Oh my, O magazine, say it ain't so!

I was flipping through the June issue of O magazine recently when I came across the most shocking error. And rest assured, it was shocking -- just you wait for it. It was in Martha Beck's monthly column, this one titled "Charting Your Course." The article is actually really interesting, which is why it's a shame that the introduction -- touching upon the journey of Odysseus -- completely blunders the tale. Oh, I told you it was shocking.

She opens the article with, "Odysseus just wanted to go to Ithaca. No, not the one in upstate New York -- the one in ancient Greece. He dreamed of it the whole seven years he spent trapped on the island of the nymph Calypso. Eventually the pitying gods ordered Calypso to free him, at which point he managed to build a boat and set out on what he hoped would be a brief and pleasant journey."

Okay, so far, so good. But then...

"Ha. At every turn, Odysseus' travels were filled with surprises. He conquered monsters at sea only to find worse ones waiting on land. He encountered seductions that sent him half mad with longing. Finally, in the land of the dead, he got clear directions from a seer who, oxymoronically enough, was blind."

But, er, umm...the thing is, when he's freed from Calypso's island, Odysseus pretty much is at the end of his journey. All the events listed in the article have already happened to him; at this point, all he's got to do is get through a little storm at sea and a mini-vacation with the Phaeacians. The reason for the mistake is obvious enough -- in terms of chapter order, Odysseus is first seen sitting on Calypso's island (in chapter 5) before running around on all his adventures (chapters 9-12), but books 5-12 don't follow chronological order. But I didn't expect to see such a mistake in a major magazine. It's nice to see the Odyssey mentioned, I suppose, but it's also kind of a :( for classic lit.