(3) TELEMACHY (OR WAITING FOR ODYSSEUS)

 

Where’s Odysseus?

Effectively the introduction to the Odyssey, the Telemachy is the term traditionally applied to Books 1-4 of the Odyssey as they tell the story of Odysseus’ son Telemachus and Odysseus himself is nowhere to be seen.

That’s the whole point – the Odysseus-shaped hole at the start of the Odyssey that everyone is looking to fill. His wife Penelope and his son Telemachus desperately trying to hold the line in Ithaca against the rapacious suitors, in turn looking to take his queen as wife and hence his place as king usurping Telemachus as his heir, while abusing the hospitality of his household.

Yes, it’s not as gripping as the wanderings of Odysseus or his return to Ithaca, but it is vital as set-up for the Odyssey as a whole, particularly the tension to be resolved by Odysseus’ homecoming and the stakes involved, such that he has to infiltrate his own home in disguise and retake it by ruse – mirroring the ruse by Odysseus of the Trojan Horse to take Troy.

It also gives Telemachus an odyssey of his own, as he journeys from home to Pylos and Sparta after news of his missing father – as well as, not coincidentally, avoiding the threat to his life posed by the suitors now that he is coming of age as heir, including an assassination attempt by them left as cliffhanger at the end of Book 4 while we switch to Odysseus.

This journey evokes the most direct flashbacks to the Trojan War, given that Telemachus is seeking out the Greek heroes with the most fortunate homecomings or returns from the war – Nestor in Pylos, and Menelaus in Sparta, with the visit to the latter also featuring the figure behind the whole war and since essentially named for it, Menelaus’ wife Helen of Troy. Their fortunate homecomings are obviously in contrast to that of the missing Odysseus, but also that of the Greek hero with the most unfortunate homecoming – one that, as Nestor effectively points out to Telemachus, highlights the threat the suitors pose to Odysseus 0r his royal household – which was of course the leader of the Greek coalition against Troy and king of Mycenae, Agamemnon.

The Nolan film conflates Telemachus’ visit to Nestor with that to Menelaus, while also omitting the latter was able to impart to Telemachus, essentially by way of divine Grecian whispers via the shape changing god Proteus, that Odysseus was still alive and  Calypso’s captive on her island of Ogygia. That of course sets up Odysseus himself to appear with Calypso in Book 5, although as usual it takes divine intervention by Athena to allow him to leave.

Accordingly, the Telemachy is the shortest part of the Odyssey, a sixth or 4 books (Books 1-4) out of 24 books, followed by the Odyssey proper or the wandering of Odysseus, a third or 8 books (Books 5-12), and then the homecoming of Odysseus as the longest part, half or 12 books (Books 13-24).