Hearing Homer's Song

The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry

By: Robert Kanigel

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the 20th century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature.

In this literary detective story, Robert Kanigel gives us a long overdue portrait of an Oakland druggist's son who became known as the "Darwin of Homeric studies." So thoroughly did Milman Parry change our thinking about the origins of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey that scholars today refer to a "before" Parry and an "after." Kanigel describes the "before", when centuries of readers, all the way up until Parry's trailblazing work in the 1930s, assumed that the Homeric epics were "written" texts, the way we think of most literature; and the "after" that we now live in, where we take it for granted that they are the result of a long and winding oral tradition. Parry made it his life's work to develop and prove this revolutionary theory, and Kanigel brilliantly tells his remarkable story - cut short by Parry's mysterious death by gunshot wound at the age of 33.

From UC Berkeley to the Sorbonne to Harvard to Yugoslavia - where he traveled to prove his idea definitively by studying its traditional singers of heroic poetry - we follow Parry on his idiosyncratic journey, observing just how his early notions blossomed into a full-fledged theory. Kanigel gives us an intimate portrait of Parry's marriage to Marian Thanhouser and their struggles as young parents in Paris, and explores the mystery surrounding Parry's tragic death at the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles. Tracing Parry's legacy to the modern day, Kanigel explores how what began as a way to understand the Homeric epics became the new field of "oral theory," which today illuminates everything from Beowulf to jazz improvisation, from the Old Testament to hip-hop.

©2021 Robert Kanigel (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“[Kanigel's] biography (the first) of Milman Parry, set in California, Paris, Yugoslavia, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, would translate well to the big screen (or Netflix). Although an ideal beach read for the classics scholar, the book is aimed at the layperson; Kanigel eschews jargon and in-depth technical discussion while still attempting to convey the magnitude of Parry’s theory.” (A. E. Stallings, The American Scholar)

“In his elegant biography.... Kanigel tells this complicated story to the general reader with inspired calm.... Parry’s life story has enough quotidian quirks, and such a crashing, inexplicable finale, that he looms above his own work like a ghost.... [His] is the story of an idea, the Western Idea writ (or sung) large, and Kanigel traces how a devoted, obscure scholar who died in a hotel room at 33 managed to transform our understanding of written and oral traditions.” (Tim Riley, Los Angeles Review of Books)

“One man’s inspired effort to recover Homeric song, not through books and research but lived experience.... Kanigel, a biographer of intellectual pioneers, has captured [its] excitement.” (James Romm, The New York Review of Books)

Terrific book

I found this to be a very interesting story that also offers a useful introduction to one of the most important humanistic insights of the 20th century. I could not stop listening to it.

Railroaded by Homer

Although this is the least inspiring of the smattering of Homeric commentary books on audible, it was still interesting and well written/performed. The time spent was probably worth it just to imagine Parry’s life being railroaded by Homer after rediscovering him as an adult. This seems to be common amongst a certain type of man, who revels in comparing various translations, studying Bronze Age warriors, and who seeks to live a Homeric Life. Parry’s story makes apparent the tragic consequences of Homer being the property of flailing, flaccid, and fatuous postmodern academics and intellectuals instead of working and fighting men.

Learned yet accessible exploration of major discovery in the humanities

This book tells the story of a precocious, young scholar - unconventional for his time - who turned the world of literary studies upside. While he may have killer the romantic notion of Homer as an author in our own image, Milman Parry set academia ablaze as his theories about the oral composition of poetry - at once spontaneous invention and yet still guided by tradition - inspiring tremendous cross-disciplinary research. The book flows very well and the narration is quite good.

Milman Parry

Such a great biography. I've never read Homer before, heard of Milman Parry, nor am I a Classicist, yet this book is wonderful. I learned so much. No fears, this is not a dry book on an academic topic wrapped in the veneer of a "big idea". It's difficult to explain why this book is so good because it started a bit boring/confusing, but the elements begin to pile on and it just works: the biography, adventure travel in 1920s Balkans, mysterious death, a big revolutionary idea that has changed the field of literary studies, a brilliant young man and his untimely death who becomes a sort of heroic figure mirroring his subject. And Kanigel is an excellent writer, he has a knack for picking the precise word, it feels carefully done. Richard Poe is the right narrator, the text compliments him to an extent I had not noticed in earlier readings, there is a synergy here.

Why should you care about this topic? Well,we tend to have a bias towards written cultures and view oral as something less. This is why Bob Dylan was reviled for winning the Nobel (even though it is technically written) he was merely a bard, a song writer, is that really literature? Another reason is that Parry showed how self-learning, conviction and hard work can cause an academic revolution. He did nothing but learn Ancient Greek, read Homer, and write down a thesis - in his early 20s. Now he is immortal, there is BP (Before Parry) and AP (After Parry) - even if you disagree he can not be avoided, like a literary Darwin who discovered the key to understanding ancient epic literature.