Book 4 of The Odyssey has been my favorite so far. This has been the first book where stuff actually happened, whereas the other books were only a setup to this one. Telemachus has actually started to do things. When he arrived in sandy Pylos I was thrilled that he was getting stuff done. The pace had picked up, but Telemachus still hadn’t found out the truth of his father. When he arrives in Sparta during (as usual) a feast, he is welcomed and soon becomes a friends of the Spartan king. Over the course of the next few hours the Spartan king goes over how he was marooned, and while he was marooned on an island a god told him about Odysseus. The king’s story itself was interesting in its own right. But he tells Telemachus the most important thing; Odysseus is still alive, although Telemachus can do nothing to retrieve him, only the gods can. But with this knowledge, Telemachus can go back home to Ithaca and kick the suitors out, and if they don’t leave, then he’ll kill them all. This marks a turning point in Telemachus’s story, and also a temporary end, since the next chapter jumps back to Odysseus. Which annoyed me, since I want to find out if the suitors ambush him successfully, alas, I’ll have to wait, but it’ll be interesting to see what is happening to Odysseus.