I Know I'm Very Late To This Compared To Everyone Here (I'm 30) But I Just Finished Reading The Odyssey

I know I'm very late to this compared to everyone here (I'm 30) but I just finished reading the odyssey for the first time and I'm... my heart can't handle it. I already want to read it again. Why did I get to this this late? Anyway, I wanted to ask if you have any recommendations for interesting articles or other books about Odysseus, apart from the Iliad? And Penelope, of course. I just love them. I'm asking you 'cause I saw your posts about Odysseus and Calypso / Circe, and found them very interesting and insightful! Thanks in advance

There's no bad time in your life to read the Odyssey for the first time! I'm so glad you found your way to it and enjoyed it!

In terms of books and articles about the Odyssey, I've been out of the academic world for long enough that I feel like I'm no longer a particularly good source of advice, but I'll toss out a few old favorites:

the film O Brother Where Art Thou - a retelling of the Odyssey set in the Deep South during the Great Depression

the novel the Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood - a feminist retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view

technically it's more about the Iliad, but Somewhere I Have Never Travelled by Thomas Van Nortwick is a scholarly work that's informed my thinking on Homeric storytelling a lot

And I found some articles on the Odyssey that look fascinating freely accessible (no login needed) on JSTOR! Since some of these are public domain, they may not closely track modern scholarship, but if you're just kinda vibing with the Odyssey right now and are looking for more food for thought on the subject, this ought to get you going in interesting directions.

Rose, Peter W. “Ambivalence and Identity in the Odyssey.” Sons of the Gods, Children of Earth: Ideology and Literary Form in Ancient Greece, Cornell University Press, 1995, pp. 92–140. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvn1tbcw.6. Accessed 14 May 2023.

Coulter, Cornelia C. “The Happy Otherworld and Fairy Mistress Themes in the Odyssey.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 56, 1925, pp. 37–53. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/282883. Accessed 14 May 2023.

KAMUF, PEGGY. “Penelope at Work.” Signature Pieces: On the Institution of Authorship, Cornell University Press, 1988, pp. 145–74. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt207g60p.11. Accessed 14 May 2023.

Bassett, Samuel E. “The Proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey.” The American Journal of Philology, vol. 44, no. 4, 1923, pp. 339–48. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/289255. Accessed 14 May 2023.

Gregory, Andrew. “Circe: An Extract from Homer’s Odyssey (c. 900–800 BCE).” Women in the History of Science: A Sourcebook, edited by Hannah Wills et al., UCL Press, 2023, pp. 23–34. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2w61bc7.11. Accessed 14 May 2023.

Also, if you liked the Odyssey, I think you'll love Greek tragedy! I recommend starting with Sophocles' Electra, Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Aeschylus' Oresteia, and maybe Euripedes' the Trojan Women.

Thanks for the ask, and happy reading!