Yann Martel

We must be angry at racism.

We must be angry at homophobia.

But then what do you do with that anger?

And the Iliad shows you what not to do.

And so what surprised me was the emotional tone, that it was focused on anger.

The first word of the Iliad famously is menim, which is the accusative of menis, which is anger, wrath, rage.

And it's all about that.

So that surprised me.

Also, there's no redemption in it.

There's no redemption in the Iliad.

It is not a story with a happy ending.

The very first book of the West is an unhappy story where the best thing that may happen to you is your dead son's body may be returned to you.

That's as good as it gets.

Or if you're super supreme alpha fighter, you will die nonetheless, still go in the underworld, but you'll still be talked about.

That's it.

There's no redemption otherwise.

So it's a really disparate, it's a snapshot of life around 1000 BC, essentially saying that human life is miserable.

Human life is profoundly miserable.

And that struck me, because it is a myth, there's no, here I'll give you my really long answer now.

Please.