An Odyssey : A Father, A Son, and an Epic

Resumen del libro

ANew York Times/PBS NewsHour Book Club Pick

From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of The Lost: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading--and reliving--Homer's epic masterpiece.

When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his "one last chance" to learn the great literature he'd neglected in his youth--and, even more, a final opportunity to more fully understand his son, a writer and classicist. But through the sometimes uncomfortable months that the two men explore Homer's great work together--first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son's interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus's famous voyages--it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: Jay's responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last.

As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn's narrative comes to echo the Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned author-scholar's most triumphant entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.


Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR,Library Journal, The Christian Science Monitor,andNewsday
AKirkusBest Memoir of 2017
Shortlisted for the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize

Biografía del autor

Daniel Mendelsohn es profesor y periodista, y sus artículos, ensayos, críticas y traducciones han aparecido en publicaciones tan prestigiosas como The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Esquire y The Paris Review. Es autor, entre otras, de Los hundidos, merecedora de los más prestigiosos premios y traducida a las principales lenguas europeas.<br> <br> Sobre Los hundidos han dicho: Daniel Mendelsohn ha escrito una obra profundamente conmovedora acerca del pasado x{0026} x0201C;perdidox{0026} x0201D; de una familia que recuerda la rica prosa de Proust y los textos elusivos de W. G. Sebald. Un logro digno de toda consideración. JOYCE CAROL OATES Épica y personal, meditativa y llena de suspense, trágica y a ratos hilarante, Los hundidos es un libro maravilloso. JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER Un tapiz vasto y ricamente coloreado, una narración muy personal, rigurosa en su búsqueda de la verdad y tierna y precisa a la vez. ELIEWIESEL