무한한 가능성이 펼쳐진 망망대해에서 쉽게 길을 잃고 끊임없이 떠돌아다닌다는 것. 이러한 모험을 통해 삶에 대한 새로운 인식에 도달하는 것. 이것이 인간의 삶이며 삶의 여정이다. <The Odyssey> 이후 '인생은 오딧세이아' 표현이 생긴 이유다.

<The Odyssey>는 트로이 전쟁에서 목마를 고안해 승리를 이끌어낸 그리스 영웅 오디세우스가 전쟁이 끝난 후 귀향을 이루지 못하고 바다 위에 떠도는 이야기다. 배가 난파되고, 동료들을 잡아먹는 외눈박이 거인 퀴클롭스의 동굴에 갇히고, 신들과 왕들 노예를 만나는 등 험난한 고난의 10년 세월 동안 겪는 온갖 모험이 주된 내용.

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL TIME—NOW WITH A NEW AFTERWORD.
 
Homer’s Odyssey has been called “the first novel,” “the first expression of the mind in literary form,” and “the best story ever written.”  Whether fans of suspense, fantasy or human drama, readers of all ages thrill to Homer’s vibrant picture of Odysseus on his decade-long journey, as he meets the lotus-eaters, cunningly flees Cyclops, angers his gods, resists the sexy Sirens, narrowly escapes Scylla and Charybdis, averts his eyes from Medusa, docks in exotic cities—all the while struggling to make it home to his wife and son.
 
Adventure on the high seas, legendary romance, tests of endurance, betrayal, heroism—the saga has all these and more, imagined by the most famous bard of all time. But, as Aristotle pointed out, “his greatness was that he himself was nowhere to be found in his story. His characters were everywhere.” Blind and possibly illiterate, Homer has still “in loftiness of thought surpass’d”* any storyteller since 900 B.C.E.