Literature serves

Where can we turn to seek comfort or understanding or insight when confronted with apparent anomalies like the recent tragic shootings at Fort Hood, Texas? Perhaps to literature, again.

Caroline Alexander, writing in the NY Times, looked to Homer's Odyssey to better realize how that "sense of dislocation has been shared by veterans returning from the field of war since Homer conjured Odysseus’ inauspicious return some 2,800 years ago." In that epic story of a veteran's return home she finds "remarkable scenes addressing aspects of the war veteran’s experience that are disconcertingly familiar to our own age."

Indeed, when she quotes from the text that, "by dying at Troy, Achilles was assured of undying fame as the greatest of all heroes. His choice reflects an uneasy awareness that it is far easier to honor the dead soldier than the soldier who returns," the enduring worth of literature to transport us and reveal truths to us was refreshed for me again.