Village books

They are never laughed at, but then they are
women, whereas Alcinous and Menelaus are men, and this makes all the
difference.
And now in conclusion let me point out the irony of literature in
connection with this astonishing work. Here is a poem in which the
hero and heroine have already been married many years before it
begins: it is marked by a total absence of love-business in such
sense as we understand it: its interest centres mainly in the fact
of a bald elderly gentleman, whose little remaining hair is red,
being eaten out of house and home during his absence by a number of
young men who are courting the supposed widow--a widow who, if she
be fair and fat, can hardly also be less than forty. Can any
subject seem more hopeless? Moreover, this subject so initially
faulty is treated with a carelessness in respect of consistency,
ignorance of commonly known details, and disregard of ordinary
canons, that can hardly be surpassed, and yet I cannot think that in
the whole range of literature there is a work which can be
decisively placed above it.


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