Notes on Omaha and the Aeneid

Notes on Omaha

June 6, 2011

Some random notes based on questions and comments.

First off, the book is loosely based on Virgil's Aeneid, the Latin of which is here (yes, I can read it):

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen1.shtml

and, more particularly, on Dryden's translation located here:

http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.html

I mainly drew upon the themes concerning Aeneas' visit to Carthage. The opening lines, for example:

Enter, my noble guest, and you shall find, 
If not a costly welcome, yet a kind: 
For I myself, like you, have been distress'd, 
Till Heav'n afforded me this place of rest; 
Like you, an alien in a land unknown, 
I learn to pity woes so like my own.

are Queen Dido's welcome to Aeneas upon his entry into Carthage. Dryden and Virgil are noted in the final lines:

Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring 
Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing.
Aeneidos, P. Vergilius Maro, J. Dryden, trans.

Some of the common points are:

Mike's last name is McAneas.
Troy is sacked and destroyed by fire:
```
Thus, when a flood of fire by wind is borne,
Crackling it rolls, and mows the standing corn; 
```
Mike's house in Iowa is ransacked and destroyed by fire and a train load of corn is burnt.
Aeneas is accompanied by his trusty friend Achates; Mike by his trusty Jessica.
The building in which David's club is located was originally named the Carthaginian Emporium.
Mike fled Iowa to avoid Jack's wrath; Aeneas fled Troy to avoid Juno's unrelenting hate.
Aeneas wrecks on the shores of Carthage in a storm; Mike arrives in Omaha in a great blizzard.
Mike is hidden from his enemies by the swirling snow; Aeneas was hidden from view as he entered Carthage by a magic cloud.
David fled St Louis because his partner was murdered by the drug mob; Dido fled Tyre because her brother murdered her husband to steal his wealth.
The goddess Juno makes many attempts to kill Aeneas. Jack does likewise.
Both are written in the present tense.

The text contains many references to Dryden's translation and, in places, uses his 10 syllables per line meter.

Answers to specific comments I've received:

Incorrect word usage. Word usage was deliberately influenced by Dryden. For example, the line:
```
As he motors slowly through Council Bluffs in the gray and wasting light of dying day, 
snow begins to accumulate on the road.
```
contains an example. While I've been told a number of times that it is an "error" to use wasting instead of the more familiar waning, Dryden didn't think so when he translated the well known line:
... et iam nox umida caelo praecipitat suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.
as:
```
And now the latter watch of wasting night, 
And setting stars, to kindly rest invite; 
```
so, wasting it is. By the way, the Latin differs significantly. Dryden was not attempting for a literal translation. The Latin actually reads:
```
and now, as the humid night descends,
the setting stars in heaven advise sleep.
```
However, Dryden, in my opinion, preserves the spirit of the line with rhyme in 20 syllables. There are other examples. I like Dryden's word usage. Dreadful idioms imprison.
The book unfairly portrays all women as only concerned with shopping. It seems to escape some that, in the end, Jessica (Jay) is the hero who saves the day and she doesn't shop other than for computer accessories.
Menu choices by the gang are wrong. This comment mainly comes from readers who assume that if you have a lot of money, you will naturally opt for fine dining. Having spent the past 40 years working with this age group, believe me, pizza and beer are far preferable to them than the early bird special at a Florida community dinner theater.
Case in point, however, both Mary and Mike complain about the limited food options, if you please.

more later....