About us
An Excursion Into the Odd and Fantastical
We are a group dedicated to reading the great literature of the Western canon. Over the last few years, we’ve read and discussed a multitude of renowned works ranging from older classics by Homer, Virgil, Milton and Dante to modern works by Melville, Thomas Mann, Proust and Joyce. We’ve not been intimidated by either a work’s ancient pedigree or its challenging intellectuality. We understand that reading these works that have survived over time and trying to understand their meaning is an adventure of the human spirit worth pursuing.
From 2020, under a new group name, we’re on a course of selections with themes offbeat and fantastical. The works include odd tales of strange psychology (such as by Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Faulkner) to the fantastical and weird (such as by Swift, Wells, Kafka and Lovecraft). And yes, selections from the Bible will be included, because what could be more weirdly mysterious than those stories?
In August 2023, we recorded an online session featuring "The Grand Inquisitor" section of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Click for an unedited sample session of our group. Use passcode: TK$2E#k!
Below is the list of classics we’ve been reading and the ones remaining before we shift to poetry in 2024. All of these are written by great authors of enormous intellect and power. We have a very talented group of members who love debating, discussing and investigating the fine points of these stories. We hope you’ll join us and welcome new members also enthralled by the classics.
1. Dostoevsky: Devils (Oxford UP) [1872] (read 2020)
2. Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera [1985] (read 2020)
3. Faulkner: Absalom Absalom [1936] (read 2020)
4. Zola: Thérèse Raquin [1868] (read 2020)
5. Kafka: The Castle [1926] (read 2020)
6. James: Turn of the Screw [1898] (read 2020)
7. Shakespeare: King Lear [1608] (read 2020)
8. Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra [1883] (read 2020)
9. Bible: Genesis/Job/Song of Solomon (read 2021)
10. Aristophanes: Clouds [423 BCE] / Wasps [422 BCE] / Birds [414 BCE] (read 2021)
11. Sophocles: Antigone [ BCE] / Philoctetes [ BCE] (read 2021)
12. Euripides: Medea [431 BCE]/Hippolytus [428 BCE]/Bacchae [405 BCE] (read '21)
13. Apuleius: The Golden Ass [170 CE] (read 2021)
14. Dante: Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso [1320] (in progress: 2021 via other Meetups)
15. Spenser: Faery Queene (1st book only) [1590] (2021)
16. Swift: Gulliver’s Travels [1726]; A Tale of a Tub [1704] (read 2021)
17. Voltaire: Zadig [1747]; Candide [1764] (read 2021)
18. de Sade: Justine [1791] (read 2021)
19 Lewis, M.G.: The Monk: A Romance [1796] (read 2021)
20. Hoffmann, E.T.A.: Tales of Hoffmann [1819] (read 2021)
21 Austen: Northanger Abbey [1797/1818] (read 2021)
22. Shelley: Frankenstein [1818] (read 2022)
23. Joyce: Ulysses [1922] (re-read 2022)
24. Gogol: Diary of a Madman [1835] (read 2022)
25. Balzac: Girl with the Golden Eyes [1835] (read 2022)
26. Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall [1848] (read 2022)
27. Poe: Collected Stories [1830s-40s] (read 2022)
28. Hawthorne: Collected Short Stories [1830-40s] (read 2022)
29. Melville: Bartleby, the Scrivener [1856] / Benito Cereno [1855] (read 2022)
30. Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [1886] (read 2022)
31. Stroker: Dracula [1896] (read 2022)
32. Verne: 20000 Leagues under the Sea [1871] (read 2022)
33. Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray [1890] (read 2022)
34. Perkins-Gilman: The Yellow Wall-Paper [1892] (read 2023)
35. H.G. Wells: Island of Dr. Moreau [1896] (read 2023)
36. Zamyatin: We [1924] (read 2023)
37. Woolf: Orlando [1928] (read 2023)
38. Lovecraft: Collected Stories [1920-30s] (read 2023)
39. O’Conner: Wise Blood [1952] (read 2023)
40. Golding: Lord of the Flies [1954] (read 2023)
41. Burgess: A Clockwork Orange [1962] (read 2023)
42. Pynchon: Crying of Lot 49 [1964] (read 2023)
43. Le Guin: The Dispossessed [1974] (read 2023)
45. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov [1880] (read 2023)
46. Murasaki, The Tale of Genji [read 1000] (read 2023)
47. Brooks/Warren, Understanding Poetry [1960], (read 2024)
48. Milton, Paradise Lost [1667], (read 2024)
49. Eliot, The Waste Land [1922], (read 2024)
50. Dante, Purgatorio [1319], (read 2024)
51. Dante, Paradiso [1321], (read 2025)
52. Dante, Inferno [1314], (read 2025)
53. Lorris/Meun, The Romance of the Rose [1275], (read 2025)
54. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales [1400], (read 2025)
55. Chaucer, Troilus & Criseyde [1385], (read 2026)
56. Shakespeare, Troilus & Cressida [1601], (read 2026)
57. Homer, The Iliad [-801], (read 2026)
58. Homer, The Odyssey [-701], (2026)
59. The Epic of Gilgamesh
60. Virgil, tbd
Upcoming events
1
Homeric Epics, The Odyssey, July 12, 2026, 6th of 8 Mtgs, Please read Bks 7-12
·OnlineOnlineSession #6 of 8
Next our group continues with the first sequel in the western epic poetry tradition: The Odyssey.From Troy to Ithaca: What to Expect in Homer's Odyssey
If the Iliad is a war poem — driven by Achilles' rage, massed armies, and the grief of collective catastrophe — the Odyssey is its near-opposite: a homecoming story powered by cunning, survival, and the longing for family.The hero changes everything. Achilles burns with transparent, volcanic emotion; Odysseus thinks, disguises, and endures. Where the Iliad is linear and concentrated around Troy, the Odyssey is episodic and wide-ranging — Cyclopes, enchantresses, the land of the dead — and more varied in tone, accommodating folktale, comedy, and domestic warmth alongside genuine danger.
The gods shift dramatically between the two poems. In the Iliad, the Olympians are boisterous and intensely present — taking wounds, quarreling, fighting alongside mortals on the battlefield. In the Odyssey, they pull back into something more like a moral framework. Athena guides and protects Odysseus from behind a series of disguises, while Poseidon's wrath drives the entire plot. The divine feels less chaotic and more purposeful — concerned with justice and the proper restoration of order.
Women play a far larger role. Penelope matches her husband in intelligence and resolve, and figures like Circe, Calypso, and Nausicaa are among antiquity's most vivid female characters. The Iliad's world of women exists largely as what war destroys; the Odyssey makes the household itself the prize worth fighting for.
Most strikingly, the Odyssey quietly revises Iliadic values. When Odysseus visits the underworld, Achilles — who chose glory over long life — confesses he'd rather be a living slave than king among the dead.
Editions [available from your local library or online]:
Any English verse translation, but we recommend:The Odyssey, Norton Critical Edition. Translated by Emily Wilson, W. W. Norton, 2020, ISBN: 9780393655063
Online via Zoom
RSVP for the link.Schedule of Readings:
May 03, 2026 - Homer: The Iliad, Books 1-6
May 17, 2026 - Homer: The Iliad, Books 7-12
May 31, 2026 - Homer: The Iliad, Books 13-18
Jun 14, 2026 - Homer: The Iliad, Books 19-24
Jun 28, 2026 - Homer: The Odyssey, Books 1-6
July 12, 2026 - Homer: The Odyssey, Books 7-12 [Topics]
July 26, 2026 - Homer: The Odyssey, Books 13-18
Aug 09, 2026 - Homer: The Odyssey, Books 19-24Summary of previous sessions:
The Iliad Books 1-24
The OdysseyGuides to Homer [$]:
Hardcore Literature Club [Benjamin McAvoy]
Great Courses [Elizabeth Vandiver]For 2026 [subject to change]:
Homer: Iliad/Odyssey
Norton: Epic of Gilgamesh
Virgil: Georgics/Aeneid
Ovid: Metamorphosis /Erotic Poems
Eliot: Four Quartets10 attendees
Past events
176
Group links
Members
445
