Book Club Feb 20, 2026: The Odyssey Book IV

A description of ancient lives, craftiness as a virtue and the alternative endings of the Odyssey

The thing that makes the Odyssey such a fantastic work of art is that no matter how many times you read it, you can always find something new and fantastic within it. In this Book Club session, my readers and I talked about Book IV when Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, visits King Menelaus at Lacedeaemon. King Menelaus is married to Helen of Troy.

We talked about all the details of bronze age life that were miraculously passed on and transcribed with care and precision. Normally when we tell stories we leave out such details but that may be an affliction of the modern mind that takes it for granted that details will be recorded in things like photographs and other people’s records. We also have a much more atrophied memory compared to the ancients and that could be due to the disrespect we have for details.

We talked about hospitality, the rituals of grief, and the humility of Helen of Troy, the craftiness of men and the depiction of women in ancient literature. We talked about the demise of the men like Ajax and Agamemnon and how they mirror Odysseus’s situations and characteristics and thus offer alternate endings for the Odyssey itself.

Our Book Club takes place every Friday morning at 9:30am Dubai time and all paying readers are invited to join. The book club is “no prep” meaning you do not have to do readings in order to participate in the discussion. I provide the context and you can participate as little or as much as you wish! It’s a great way to enjoy these great works of literature together.

Here is the recording of the book club meeting below. I hope you will join us in our close reading of this wonderful story.