{"id":116000,"date":"2017-09-26T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=116000"},"modified":"2017-09-26T10:21:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T14:21:00","slug":"travel-snapshots-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel\u00a0<\/em>Mendelsohn\u2019s memoir,<\/i>\u00a0An Odyssey: A Father, a\u00a0Son, and an Epic<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0begins when his\u00a0eighty-one-year-old father, Jay\u00a0Mendelsohn, enrolls in Daniel\u2019s\u00a0undergraduate seminar on the <\/em>Odyssey. From those risky beginnings, the two\u00a0embark on an intellectual journey that becomes an emotional one, and then a literal one, when they\u00a0take a cruise designed to retrace Odysseus\u2019s steps through the\u00a0Mediterranean. Below, Mendelsohn shares photos from that\u00a0cruise. He described them\u00a0to us\u00a0over the phone, from Canada, as he\u00a0shuffled from one book-tour event\u00a0to another.\u00a0<\/i>\u2014Ed.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>

June 19, 2011: the day we embarked on the cruise.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This photo\u00a0is from the day we arrived in Athens to embark on the cruise. One of the things that amused me the most about my dad was his indefatigable attachment to both his camera and his iPad, without which he never traveled. It\u2019s funny because the opening of the Odyssey<\/em> emphasizes two things about Odysseus: that he traveled far and wide, and his intellectual capacity. Odysseus wanted to know the minds of men. In a certain sense, he\u2019s the first anthropologist in Western literature. He goes places partly because he has to, but while he\u2019s there, he\u2019s very interested in \u201cthe natives,\u201d so to speak. I found my father\u2019s\u00a0indefatigable recording of everything endearing. I\u2019m very lazy in that way when I travel\u2014I just sort of let things wash over me\u2014but he was constantly taking notes and taking pictures. I thought it was really funny, when we got there, that he was taking pictures and making notes about the ship. I said,\u00a0Really<\/i>,\u00a0D<\/i>ad? And\u00a0he replied, Everything is part of this experience. Which was a very\u00a0Odysseus-like attitude, actually. So I took a picture of him taking a picture of the boat. We hadn\u2019t even boarded yet.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>

June 20, 2011: Jay looking a bit skeptical before the walls of Troy.<\/p><\/div>\n

The point of the cruise was to re-create Odysseus\u2019s homeward journey from Troy to Ithaca, so of course the first stop was Troy. My father had\u00a0obviously already read the Odyssey<\/em>, he\u2019d taken my seminar, and here we were standing before the famous walls of Troy\u2014those impregnable walls that never fell in the ten years of being besieged. And my father, he\u2019s looking a little bit skeptical about the whole thing. In this picture, he\u2019s\u00a0about to make one of his famous sour pronouncements. This was when he said, as I quote him in my book, \u201cWell … it\u2019s very impressive, but the poem feels more real than the place.\u201d I myself have often had this experience\u2014it\u2019s one Proust talks about\u2014where, when you finally get to a place you\u2019ve been thinking about for a long time, it never quite matches up to the way you\u2019ve dreamt about it. I wrote about it\u00a0in my book The Lost<\/em>, when I was traveling around Eastern Europe. I\u2019d been to Troy before, so I knew what to expect, but it was interesting to see my father having that same slight adjustment problem. Troy looks like something\u00a0to an archeologist’s eye, but to a tourist’s eye, it\u2019s three thousand\u00a0years old and it\u2019s a little battered looking. It\u2019s just these rocks with a lot of weeds growing out of them. Of course, my father’s statement was gratifying to me as a literature person and as a writer: that the text seemed more concrete than the actual site. And it was a refrain that he would repeat wherever we went.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

June 22, 2011: Telemachus\u2019s bathtub.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the time of this photo, we were in Pylos, in the southern Peloponnese, at the site of the Mycenaean palace known as Nestor\u2019s Palace. Nestor is the aged king and comrade of Odysseus whom Odysseus\u2019s son Telemachus visits in book 3, on his fact-finding mission to learn what happened to his father. Like all guests in a royal palace, Telemachus is bathed (baths are very<\/em>\u00a0important in the Odyssey<\/em>) and this tub is traditionally known as \u201cTelemachus\u2019s bathtub.\u201d People\u00a0were oohing and aahing, but my father didn\u2019t think much of Telemachus, I\u00a0must say, in the poem. He peered in and said, He was a small guy but he wasn\u2019t\u00a0that\u00a0<\/i>small. I said, Well you know, these Bronze Age people were a lot smaller than we are. It was another moment when his image of a scene was not quite what he\u2019d expected in reality.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

June 24, 2011: Jay at a caf\u00e9 in Malta.<\/p><\/div>\n

Here, we were in Malta\u00a0about to be\u00a0taken to the site of the cave of\u00a0the nymph Calypso. In the Odyssey<\/em>, Calypso holds Odysseus prisoner for basically seven years, because she\u2019s so wildly in love with him. We\u2019d stopped at a cafe and I kept teasing my father. He was a scientist and he loved his gadgets. He kept saying, You have to read the Odyssey<\/em> on an iPad\u2014books are an outmoded technology. Wherever we stopped that was even semicivilized, he would\u00a0take his devices out to\u00a0see if he could get a signal. I kept saying, To hell with the signal, just enjoy the cafe. But this is a picture of him squinting to see if he could get any bars on his phone so that he could send my mother an email describing where we were. When I took this picture, I was coming back from the open-air market. I\u2019d bought a bedspread and some pillows for this little bed in my study. The bed had been where my father slept every night, every week, when he came up to take my seminar at Bard. I bought\u00a0a little linen bedspread with Maltese crosses. When I got back from the trip, I put it\u00a0on the little bed that had been his bed. There\u2019s a climactic scene in my\u00a0book\u00a0centered around this bedspread. It happened when I got back from visiting him at the hospital on what would be the last night of his life. I looked at the bedspread and it triggered a memory. I\u00a0realized something at that moment that\u00a0I hadn\u2019t understood before. This picture is very dear to me, it ties together a lot of threads.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

June 24, 2011, later that day: the entrance to Calypso\u2019s cave.<\/p><\/div>\n

In book 5\u00a0of the Odyssey<\/em>, there\u2019s a long description of the cave where Calypso the nymph lives and where she holds\u00a0Odysseus hostage. It\u2019s very lush, surrounded by vegetation and dense woods. There\u2019s a\u00a0cave on the island of Gozo, off the coast of Malta, which has traditionally been identified as Calypos\u2019s cave. So we all schlepped over there. This is another big climactic scene in the book. I looked at this image, this image that you\u2019re looking at when you see this picture, this narrow cliff that\u2019s the entrance to the cave, and I had a panic attack. I\u2019m extremely claustrophobic\u2014I can\u2019t even go in elevators let alone caves\u2014and I turned to my father and said, I\u2019m just not going. You go and look at the cave, and I\u2019ll just stand here and tan for a little while. But he just wouldn\u2019t take no for an answer. Finally, he convinced me. He held my hand all through the cave. It\u2019s\u00a0actually quite tiny and\u00a0dark and I ran out\u2014but it was a very sweet moment. He took me in there and he held my hand.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

When I started writing this book, I went into my iPhoto in order to print out all the hundreds\u00a0of pictures I had taken on the cruise and found that they had disappeared\u2014vanished! I called my mother. My mother still had my father\u2019s laptop in his study in the\u00a0house where I grew up. She hadn\u2019t touched anything after his death. I had sent my father my iPhoto folder with my pictures, and I thought\u00a0they might still be\u00a0on there. So I went out to Long Island. First, I had to guess my father\u2019s\u00a0password. All five of his children conferred in dozens of emails, until we figured it out. Then, I\u00a0opened up both his\u00a0album and my own. It was, in a way, my last little communication with my father after his death: figuring out his password, opening his laptop, and seeing my pictures appear alongside his.<\/p>\n

Above\u00a0are the pictures I took; my father took\u00a0his own. It was interesting to see the differences between them. When we sailed into Turkey from Athens,\u00a0through the Dardanelles, we saw the famous monument to the World War I slaughter in Gallipoli. He took a photo. He turned to me and he said, Troy, World War I\u2014it\u2019s always just a story about wars. And as we sailed into Malta, there was\u00a0this incredible fortified harbor, and he loved that. He said, It\u2019s like sailing into the sixteenth\u00a0century. It wasn\u2019t the classical stuff. Any historical item that touched him, he was snapping away. And he took a lot of pictures of\u00a0me<\/i>\u2014me standing exhausted on the top of hills, holding\u00a0a bottle of water. That was sweet to see.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Daniel Mendelsohn is a frequent contributor to\u00a0<\/em>The New Yorker\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>The New York Review of Books. His books include the international best seller\u00a0<\/em>The Lost, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His new book,\u00a0<\/em>An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic was published this month.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel\u00a0Mendelsohn\u2019s memoir,\u00a0An Odyssey: A Father, a\u00a0Son, and an Epic,\u00a0begins when his\u00a0eighty-one-year-old father, Jay\u00a0Mendelsohn, enrolls in Daniel\u2019s\u00a0undergraduate seminar on the Odyssey. From those risky beginnings, the two\u00a0embark on an intellectual journey that becomes an emotional one, and then a literal one, when they\u00a0take a cruise designed to retrace Odysseus\u2019s steps through the\u00a0Mediterranean. Below, Mendelsohn shares photos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[27164,27743,30756,30759,30758,30757,30760,30753,30754,13614,30755,2683,23138,7740],"class_list":["post-116000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-athens","tag-calypso","tag-calypsos-cave","tag-dardanelles","tag-gallipoli","tag-gozo","tag-jay-mendelsohn","tag-malta","tag-nestors-palace","tag-odysseus","tag-telemachus","tag-the-odyssey","tag-troy","tag-world-war-i"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTravel Snapshots from an Odyssey<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Daniel Mendelsohn shares photographs from his cruise retracing Odysseus's path through the Mediterranean.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 26, 2017 \u2013 Daniel\u00a0Mendelsohn\u2019s memoir,\u00a0An Odyssey: A Father, a\u00a0Son, and an Epic,\u00a0begins when his\u00a0eighty-one-year-old father, Jay\u00a0Mendelsohn, enrolls in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-09-26T13:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-09-26T14:21:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"956\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daniel Mendelsohn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Mendelsohn\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Mendelsohn\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/56427b59fa4b24b352dd11d166202a21\"},\"headline\":\"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-09-26T13:00:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-09-26T14:21:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\"},\"wordCount\":1642,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Athens\",\"calypso\",\"Calypso's cave\",\"Dardanelles\",\"Gallipoli\",\"Gozo\",\"Jay mendelsohn\",\"Malta\",\"Nestor's Palace\",\"Odysseus\",\"Telemachus\",\"The Odyssey\",\"Troy\",\"World War I\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\",\"name\":\"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-09-26T13:00:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-09-26T14:21:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"Daniel Mendelsohn shares photographs from his cruise retracing Odysseus's path through the Mediterranean.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/56427b59fa4b24b352dd11d166202a21\",\"name\":\"Daniel Mendelsohn\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f0057594432539a51c590641a34548b2cfaf603a8cf6174e16bc85ef1f30db83?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f0057594432539a51c590641a34548b2cfaf603a8cf6174e16bc85ef1f30db83?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Daniel Mendelsohn\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dmendelsohn\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey","description":"Daniel Mendelsohn shares photographs from his cruise retracing Odysseus's path through the Mediterranean.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn","og_description":"September 26, 2017 \u2013 Daniel\u00a0Mendelsohn\u2019s memoir,\u00a0An Odyssey: A Father, a\u00a0Son, and an Epic,\u00a0begins when his\u00a0eighty-one-year-old father, Jay\u00a0Mendelsohn, enrolls in","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2017-09-26T13:00:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-09-26T14:21:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":956,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Daniel Mendelsohn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Daniel Mendelsohn","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/"},"author":{"name":"Daniel Mendelsohn","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/56427b59fa4b24b352dd11d166202a21"},"headline":"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey","datePublished":"2017-09-26T13:00:37+00:00","dateModified":"2017-09-26T14:21:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/"},"wordCount":1642,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg","keywords":["Athens","calypso","Calypso's cave","Dardanelles","Gallipoli","Gozo","Jay mendelsohn","Malta","Nestor's Palace","Odysseus","Telemachus","The Odyssey","Troy","World War I"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/","name":"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg","datePublished":"2017-09-26T13:00:37+00:00","dateModified":"2017-09-26T14:21:00+00:00","description":"Daniel Mendelsohn shares photographs from his cruise retracing Odysseus's path through the Mediterranean.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-2.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/travel-snapshots-odyssey\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Travel Snapshots from an Odyssey"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/56427b59fa4b24b352dd11d166202a21","name":"Daniel Mendelsohn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f0057594432539a51c590641a34548b2cfaf603a8cf6174e16bc85ef1f30db83?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f0057594432539a51c590641a34548b2cfaf603a8cf6174e16bc85ef1f30db83?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Daniel Mendelsohn"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dmendelsohn\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116000"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116072,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116000\/revisions\/116072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}