on the erupting volcano.
Every twelve minutes the white hot bubbling lava was shot upward into the black night amid great fountains of sparks that illuminated heaven and earth with their blazing. Then the flaming geyser would fall back on to the slope, and in waves upon waves of molten rock ripple glitteringly two thousand feet down to the hissing sea. The more solid masses not rolled, but leaped, in a few wild bouncing plunges, leaving a trail of sky-rockets and little meteors behind them, and fell thundering into the water. The crater boomed unceasingly, the terrace flashed and flamed. For ten eruptions – two hours – we sat in our boat, a hundred yards offshore, and marveled each time the more at this brilliant, blazing waterfall of fire.Then, of course, they climbed it, despite protestations from all the people in the town at its foot.
Finally, “home in Ithaca,” he sits and imagines the confrontation between Odysseus and the suitors playing out before him as if he were seated in a balcony above Odysseus’s hall.
The last scene of Homer’s epic poem has been played, the last page read. I close the book regretfully, and turn my eyes from the precious little volume to the sunset which, viewed through the shining olive trees on Ulysses’ castle site, is enflaming the western sea. Never had I know a sky to be so radiant, so gold,--a glorious end of a glorious day and of an immortal story. On such a scarlet sky as this, three thousand years ago, Ulysses and Penelope, reunited, had watched the darkness creep.Over and over, he convinces his companions to follow him in ludicrous adventures. They climb mountains, swim in the Blue Lagoon, hike to a mountain cave and tell outrageous and blatant lies to each other while pretending to be island maiden and Odysseus. Yet it all seems full of delight in the myth and epic, reveling in the brilliant blues of the Mediterranean.
First Son is reading this book in Level 5, Year 1, ninth grade, following the beta Mater Amabilis™ plans found in the Facebook group. He's also reading both The Iliad and The Odyssey. Halliburton's book could not be an accurate retracing of Odysseus's journey, but it is the journey of a young man who appreciates the beauty and lasting fascination of the epic, and reveals some of that enduring legacy to the reader.
I received nothing in exchange for writing this review. All opinions are my own. I purchased this book used. Links above to Amazon are affiliate links.
