In my previous journal, I stated that I was very interested in finishing the rest of the Odyssey books. Well I completed them all and got answers to some of my questions in class and also got answers to questions that I didn't know I didn't understand. In volume 4, I stopped wondering why Athena protects Telemachus when she is still angry with him. By the end of the rest of the Odyssey, a lot is happening. You have everything from; "All the gods accept that Poseidon met again on Mount Olympus to discuss the fate of Odysseus" in book 5. At "Athena makes the Ithacans forget the massacre of their children and recognizes Odysseus as king, and restores the peace” in book 24. How one man goes through all of this amazes me. The Odyssey is nothing other than Ulysses telling us his story and everything he experienced. Odysseus encounters a lot of things that people don't believe to be true because his entire crew is dead and no one has ever done anything like he says. Because his crew is dead, there is no one to help him recount all the great adventures that loved him so much. The main question I think reading never really answers is whether or not the stories are true. Does it really take 20 years for someone who loves their family to return home? Return to his wife and son? And are the wife and son still there, waiting for his return? We know in the reading that they are, but how does he know? Is it because it was like that at the time or why? Why did it take him seven years to build a boat to leave Cyclops Island and start heading home. When he finally manages to get the boat to be in the middle of paper...... I keep saying this but I really don't know whether to wither or not, I can take this story as true, I think some of the things could have happened, but not all. I don't know why I have such a hard time believing it, but I do. As I reflected on this reading, I really stopped to think about what I am reading and whether I believe it to be true or not. Could the Odyssey be written differently to be more understandable? Or should we already be able to understand the text? I think the book could take an entire semester to cover, we really needed to take the time to really read it, not just read it and move on. I see myself rereading the books and trying to understand more and looking for things I missed the first time. Works Cited Brian Wilkie, J.H. (2001). Literature of the Western World Vol. 1. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. The Odyssey, pages 273-594