/lit/ - Literature

>Borrowing this thread because I don't want to make a new one for my dumb question.
Is it normal to be confused when starting with the Greeks? I'm reading the Iliad (Robert Fitzgerald translation, if that matters) and I only have a vague sense of what's going on. I normally understand the novellas I read, but this is the first time I've been kind of lost when reading a book. Am I retarded and should an hero?
Here's a pic of my cat for the trouble.