I first read The Odyssey in college, and it really is a riveting story, AmyLiz! Just like with Beowulf, you have to get the right translation, otherwise it can be a slog to get through. The Fagles is excellent--IIRC, he just published a translation of The Aeneid in the past few months.

I read The Odyssey for fun a few years ago. I had it on the bus one day and was snickering over some snark, and somebody in another seat asked me what class I was reading it for. They looked uneasy when I told them I was reading it for fun. The same kind of look when I was reading "Engines of Creation" on the bus. Freak the mundanes!

Banville's The Sea

Corwood, have you read any of his other stuff? It's the same but more.

I adore Edith Wharton, but I've already read everything of hers. Well, almost anyway.

Including the porn?

Including the porn?

The what now?!

Dude, you haven't seen? Did you ever read the story Beatrice Palmato?

(Not where the porn is, but related)

(Not where the porn is, but related)

But ... but where *is* the porn? I mean, there *really* is porn?

::still boggling::

Do you know which story collection "Beatrice Palmato" is in?

There is really porn -

I can't find Palmato on the web, and I don't remember what collection it was in. I kind of hate to go further without linking. But.

Palmato: (warning - the acutal is so much better than my snapshot here)

It's a really kind of beautiful story about this girl who meets and marries the love of her life. They have a very nice life, but she's always a little neurotic. Years go by. They have a daughter.

Her family comes to visit. Her father kisses her daughter on the cheek. Beatrice freaks out and, the next morning, shoots herself in the head.

All of that is the public story.

Wharton (like, I imagine, a lot of writers,) wrote out scenes that were in the past and not a part of the story. A charatcter study, giving explanation about the actual story. So.

The porn will be in the next post.

Corwood, have you read any of his other stuff? It's the same but more.

I haven't. I just got this one because Maud Newton raved about it on her blog for nearly a full year.

I wish I could find Palmato on line. No such luck though. So, here it as. And keep in mind it was my English prof I got this from. The scene takes place shortly after Beatrice returns from her honeymoon. ___________________ "I have been, you see, he added gently, so perfectly patient. The room was warm, and softly lit by one or two pink-shaded lamps. A little fire sparkled on the hearth, and a lustrous black bearskin run, on which a few purple velvet cushions had been flung, was spread out before it.

And now, darling, Mr. Palmato said, drawing her to the deep divan, let me show you what you what only you and I have the right to show each other. He caught her wrists as he spoke, and looking straight into her eyes, repeated in a penetrating whisper: Only you and I. But his touch had never been tenderer. Already she felt every fibre vibrating under it, as of old, only now with the more passionate eagerness bred of privation, and of the dull misery of her marriage. She let herself sink backward among the pillows, and already Mr. Palmato was on his knees at her side, his face close to hers. Again her burning lips were parted by his tongue, and she felt it insinuate itself between her teeth, and plunge into the depths of her mouth in a long searching caress, while at the same moment his hands softly parted the thin folds of her wrapper. One by one they gained her bosom, and she felt her two breasts pointing up to them, the nipples hard as coral, but sensitive as lips to his approaching touch. And now his warm palms were holding each breast as if in a cup, clasping it, modeling it, softly kneading it, as he whispered to her, Like the bread of the angels. An instant more, and his tongue had left her fainting mouth, and was twisting like a soft pink snake about each breast in turn, passing from one to the other till his lips closed hard on the nipples, sucking them with a tender gluttony.

- 3 - Then suddenly he drew back her wrapper entirely, whispered: I want you all, so that my eyes can see all that my lips can t cover, and in a moment she was free, lying before him in her fresh young nakedness, and feeling that indeed his eyes were covering it with fiery kisses. But Mr. Palmato was never idle, and while this sensation flashed through her one of his arms had slipped under her back and wound itself around her so that his hand again enclosed her left breast. At the same moment the other hand softly separated her legs, and began to slip up the old path it had so often traveled in darkness. But now it was light, she was uncovered, and looking downward, beyond his dark silver-sprinkled head, she could see her own parted knees and outstretched ankles and feet. Suddenly she remembered Austin s rough advances, and shuddered. The mounting hand paused, the dark head was instantly raised. "What is it, my own?" I was remembering last week she faltered, below her breath. Yes, darling. That experience was a cruel one but it has to come once in all women s lives. Now we shall reap its fruit. But she hardly heard him, for the old swooning sweetness was creeping over her. As his hand stole higher she felt the secret bud of her body swelling, yearning, quivering hotly to burst into bloom. Ah, here was his subtle forefinger pressing it, forcing its tight petals softly apart, and laying on their sensitive edges a circular touch so soft and yet so fiery that already lightnings of heat shot from that palpitating centre all over her surrendered body, to the tips of her fingers, and the ends of her loosened hair.

The sensation was so exquisite that she could have asked to have it indefinitely prolonged; but suddenly his head bent lower, and with a deeper thrill she felt his lips pressed upon that quivering invisible bud, and then the delicate firm thrust of his tongue, so full and yet so infinitely subtle, pressing apart those close petals, and forcing itself in deeper and deeper through the passage that glowed and seemed to become illuminated as its (continued...) ______________________________