/lit/ - Literature

>>19773419
Beautiful effort thread, thank you anon. I will give you my two cents as an amateurish reader of the Iliad - I was reading book 22, and I had a similar impression when it came to animal similarities, because it gave the whole fight with Hector a dream-like feeling, as if the two where chasing each other as incarnations of different animals. It was very beautiful. There I think it fits with the theme of Achilles strength being so overwhelming that Hector is basically his prey, and, as such, it conveys the feeling of doom and of the inevitability of Hector's death.
In 11, it may be that the comparison with pastoral life is due to the desire of presenting life as both war and peace, and maybe show how the two things are inseparable, in that they can be compared to each other constantly? If you are thinking of any specific passages, I'd look over them with you gladly and give you my thoughts, if you are interested. Otherwise, I think you can find a lot of secondary literature on homer's comparisons - I think there's an article by Buxton in the Cambridge Companion's to Homer on his similes, which could be a starting point if you are interested in this topic in general.
In any case, you are asking the right questions, and being an attentive reader will make your experience of the book much more rewarding.

>>19173810
Hi anon, entirely understand how you feel. I have stopped reading all philosophy almost three years ago after studying it for ten years, and got into novels and poetry. A simple life does not mean that you won't think or that you won't become more and more aware of what is going on. The idea that life is a "quest for truth" is misleading. In my experience, life looks rather than a gradually waking up and becoming aware of a truth that was always there. It will come to you if you keep paying attention to life, it has nothing to do with how many books you have read and with how complex or accurate your theories about life are. My suggestion is to read lots of good novels and poetry. Joyce was the one who got me out of the old philosophy mindset, so I'm going to suggest Ulysses, but in general just stick to good literature and poetry for a year and you'll immediately see the difference.