No-Man's Lands: One Man's Odyssey Through the Odyssey

As Huler admitted, I gave only a cursory read to "The Odyssey" back in grade school. Since then, I've heard that it is the genesis of all story prototypes, heard that it is a critical piece of oral and written literary traditions, and even repeated these mantras as if they were my own realizations. Upon reading Huler's fine book, though, I finally see what professors, lit-snobs, and well-bred readers actually mean with those comments. Huler quite ingeniously presented The Odyssey through lessons, asides, and the narration of his own trip, in a way that penetrates the language (er, poetry) barrier and shows me what all the buzz is about. He also entertains on nearly every page, weaving his story very well around the original Odyssey, making me laugh and cringe and read passages out loud to hear echoes of my own inner monologue in his words. I'd be glad to heist a brew with Huler; I feel more confident now in discussing the Odyssey; most importantly, I feel my money and time were very, very well spent on his book. Perhaps next he could take a road trip tracing Sherman's March to the Sea...

Exceptional. Read this with one eye on Homer's version and the other on Huler's. An epic journey all comes together.

A very interesting book. Scott Huler does a very good job of blending an ancient tale of travel and adventure with his own personal wanderings around Southern Europe. Scott's obsession with "The Odyssey" becomes the reader's obsession too. - Ray Charlton

At age 44, having finally read James Joyce's Ulysses (which he had vowed never to do), Scott Huler immerses himself in Homer's epic tale, The Odyssey, and embarks on an adventurous six-month pilgrimage to retrace Odysseus's return from the Trojan war to Penelope and Telemachus, his wife and son, in Ithaca. When Polyphemus the Cyclops demands to know Odysseus' identity, Odysseus replies, "My name is No-man." Later, when the Cyclops cries out, "No-man is killing me!" his fellow Cyclopes think he is not in any trouble. Hence the book's title, and Huler's determination to boldly go where No-man has gone before. Along the way, we encounter the Lotus-eaters, the Cyclopes, the Laestrygonians, the witch Circe, the kingdom of the dead, the island of the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the cattle of the sun, and enjoy many other episodes. Whether The Odyssey is historical/geographical or a mythological tale imagined by a poet ("The poets always lie," said Plato), cannot be ascertained. However, Huler quotes many ancient Greek and Roman writers--Thucydides, Strabo, Herodotus, Ovid, Pausanias, Polybius--who provide a plausible itinerary for Odysseus's travels. Reading Huler's travelogue/memoir is a sheer delight! Filled with self-deprecating humor, No-Man's Lands provides numerous chuckles and laughs. The book is more than slapstick humor, however. The author's critical analyses reveal an impressive knowledge of Homeric questions, and his sensitive judgments takes the answers he learns and sagely applies to our own lives and world.

Back in 2001 author and radio commentator Scott Huler swore that he would never read James Joyce's "Ulysses" after a number of failed efforts to do so. Inevitably, soon afterwards Huler found himself a member of a reading group focused on reading "Ulysses". And Huler found himself thinking more and more about Homer's "Odyssey", the fountain from which "Ulysses" sprang. He determined to re-read "The Odyssey", but then found to his chagrin that he could not "re-read" it because he had never actually read it in the first place, beyond a junior high school exposure to the book which -- like most such high school exposures to the great classics -- was much more an exercise in escaping reading "The Odyssey". So, as a mature adult Huler began genuinely reading the epic poem and became entranced by it, to the point that he decided to undertake a journey to follow Odysseus's path across the Mediterranean and seek to better understand the places experienced and the lessons learned by the ancient Greek hero, "the man of twists and turns." These are lessons applicable to everyday life, it would seem -- not that Huler ever adopts a didactic (or even overtly "inspiring") tone. Rather, "No-Man's Lands" is pleasantly rambling. "No-man's Lands" is Huler's tale of his journey, as much of a journey through his heart and mind as through the Mediterranean. It is good-natured and thoughtful. And along the way, the reader learns with Huler much about the real soul of "The Odyssey".