“It’s like there’s a desire to be alienated—a desire to have a translation which you won’t quite understand, and that that will make you feel somehow closer to a language you don’t know.” Comment from Emily Wilson.
Of the desire to be alienated, I wonder if the existence of television provides one explanation: if television is the essence of the non-alienating, of the seducing, then you expect from things of real value, things like the Odyssey, a certain amount of inaccessability, of being alienating.
Sort of reminds of a news item from a few weeks ago: there was a report that found that people shared “fake-news” stories far more than real news stories. Why, because, fake news is entertainment, suprising and amazing and something you want to have others see, while true news is boring and complicated often and perhaps something you’d prefer to forget.
Therefore, a sort of prejudice evolves that the truth will be boring and beyond you, when you’re looking for the true and for things that are serious.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 