Courtney Lindmark Reading Response 1 Book 1- The Rage of Achilles: While reading the first book ofThe IliadI had a lot of questions. To me it felt like the book began in the middle of the story. I remember talking about it in class and someone mentioned that maybe the backstory ofThe Iliadwas commonly known and that’s why it starts kind of in the middle. I agree, I think that back then the story was very common so that the beginning was unnecessary to write down. How unfortunate for people during this time. I was also confused by all of the characters. When a new character was introduced to me it was like introducing the whole family at once. “Chryses, priest of Apollo (God of the sun), son of Zeus and Leto,” got extremely puzzling. Another topic I’d like to discuss is that Book One introduces Nestor. One day in class we discussed some of the earliest examples of Greek writing, and how there were verses scratched on vases as graffiti. I distinctly remember Nestor’s Cup and the inscription scratched on it. Although the writing on the vase made me think of Nestor as a young man who was seduced by Aphrodite, The Iliad confirmed that Nestor was an old wise man and I thought it was really neat to make the connection between the two. Book 3- Helen Reviews the Champions: I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t read book two or because it was just written that way, but to me it seemed like I was reading a whole new
