Commentary on Day Fourteen

So now we’re really into the meat of the novel, and it will live or die by how I’m able to thread the needle here. Since a big part of this novel, and the Calypso story, is her keeping Odysseus captive against his will and probably raping him for a decade.

Which is also why it’s important, I think, to not give the reader Odysseus’ side of things. Which is a bit of a strange aspect to this narrative. Since much of it hinges on Calypso’s belief that she has been wronged and is a victim, yet here she victimizes Odysseus in quite a brutal fashion. And so the question becomes: how do I make this then feel like a love story to you, the reader?

And the answer for some readers is that you can’t. She’s now irredeemable. Which is fair. Fine.

But I don’t believe that people who do wrong believe that they are wrong. The problem with Calypso is not her avarice and possessiveness but her inability to see beyond herself. And so it will become either painful or funny every time she tells Odysseus that she sees him, that she sees how he has been hurt and how she understands.

Even in this final conversation to today’s post, there is a clear line and symmetry to what she’s describing, yet she cannot see it. Cannot see that she is doing to him what she says was done to her.

And that failure—well, that’s the whole of it, yes?

And perhaps this is just my own strange feeling towards the gods, but this is the only way that I can see them. Maybe we’ll discuss that more later.

But so how will Odysseus soften to her? Is such a thing possible?

And, I mean, the answer, quite simply, is time. Ten years is a long time to live with only one other person. Especially when it’s someone you’ve been intimate with and are reliant upon. There’s a process of breaking you down until fatalism and resignation takes over.

Because Odysseus has lost everything. It’s been over a decade since he’s seen his wife or son. He’s watched every single one of his men killed either by the Trojans or by some god or godlike creature since leaving Troy. And much of that was his fault!

Had he had less pride, less need for recognition, perhaps he’d already be home.

This is a softening agent as well.

But before we get Odysseus turning upon Calypso, we will get a great deal of his despair but also small flashes of friendship blossoming.

A bit of horror, that.