No, You Don't Need to Read the Iliad

There is a certain tribe of people who believe that a real intellectual simply must read certain books. These books are often called “great.” Various publications periodically put out top-50 or top-100 lists of such works, and among them there are genuine masterpieces of literature.

Why am I bringing this up?

Recently, I was listening to a lecture by Andrey Baumeister (by the way, I highly recommend his work — his course on ancient philosophy, among others, is well worth the time; he is a genuine modern intellectual who knows how to make complex philosophical concepts accessible, which is no small feat). The lecture was dedicated to the question: why should one read Homer’s Iliad? His key thesis was that the Iliad is worth reading for multiple reasons, from its unique position at the boundary between oral and written tradition to its singular status as arguably the first great narrative of European civilisation.

I would slightly disagree that it is literally the first narrative (those who have followed my earlier writing know that we have explored the stories of innocent sufferers of Ancient Sumer), but this is more of a nitpick than a serious objection. The core idea is reasonable enough: the Iliad is a landmark work in European culture. No argument there.

But you might ask: so what is the problem? Why am I talking about this?

Here is the thing. While I agree with the exceptional status of this masterpiece, I do not consider it essential reading. I want to go further and admit something: despite my Jungian background (and, as you know, followers of Jung pay special attention to mythological stories), and despite my love of reading, I have not read the Iliad. Not in the original, not in translation. Only adaptations. And frankly, it is not on my reading list anytime soon.

The fact that a book is a masterpiece does not mean you must read it.

In fact, this can be expanded into an even stronger claim: you don’t have to read any of the “great” works. Not Dante’s Divine Comedy, not Shakespeare’s Hamlet, not Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, not Tolstoy’s War and Peace, not Goethe’s Faust... This list could go on for a very long time.

Why do I think these books are not necessarily (and sometimes even harmfully) obligatory? That is exactly what I want to talk about today.

First, I want to focus on a very simple thesis: smart thoughts can be found in all sorts of books, not just “great” ones.

Many intellectuals constantly quote and reference the aforementioned masterpieces. Sometimes it is completely out of place (recall the millions of vanilla Nietzsche quotes that in any serious company could get you a well-deserved slap). Sometimes the quotes are justified and highlight the continuity of the speaker within the Western tradition.

But honestly, why make everything so complicated?

I love European culture and philosophy. I grew up in it, I live in it. But when I open Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schopenhauer, or the Russian thinkers like Florensky, Shestov, or Vygotsky, I start dying from the first page. Either from boredom, or from the need to meditate over every sentence for several minutes.

Western philosophy is deeply esoteric and multi-layered. I don’t know if this is a legacy of alchemy, but the fact remains. This literature cannot simply be read. It must be studied, it must be immersed into.

Here you might immediately object: well, that’s the whole point! You can’t just casually explain the meaning of all existence. The same phrase will be perceived completely differently depending on your circumstances. You can agree with some ethical imperative all you want and laugh at ethical dilemmas in the abstract, but when life turns these stories into your reality, it stops being funny.

Fair enough. But it seems to me that something important is being swapped here.

Yes, I agree that when studying something truly esoteric, like alchemy or classical occultism, this multi-layered quality serves an initiatory function. As the Mandalorian would say, “This is the Way.”

Yes, I agree that when it comes to lived experience, multi-layered storytelling is necessary, because fragmentation or lack of context can seriously distort the essence.

Yes, I agree that when we discuss the great philosophical questions like “Who am I” or “Why am I here,” metaphor and symbolism are necessary, because there are no direct answers (and likely never will be).

BUT.

When it comes to perfectly understandable concepts and stories, why all the fuss? If I want to explain why you cannot reduce all mental processes to physiology, why do I need to write another alchemical treatise and introduce dozens of new terms like dasein/schmasein? Why can’t we just build a clear, sequential argument?

This, by the way, is exactly what analytic philosophers figured out in the 20th century. After which their work became much easier to read, and the marker of quality research became not length (where bigger is supposedly better) but the opposite: the very best papers fit on one or two pages.

You might say I am mixing apples and oranges here. That the Iliad is a narrative, a story, and in stories the details are everything. And that is true. It is precisely the context that makes a real story a story. Yes, all stories share common archetypal elements (as Jung would say), but when individual details are woven onto that structure, that is when a narrative is born.

I absolutely agree with this.

But tell me, please, why on earth should I read the individual details of people who lived millennia ago in order to understand the universal idea behind the story?

I understand when historical research is being conducted. Or when we want to trace how individual representations of some mythologem evolved over time. We did exactly this when exploring the narrative of the innocent sufferer, and that was essentially a cultural and psychological investigation. But if the goal were simply to formulate the idea, I could fit it in two words: Shit happens.

That is much more useful if you just want to understand the meaning. Because it is unlikely that some abstract John or Jane will be discussed by God and Satan in the heavens. It is unlikely that an abstract John will be visited by a Voice from the Whirlwind.

More likely, our abstract John will face a situation where those he trusts betray him, where his good deeds are repaid with cruelty, where 33 misfortunes rain down on him, not for any reason, but simply because Shit Happens. How will John react? Essentially, the same way other innocent sufferers did.

But tell me, do you really need to read ancient Babylonian texts or the Book of Job to understand this universal component? And are those stories really clearer?

Want another example? Here you go.

Those who have been following my writing know that I am a big fan of the Harry Potter universe. My deep inner conviction is that this universe (and I emphasise: not just the books, but everything connected to them) gives the modern person a far better understanding of a myriad of crucial ideas than all the Tolstoys, Dostoevskys, and even the Bible combined.

Just on the surface, you have questions like: the nature of Good and Evil (not everything in the world is grey). At the same time, the relativity of evil (we know that the Dark Lord became evil because he was genuinely unlucky, ending up in an orphanage rather than a loving family, with parents who were, to put it mildly, not the best). Choice as the key element: Harry Potter in many ways mirrors the story of Tom Riddle (a.k.a. Voldemort). He even has a piece of the Dark Lord inside his head. But in the end, he consciously chooses good. Sacrifice: Harry, like Christ, voluntarily goes to his death for the sake of the wizarding world, without any personal gain. Not because he must, but because it is right. Racism: who hasn’t been outraged by purebloods’ attitude towards Muggle-borns?

I could throw in enough ideas for an entire season right now (actually, not a bad thought...).

But the ideas in Harry Potter are not only on the surface. If you start reading more carefully and explore various expansions of the main story (for example, through fandom), you notice much that is hidden.

For instance, the stories mention only in passing that the Second World War also took place in the wizarding world, where the Dark Lord Grindelwald, supporting (or even directing) the Nazi leaders, was building his empire. But what was his ideology?

On the surface, it is presented as the idea that wizards should rule over non-wizards. But even in the not-so-great Fantastic Beasts films, there is an entire speech where this wizard explains his reasoning. He fights “for the Greater Good.” The film shows a vision of the future where humanity, in the meat grinder of World War II, systematically destroys itself, with a nuclear explosion as the cherry on top.

Of course, this is frightening and can easily lead to the thought that wizards should indeed rule the world to prevent such things.

So Grindelwald fights for the Greater Good. On this basis he finds an ally in Albus Dumbledore, who later becomes disillusioned and defeats the Dark Lord. But we see echoes of this idea in the Harry Potter story itself. Why did Dumbledore place Harry in a family that despised him? Sure, the blood protection is wonderful, but as Voldemort’s example showed, a loving family matters too. Why did Harry have to face trials every year that vastly exceeded his abilities? Sure, luck is great, but it rather seems like Harry was being raised as a hero. And as we learn at the end, a disposable one at that.

Why does this happen? One possible explanation is precisely the idea of the Greater Good. One must sacrifice themselves for all, but for this to happen, that someone needs to be properly moulded.

And this is, in essence, the very idea Jung was expressing when he said: stop playing the hero and trying to solve the world’s problems. Work on your Shadow instead. Because the moment someone invokes the Greater Good, the most incredible atrocities can be committed under that banner. And as history shows, that is exactly what usually happens.

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Coming back to the main point: I cannot for the life of me understand why, without an explicit need, I should read outdated stories when I can read modern books where the very same ideas are presented in a context I actually understand. Harry Potter, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Amber, His Dark Materials, and so on.

And if it were just about spending more time, that would be one thing. But how is an ordinary person supposed to understand the context of an ancient Greek? Or an ancient Hebrew? We didn’t live back then, we don’t know HOW they thought. Sure, you could “kill” years of your life reading the sources, then the interpreters, then the scholars who studied the question. But what will you get at the end? The same universal idea, which you will translate into modern terms anyway.

So maybe it is time to stop this Sisyphean labour?

I want to emphasise that everything above is merely my personal opinion. Moreover, sometimes you really do need to dig into the sources.

For example, for academic purposes. Or when you want to understand not just an idea, but its evolution across the span of human existence. Or when you need more metaphors and comparisons. Or when life itself leads you to a particular work.

I did not read Dostoevsky as a teenager. After Tolkien, Asimov, Simmons, Pullman, and Pratchett, he was boring to me. In adulthood, many of his works seemed banal. But at a certain moment, when I was studying Jung’s concept of the Shadow, I read Notes from Underground with genuine pleasure. The same happened with Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Because life itself led me there. And I am glad I read these books, but I am equally glad I didn’t read them earlier, because it would have been pointless.

So I continue to read what is interesting and what my life story leads me to, not what I supposedly should.

Why do I consider J.K. Rowling a truly great writer?

Because after the release of Harry Potter, millions of children around the world started reading books. This is simply wonderful, and this is my whole point.

Just read. It doesn’t matter what. What matters is that you do. And that it speaks to you.

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